THE BORDERLAND OF CHEMISTRY AND ELECTRICITY. 
221 
running through the electrodes. In one case the electrolytical trough 
was nearly 200 ft. long. It was most interesting to notice the clearing 
of the impure fluid from a dirty black to a tinge of green like sea 
water. The treated fluid having been allowed to clear in an open 
reservoir, the top affluent is then run off, and as it contains traces of 
carbonate of iron—which, bye-the-bye, is present in all water from 
peat countries—it is filtered through six inches of sand. The sandy 
surface gradually collects a deposit of the oxidised carbonate of iron, 
and as it to a certain extent becomes granulated it forms a fresh 
filtering surface. The resulting effluent produces no after bad results 
in running streams. Other improvements in the process I must not 
here enlarge on as I may take out patents. 
In a tidal river it is not absolutely necessary to filter, and the 
effluent, if it is considered necessary, can be changed from the ferrous 
condition into the ferric condition. The product of this electrolysis 
represented by the flocculent precipitate, which you saw in the small 
glass tank, consists of ferrous oxide of iron, thrown down with the 
organic matter, partly in combination and partly in a granulated 
precipitate. The ferric condition of the effluent can be obtained by 
passing it through a trough containing carbon electrodes, which act 
upon the salts in solution and produce hypochlorous compounds, which 
have the property of further oxidising the effluent. 
This effluent, which can be run fresh from the top of the precipitate 
in the reservoir direct through carbon electrodes, is allowed to precipi¬ 
tate in another reservoir, from which it can be run into the river. 
What interferes with this or any process is where the liquor to 
be treated is contaminated with chemical wastes. In that con¬ 
dition it costs more to treat, and therefore is more difficult of 
purification than the refuse from a town without chemical or other 
manufactories; for if it is once absolutely turned into a chemical 
solution naturally it is impossible to entirely eliminate the chemicals, 
and there is no process that could be invented or thought of to 
alleviate that. The new nitrification process of the good or common 
bacteria destroying the bad or zymotic bacteria is very pretty in its 
action if efficacious. My experience teaches me that the over¬ 
flows from cesspools or even well-water, which may have been 
used for many years and generations without harm, will suddenly 
become pestiferous through organic change. Disease germs seem 
to me not to be created, but to be the results of the devolution 
of healthy germs into disease germs, due to the putrefactive 
environments in which they may be plunged. If organic chemical 
changes can be produced rapidly so as to render healthy or non- 
putrefactive the liquid in which bacteria must ultimately exist, then no 
bad results can be feared. 
Bacteria exist everywhere. From my own experience, I am of 
opinion that the bacteria is not like the Leopard, for it can change its 
spots and forms, becoming a minute factory of alkaloidal poisons, 
organic or inorganic compounds. Thus the crenophrix and cladophrix 
