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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031290251 
 
THE SANITARY DRAINAGE 
 
 HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 SIXTH EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. 
 
 ET 
 
 GEORGE E. WARING, Jb. 
 
 CONSULTING ENGINEER FOR AGRICULTURAL AND SANITARY WORKS. 
 
 "A hale cobbler is a better man than a Bick king,-' 
 
 
 
 BOSTON: 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 
 
 QCiie Bttiecfiitlie Presis, (iDamiicilrse. 
 1884, 
 
CoPTHiaHT, 1S76, 
 By GEOKGE E. WABINO, JB. 
 
 arVEKSIDE, CAMBUmGE: 
 
 STEBEOTIPED AND PRIHTEB BY 
 
 H. o. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This book has grown out of a series of articles 
 originally published in the " Atlantic Monthly " 
 magazine. The interest evinced in the subject by 
 persons in every condition of life, and in all parts 
 of the country, seemed to indicate that its more de- 
 tailed treatment vs^ould be acceptable. As the in- 
 vestigations vrhich the preparation of those articles 
 made necessary have, together with professional 
 studies, brought within my reach a wide range of 
 material, I have presumed to submit what I have 
 to say on the subject in this more permanent and 
 more complete form. 
 
 The following chapters are not offered as of ma- 
 terial value to such engineers and architects as have 
 given attention to their subject, as these would nat- 
 urally resort to the original authorities from which 
 they have been so largely drawn. They are ad- 
 dressed more especially to the average citizen and 
 householder, and are intended rather as an incen- 
 ti\ e to the securing of good work, than as a guide 
 to the manner of its performance. For this reason 
 they are largely devoted to the question of prevent- 
 able disease ; to the manner in which this increases 
 
VI PEEFACE. 
 
 our death-rate and lessens our worth to ourselves 
 and to the community ; and to those means which 
 experience has shown to be best adapted for the re- 
 moval of unhealthful conditions. 
 
 The instances are of course not rare in which the 
 individual householder may have it in his power to 
 secure, either by his own direction, or by his influ- 
 ence over the sanitary authorities of his town or 
 city, an improvement of the conditions by which 
 the health of his own household is now endangered. 
 To this end I have endeavored to include so much 
 of specific instruction as shall enable him to give a 
 direction to the necessary local improvements. 
 
 Some of the points discussed are especially in- 
 tended for the information of town authorities, and 
 the usual sewer and health committees of local gov- 
 ernment boards. 
 
 If I shall have succeeded in inducing such per- 
 sons to secure the needed reforms, and to insure their 
 proper execution, this part of my work will have 
 attained its best purpose. 
 
 Newport, K. I., March, 1876. 
 
 This second edition is corrected and amended in 
 accordance with the material recent improvements 
 of the art. 
 
 Newpoet, E. I., June, 1879. 
 
OONTEFTS. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 Thb Sakitaet Relations of Drainage . . . Cf 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 The DitAiNAGE op Houses , , fl 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 The Drainage of Towns , , lOB 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Arranging Plans foe Town Sewerage 123 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Thk Construction of Sewers ....... 180 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 rHE Details of House Draining Igg 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 fHE Dry Conservancy System 213 
 
VIU CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEK VIII. 
 Faults and Privies 272 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Liernhe's Pheumatic System of Skweraok .... 284 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 The Disposal of Sewage 314 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 fHE DkAINAGE of a VILLAGE 333 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Recent Modifications in Sanitary Drainage . . . 344 
 
THE SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES 
 AND TOWNS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SANITARY BELATIONS OF DEAINAGE. 
 
 "Mr. Wadley — described as a stout, robust gentleman — could 
 not understand all the fuss made nowadays about the water ques- 
 tion. Mr. Cooper cut the knot. He said that sin had brought 
 disease into the world, and the Almig:hty permitted the outbreak of 
 diarrhoea in their midst ; neither doctors nor any one else could 
 prevent it. Mr. Cooper is not far wrong. Sin has much to do 
 with diarrhoea, especially municipal sin, which permits a population 
 to drink sewage, and then coolly satisfies itself with referring the 
 'udgraent to the Almighty." 
 
