26i 
1884.] 
The Ghost of the 
Season. 
in Parts per 100,000. 
Ammonia. 
Nitrogen 
as Nitrates 
and Nitrites. 
Total 
Combined 
Nitrogen. 
^Previous 
Sewage 
Contamination. 
Chlorine.^ 
i* 55 o 
0*372 
2*214 
1*6180 
14*6 
1*020 
0*062 
1*919 
0*8700 
14*0 
Suspended Matter. 
— x 
Mineral. 
Organic. 
Total. 
0*68 
o *54 
1*22 
1*82 
0*06 
i*88 
occasion, that the old condemnation was repeated on 
March 13th. 
I have here to complain of something very like intentional 
unfairness on the part of Dr. Percy Frankland as regards 
his attack upon the ABC process. The man who, pro- 
fessing to have given any serious attention to the sewage 
question, can yet endorse the statement of the defunft 
Commission, that “ after treatment by this process the 
effluent sewage is very little better than that which is ob- 
tained by allowing raw sewage to settle in subsidence-tanks,” 
is, to say the least, guilty of most culpable rashness. Any 
person who heard Dr. Frankland read his paper would be 
apt to think that the analysis which he quoted had been 
made recently, instead of fourteen years ago, and that the 
sample operated upon had been taken at some place where 
the ABC process was in actual operation in London. But 
if we turn to the Report of the “ Commissioners ” we find 
the whole history of this analysis. Some London sewage 
was obtained by the Commissioners, and treated by them by 
the ABC process, and was then analysed. Who guarantees 
the corre(5t execution of the process, or, after the figures I 
have above quoted, the accuracy of the analysis ? No check 
sample could be taken to be submitted to any other chemist. 
Nay, the Report itself contains an admission that the treat- 
ment of the water was not fairly, or at least judiciously, 
performed. The sewage, we are told, after the ABC mix- 
ture had been added to it, was well shaken for five minutes. 
This alone was enough to prevent the precipitation from 