 The art of Sanitary Drainage may almost be said 
 to have been born — or reborn — but a quarter of a 
 century ago, and it has contended with much diffi- 
 culty in bringing itself to the notice of the public. 
 Indeed, it is only within the past ten years that it 
 has made its way in any important degree outside 
 of purely professional literature. 
 
 Dr. Henry Maccormac says, " We live or we die, 
 live well or miserably, live our full term or perish 
 prematurely, accordingly as we shall wisely or oth- 
 erwise determine." 
 
10 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Happily, men, — and women too, — are fast com- 
 ing to realize the fact that humanity is responsible 
 for much of its own sickness and premature death, 
 and it is no longer necessary to offer an apology for 
 presenting to public consideration a subject in 
 which, more than in any other, — that is, the sub- 
 ject of its own healthfulness and the cleanliness of 
 its own living, — the general public is vitally inter- 
 ested. 
 
 The evils arising from sanitary neglect are as old 
 as civilization, perhaps as old as human life, and 
 they exist about every isolated cabin of the newly 
 settled country. As population multiplies, as cab- 
 ins accumulate into hamlets, as hamlets grow into 
 villages, villages into towns, and towns into cities, 
 the effects of the evil become more intense, and in 
 their appeal to our attention they are reinforced by 
 the fact that while in isolated life fatal or debili- 
 tating illness may equally arise, in compact commu- 
 nities each case arising is a menace to others, so 
 that a single centre of contagion may spread devas- 
 tation on every side. 
 
 It is not enough that we build our houses on 
 healthful sites, and where we have pure air and 
 pure water ; we must also make provision for pre- 
 venting these sites from becoming foul, as every un- 
 protected house-site inevitably must, — by sheer 
 force of the accumulated waste of its occupants. 
 
 Houses, even of the best class, which are free 
 from sanitary objections are extremely rare. The 
 best modern appliances of plumbing are made with 
 
SANITAKY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 11 
 
 almost no regard for tlie tendency of sewer-gas to 
 find its way into living-rooms, nor for other in- 
 sidious but well known defects. So generally is 
 this true, that it is hardly an exaggeration to say 
 that unwholesomeness in our houses is practically 
 universal. Hardly less universal is a curious sen- 
 sitiveness on the part of the occupants of these 
 houses to any suggestion of their short-comings. 
 
 Singularly enough, no one whose premises are 
 subject to malarial influences seems willing to be 
 told the truth with regard to them. No man likes 
 to confess that his own well and his own cess-pool 
 occupy the same permeable stratum in his garden : 
 that the decaying vegetables in his cellar are the 
 source of the ailments in his household ; or that an 
 obvious odor from his adjacent pig-sty, or from his 
 costly marble-topped wash-stand, has to do with the 
 disease his physician is contending against. 
 
 That the imperfections of our own premises are a 
 menace to our neighbors is a still more irritating 
 suggestion, and such criticism seems to invade the 
 domain of our private rights. Yet surely there can 
 be no equitable or legal private right whose main- 
 tenance endanger the well-being of others, — as 
 our wide-spread disregard of the defects in our own 
 houses does endanger the well-being of our fellow- 
 townsmen. It is not possible, in a closely built 
 town or compact neighborhood, for one to retain in 
 his own grounds (either on the surface or in a vault 
 or cess-pool) any form of ordure or festering organic 
 matter, without endangering the lives of his neigh- 
 
12 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 bors, through either the pollution of the common 
 air or the poisoning of wells fed from strata under- 
 lying the whole ground and more or less tainted by 
 household wastes. Even if he might be permitted 
 to maintain a source of injury to his own family, 
 his neighbors may well insist that he shall not en- 
 danger them. 
 
 It being important for all that each be made to 
 live cleanly, and the requirements of all, so far as 
 the removal of the wastes of life is concerned, being 
 essentially of the same character, the question of 
 drainage is one in which the whole public is inter- 
 ested, and which should be decided and carried out 
 by public authority, — so that all may have the ad- 
 vantage of the economy of organized work and the 
 security of work well done. This applies not only 
 to the construction of common sewers and public 
 drains, but equally to those lateral branches of the 
 public works which extend into private grounds and 
 houses, — and it applies to every detail of these. 
 So long as these important duties are left to the 
 negligence of house-holders and to the demand for 
 excreta among those who use manure, so long will 
 they remain haphazard, unsatisfactory, and danger- 
 ous. 
 
 Wherever there is a systematically organized and 
 well conducted board of health, it has been well 
 suggested that their duties should include some 
 power of veto upon the right of building houses 
 upon unwholesome sites. All scavenging and disin- 
 fecting must, in order to be effective, be thorough and 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 13 
 
 systematic, — which conditions can only be secured 
 by the most careful public direction and supervision. 
 
 The drainage question is essentially a question oi 
 health and life. Dr. George Derby stated the whole 
 case when he said: " The well ure made sick and the 
 sick are made worse for the simple lack of God's 
 pure air and pure water." Air is infected and 
 water is tainted, not only by defects in the public 
 works, hat quite as often and quite as dangerously 
 by imperfections in household arrangements. 
 
 Neither Dr. Derby's statement nor the most per- 
 fect modern development of the art of cleansing 
 towns by water-carriage has the merit of novelty. 
 Hippocrates gave as the cardinal hygienic formula, 
 " Pure air, pure water, and a pure soil," and after 
 all these centuries we know nothing to add to it. 
 Our modern sewerage works are thus far only tak- 
 ing us back to the cleanly condition of the most 
 prosperous ancient cities ; only lifting us out of the 
 alough of plague-causing filth that marked the dark- 
 est periods of the Middle Ages ; only continuing the 
 wholesome revival that the Mohammedan Moors in- 
 troduced among the unwashed Christians of Europe. 
 It is a revival that has grown slowly, urged on by 
 the harsh whip of disease and death. So late as the 
 middle of the brilliant ninteenth century it had 
 only begun to command the aid of the law, and as 
 a subject of popular interest it can hardly yet be 
 said to receive the attention of even the more intel- 
 ligent members of society. 
 
14 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Yet when the subject is once considered, every 
 thoughtful person must appreciate the fact that in 
 seeking the advantages of community of living we 
 necessarily depend at every turn upon our fellow- 
 men, and that in this communion we lay ourselves 
 open to the consequences of the neglect of others, — 
 while we equally threaten others with the conse- 
 quences of our own neglect. The influence oi 
 thoughtful persons cannot long be withheld from 
 a movement whose object it is to popularize the 
 knowledge of good and evil in the conduct of the 
 daily life of the household and of society, and to 
 make the public at large insist that each shall so 
 regulate his action as to secure the greatest safety 
 for all. 
 
 Public sanitary improvement is not the affair of 
 the philanthropist alone, nor is the interest of the 
 individual satisfied when he has made his own im- 
 mediate surroundings perfect. Everything that can 
 affect the health of the poorest and most distant of 
 our neighbors may afi^ect us ; and, practically, the 
 spread of disease in closely-built towns is more often 
 than not, by the agency of public sewers, from the 
 poorest classes upward, so that many a patient fall- 
 ing ill of contagious or infectious disease in the back 
 slums of the city becomes the centre of a wide in- 
 fection. The health of each is important to all, 
 and all must join in securing it, — the public con- 
 trol, in the public interest, must extend to the sani- 
 tary condition of every household, — not among the 
 poor alone, but at least equally among the rich. In- 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 15 
 
 deed, from the greater complication of their plumb- 
 ing work, the houses of the rich really require more 
 careful supervision than do the simpler ones of the 
 poorer class. 
 
 Not less important is the condition of the public 
 sewers and drains. 
 
 An old-fashioned sewer has been well called a re- 
 tort for the manufacture of sewer poisons which are 
 " laid on " at every house by an ingenious system 
 of pipes delivering an intermittent supply through 
 every water-closet, bath-tub, and wash-basin, and 
 producing its annual crop of zymotic disease. 
 
 The case has been very well stated by Dr. Sand- 
 with. " Now, in doing away with the cess-pools all 
 connected together, never properly cleansed, and last, 
 and worst of all, communicating with the interior 
 of dwelling-houses. If you have a case of typhoid 
 fever a mile off, who knows but you may have the 
 mysterious fungoid organisms conveyed into your 
 own house through the water-closet. It is all very 
 well to boast of traps and of similar mechanical ar- 
 rangements, but remember there is such a thing as 
 corrosion of metals, and the smallest defect, no 
 larger than the interior of a straw, may introduce 
 into your houses vast volumes of gas." 
 
 The great aim of all sewerage work is to secure 
 to every member of the community his full supply 
 of uncontaminated air, and, where wells are used, of 
 pure drinking water. 
 
 Referring to the lower quarters of the city of Bos- 
 ton, Dr. Derby asks us to consider " what would be 
 
IG SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 the effect upon the annual mortality in a community 
 like Boston, if the wretched cellars and crystal pal- 
 aces and rookeries and dens in which the extremely 
 poor and improvident live could be depopulated, and 
 their occupants transferred to well drained and 
 lighted and ventilated buildings, of however cheap 
 and simple construction ; if all the foul fluids could 
 be made quickly to depart by force of gravity 
 through ventilated sewers ; if all the foul solids 
 could be removed without delay in carts provided 
 with means for arresting putrefaction ; if the blind 
 alleys and narrow streets were opened to the admis- 
 sion of the air and of sunlight; if the old vaults 
 were removed, the old cisterns torn down or filled, 
 and the general principle of cleanliness in its broad- 
 est sense applied to air, water, and food." The pict- 
 ure would have been complete, had he suggested the 
 well-known fact that the danger to the community 
 from the class of diseases known as " pythogenic " 
 (born of putridity) is not confined to those who live 
 amid these filthy surroundings, but that the very 
 sewers with which the better houses are drained 
 are too often subterranean channels for conveying 
 poisonous gases from the places of their origin to 
 quarters which, without this transmission, might 
 have their own drains so arranged that they would 
 remain free from contamination. 
 
 SeK-preservation is the first law of our nature ; 
 but it is a law which we ignorantly and constantly 
 disregard in laying our life and health at the mercy 
 of the foul conditions of life prevailing among our 
 
SANITAEY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 17 
 
 neighbors, — and which we too often disregard in 
 blindly trusting to the skillful but ill-advised work 
 of our well-paid but untaught plumbers. 
 
 We roll up our eyes and stand aghast when con- 
 templating the horrors of war ; yet the mortality of 
 war is trifling as compared with the mortality by 
 pieventable disease. England, in twenty-two years 
 of continuous war, lost 79,700 lives ; in one year of 
 cholera she lost 144,860 lives. 
 
 We look idly on and see our population decimated 
 by an infant mortality so great that its like among 
 calves and colts would appall the farmer, and set 
 the whole community energetically at work to dis- 
 cover a remedy. 
 
 It is estimated that for every person dying, twenty 
 fall sick (Playfair estimates it at twenty-eight), and 
 — to turn the argument in a direction best under- 
 stood by many of our more influential neighbors — 
 that every case of sickness is, on an average, equiv- 
 alent to a loss of fifty dollars. 
 
 Dr. Stephen Smith says : " Man is born to health 
 and longevity ; disease is abnormal, and death, ex- 
 cept from old age, is accidental, and both are pre- 
 ventable by human agencies." 
 
 Disease is not a consequence of life ; it is due to 
 an unnatural condition of living, — to neglect, abuse, 
 or want. 
 
 Were any excuse needed for the constant reitera- 
 tion of such truths as are known concerning the 
 origin and spread of infectious diseases, it is to be 
 found in the hope that by creating a public realiza- 
 2 
 
18 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 tion of the danger of sanitary neglect we may ob- 
 viate the necessity that now seems to exist for the 
 appearance of occasional severe epidemics, acting 
 as scavengers and' inducing the performance of sani- 
 tary duties whose continued neglect would lead to 
 even more serious results. 
 
 Dr. Farmer speaks of pestilence as the angel 
 " with which it would seem it has pleased the 
 Almighty Creator and Preserver of mankind" to 
 awaken the human race to the duty of self-preser- 
 vation ; plagues " not committing havoc perpetu- 
 ally, but turning men to destruction and then sud- 
 denly ceasing, that they may consider. As the lost 
 father speaks to the family, and the slight epidemic 
 to the city, so the pestilence speaks to nations." 
 
 The death-rate in the healthiest broad districts in 
 England may be fixed at about fifteen per thousand 
 per annum ; but taking the whole kingdom into 
 consideration, the death-rate is thirty-five per thou- 
 sand, over one fourth of the deaths being due to 
 preventable diseases. It is estimated that eighteen 
 deaths take place every hour which might have been 
 prevented by proper precaution. In addition to 
 this, account must be taken of the lowering of the 
 tone of health of those who survive, and of the ex- 
 istence of a vast number of weakly persons who are 
 a tax on the community, and who transmit an in- 
 heritance of physical weakness to their offspring. 
 Infants are most susceptible to unhealthful influ- 
 ences, and one half of the population of Great Brit- 
 ain dies before attaining the age of five years. 
 
SANITARY EELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 19 
 
 B3' another statement : " Looking at England as 
 a -whole, we see that of each one hundred persons 
 who die, not quite ten have reached the standard 
 old age of seventy-fiye j'ears ; and that of each one 
 hundred children born, hardly seventy-four com- 
 plete five years of life." 
 
 An ordinary epidemic any modern community 
 will bear almost with indifference. The few who 
 know the close relation between the disease and its 
 preventable cause will generally maintain their ac- 
 customed indifference until their own circle is at- 
 tacked, and even then they are powerless to arouse 
 the anthorities to the necessary action. It is only 
 when an outbreak of more than ordinary malignity 
 occurs that even the sanitary boards of most of our 
 towns bestir themselves in the matter ; but if the 
 prevalence and the malignity be sufficient, there 
 follows a most active cleansing of streets, purifica- 
 tion of drains, and investigation of the private hab- 
 its of the lower classes of the people. Then only 
 is such attention given to the most obvious duty not 
 only of the sanitary authorities, but of every man 
 in the community, as, had it been exercised in ad- 
 vance, would have prevented every unnecessary 
 death and every case of preventable sickness that 
 has gone to swell the aggregate needed to attract 
 public attention. 
 
 Nothing so arouses the alarm of a people as an 
 epidemic of cholera ; yet it is a singular fact that, 
 even during the most severe cholera epidemics, the 
 ieaths from this disease are less than from many 
 
20 SANITARY DEAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 others which attract no attention and excite no ap- 
 prehension. During the very alarming epidemic of 
 1849-50, there were 31,506 deaths from cholera in 
 the United States. During the same period, there 
 were more than this number of deaths from other 
 diseases of the intestinal canal, and more from fevers 
 alone. 
 
 That a proper use of known sanitary appliances 
 is competent to remove the causes of a large class of 
 fatal diseases is hardly disputed, and it is clearly 
 proven bj^ experience here and abroad. 
 
 Mr. Baldwin Latham, in his excellent work on 
 " Sanitary Engineering," gives the following table, 
 showing the eifect on health of sanitary works in 
 different towns in England : — 
 
 
 
 ATerage 
 
 Average 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mortality 
 
 Mortality 
 per 1,000 
 
 
 Reduction 1 Reduction 
 
 Name of 
 
 Popula- 
 
 per 1,000 
 
 Saving of 
 
 of Typhoid 
 
 in Bate oJ 
 
 Place. 
 
 tion ill 
 
 before 
 
 since Com- 
 
 Life 
 
 Fever Rate 
 
 PbthisiB 
 
 
 1861. 
 
 Construc- 
 tion of 
 Works. 
 
 pletion of 
 Works. 
 
 per Cent. 1 
 
 per Cent. 
 
 per Cent. 
 
 Banbury . 
 
 10,238 
 
 23.4 
 
 20.5 
 
 12i 
 
 48 
 
 41 
 
 Cardiff . . 
 
 32,954 
 
 33.2 
 
 22.6 
 
 32 
 
 40 
 
 17 
 
 Croydon 
 
 30,229 
 
 23.7 
 
 18.6 
 
 22 
 
 63 
 
 17 
 
 Dover . . 
 
 23,108 
 
 22.6 
 
 20.9 
 
 7 
 
 36 
 
 20 
 
 Ely . 
 
 7,847 
 
 23.9 
 
 20.5 
 
 14 
 
 53 
 
 47 
 
 Leicester . 
 
 68,056 
 
 26.4 
 
 25.2 
 
 4>7 
 
 48 
 
 32 
 
 Jlacclesfield 
 
 27,475 
 
 29,8 
 
 23.7 
 
 20 
 
 48 
 
 31 
 
 Mertliyr . 
 
 52,778 
 
 33.2 
 
 2112 
 
 18 
 
 60 
 
 11 
 
 Newport . 
 
 24,756 
 
 31.8 
 
 21.6 
 
 32 
 
 36 
 
 32 
 
 liusby . . 
 
 7,818 
 
 19.1 
 
 18,6 
 
 01 
 
 10 
 
 43 
 
 Salisbury . 
 
 9,030 
 
 27.5 
 
 21.9 
 
 20 
 
 75 
 
 49 
 
 Warwick . 
 
 10,670 
 
 22.7 
 
 210 
 
 ~h 
 
 52 
 
 19 
 
 1 It is to be remembered tliat even this great saving of life biu beec 
 effected by works that are very far from perfect. 
 
SANITARY EELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 21 
 
 The average reduction of typhoid rate was nearly 
 one half (47§ percent.) in these twelve small towns. 
 It is believed to be practicable, by the use of the 
 most perfect known methods of drainage and ven- 
 tilation, absolutely to prevent the occurrence of a 
 single original case, and to confine all importations 
 of the disease to the persons of those who bring 
 them. 
 
 Two hundred years ago the death-rate of London 
 was eighty per thousand ; under the influence of 
 sanitary improvements it has now been reduced to 
 twenty-one and one-half per thousand, in spite of 
 the enormous growth of the town and the great 
 crowding to which many of its people are still sub- 
 jected. 
 
 When the improvement of sewerage was actively 
 undertaken in London some twenty-five years ago, 
 it was found that the death-rate was so much re- 
 duced, in some of the worst quarters of the town, 
 that if the same reduction could be made universal 
 the annual deaths would be twenty-five thousand 
 less in London, and one hundred and seventy-seven 
 thousand less in England and Wales ; or, by another 
 view, that the average age at death would be forty- 
 eight instead of twenty-nine, as it then was. 
 
 The early registration returns of England de- 
 veloped the fact that the prevalence of fatal dis- 
 eases was in the case of some three times, of some 
 ten or twenty times, and of others even forty or 
 fifty times greater in certain districts than in others, 
 and that these diseases raised the mortality of some 
 
2:^ SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 districts from fifty to a hundred per cent, higher 
 than that of other districts, the deatli-rate of the 
 whole country being from thirty to forty per cent, 
 above that of its healthiest parts. 
 
 The effect of sanitarjf improvement has been 
 nowhere better shown than in the British navy, 
 where in 1779 the death-rate was one in forty-two 
 (this of able-bodied, picked men), and the sick 
 were two in every five. In 1813, after the mean? 
 and appliances of health had been furnished, the 
 death-rate was one in one hundred and forty-three, 
 and the sick two in twenty-one. 
 
 Less than a generation ago the idea prevailed that 
 it was of doubtful propriety to ask why we are sick, 
 and even to this day many believe that such an in- 
 quiry savors of irreligion. Happily this condition 
 of otherwise intelligent minds is passing away. 
 
 While we know, thus far, comparatively little of 
 the exact causes of disease, our knowledge at least 
 points to certain perfectly well-established truths. 
 One of these is that man cannot live in an atmos- 
 phere that is tainted by exhalations from putrefying 
 organic matter, without danger of being made sick 
 — sick unto death. It is true that not all of those 
 who live in such an atmosphere either fall sick or 
 die from its effects ; but it is also true that not all 
 who go into battle are shot down. In both cases 
 they expose themselves to dangers from which tlieir 
 escape is a matter of good fortune. Fewer would 
 oe shot if none went into battle, and fewer would 
 die of disease if none were exposed to poisoned air 
 
SANITARY EELATIONS OF DEAINAGE. 23 
 
 Our adaptability is great, and we accustom ourselves 
 to withstand the attacks of an infected atmosphere 
 wonderfully well ; but for all that, we are constantly 
 in the presence of the danger, and though insensibly 
 resisting, are too often insensibly yielding to it. 
 Some, with less power to resist, or exposed to a 
 stronger poison, or finally weakened by long expos- 
 ure, fall sick with typhoid fever or some similar 
 disease, that springs directlj^ from putrid infection. 
 Of these, a portion die ; the community loses their 
 services, and it sympathizes with their friends in 
 mourning that, "in the wisdom of a kind but in- 
 scrutable Providence, it has been found necessary to 
 remove them from our midst." 
 
 In this way we blandly impose upon Divine Provi- 
 dence the responsibility of our own short-comings. 
 The victims of typhoid fever die, not by the act 
 of God, but by the act of man ; they are poisoned 
 to death by infections that are due to man's igno- 
 rance or neglect. 
 
 Pettenkofer states that, so far as the city of Mu- 
 nich is concerned, typhoid epidemics bear in their 
 frequency or rarity a certain fixed relation to 
 changes in the soil, which can only be surmised, 
 but which correspond with the differences of ele- 
 vation of the water-table, or line of saturation in 
 the soil. The greatest mortality coincides with the 
 lowest state of the water-table, and the least mor- 
 f;ality with the approach of this to the surface of 
 the ground. 
 
24 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Fifteen years' observation showed that the preva- 
 lence of typhoid was indicated by the water-level in 
 the wells. This careful investigator believes that 
 the cause of the disease exists not in the water, but 
 in the soil ; that it is due to certain " organic proc- 
 esses " in the earth. 
 
 The English investigators say that when the water 
 in the well is low, its area of drainage is extended, 
 and it draws typhoid poison from a greater dis- 
 tance. 
 
 Neither of these theories is inconsistent with the 
 hypothesis that the disease is due to organic matter 
 reaching the soil from house-drains, cess-pools, etc., 
 and finally either carried into the well to poison the 
 drinking-water to a degree that becomes apparent 
 when, during drought, it is reduced to a small quan- 
 tity, and its impurities are concentrated, or' else left 
 in the soil after the withdrawal of the water, and 
 there exposed in such quantities to the action of the 
 permeating air that poisonous gases are generated 
 by their decomposition. 
 
 Professor S. W. Johnson, of the Sheffield Scien- 
 tific School, at Yale College, in a paper on the 
 Earth Closet, says : " The use of open vaults or 
 water-closets emptying in cess-pools tends to fill up 
 the soil with fsecal matter. A single vault poisons a 
 circumscribed space around it. External to this 
 limit the filth is destroyed by the action of the oxj'- 
 gen of the air, which is the great purifier. Within 
 the limit named, the animal matters preponderate 
 either constantly or at some period of the year 
 
SANITAEY KELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 25 
 
 They may long remain simply disagreeable without 
 being dangerous, and may again, of a sudden, in a 
 way whose details have as yet escaped investigation, 
 become the seed-bed or the nursery of the infection 
 that brealis out in fevers and dysenter3^ The dan- 
 ger increases as the quantity of filth and the number 
 of its receptacles increase. To cover them up does 
 not necessarily remove the evil. The putrid mat- 
 ters soak into the soil, and move opward and down- 
 ward in it with the motion of the soil-water. When 
 we have copious rains, they are carried down per- 
 haps to nearly the level of the water in our wells. 
 In the heat and drought of August, these matters 
 rise again. In the absence of rain, the rapid drying 
 of the surface creates an upward capillary flow of 
 the ground-water. The matters which in rainy 
 times follow the surface-water to the depths, in 
 drought follow the ground-water to the surface." 
 
 It is very clear that no system yet applied has 
 been so generally efficient in lessening and weaken- 
 ing the attacks of typhoid as the English system of 
 water supply and impervious drainage, which gives 
 drinking-water free from contamination, and leaves 
 the air untainted by the decomposition of organic 
 matters in the immediate vicinity of dwellings. 
 
 Whether the London theory or the Munich theory 
 be correct, the general result of all investigations 
 shows that typhoid fever stands in a certain relation 
 bo the amount of neglected filth permitted to poison 
 vvater and air. 
 
 The Massachusetts Board of Health published in 
 
26 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 1871 a copious report on the causes of typhoid as 
 occurring in that State. It concludes that the prop- 
 agation of the fever is occasioned by a poison " as 
 definite as that which causes vaccine disease ; " and 
 divides the means of propagation under three heads : 
 first, drinking-water made foul by the decomposi- 
 tion of any organic matter, whether animal or vege- 
 table, and specially by the presence in such water of 
 excrementitious matters discharged from the bodies 
 of those suffering from typhoid fever ; second, prop- 
 agation by air contaminated by any form of filth, 
 and specially by privies, cess-pools, pig-sties, ma- 
 nure-heaps, rotten vegetables in cellars, and leaky 
 or obstructed drains ; third, emanations from the 
 earth, occurring specially in the autumnal months 
 and in seasons of drought. 
 
 The agency of tainted water was enunciated by 
 Canstatt, in German}'-, in 1847, and many later 
 medical writers have confirmed the theory. 
 
 So far as Massachusetts towns are concerned, the 
 contamination of wells, though a prominent, was 
 not found to be a preeminent cause of typhoid ; nu- 
 merous instances show this to have been active, but 
 other causes, such as foul drains, sewer-gas, etc., are 
 more important. It appears that the attack is more 
 frequently received through the lungs than through 
 the intestines. While it may be necessary that a 
 marked quantity of impurity should exist in drink- 
 ing-water before it can do us harm, an extremely 
 "femall proportion of impurity in air is greatly to be 
 apprehended, for we drink but a comparatively 
 
SANITARY EELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 27 
 
 small amount of water, while we inhale, every 
 twenty-four hours, from one to two thousand gal- 
 lons of air. At the same time, the evidence of the 
 communication of disease by tainted drinking water 
 is strong and unmistakable, not only in Massachu- 
 setts, but elsewhere. 
 
 There has recently been an excitement in Lon- 
 don concerning the condition of town pumps, espe- 
 cially of the celebrated Aldgate pump in the city, 
 which has finally been ordered closed. 
 
 The following quotation,^ describing the condition 
 of this pump, is given in illustration of what has so 
 often been said concerning the peculiarly pleasant 
 character of well water to the influence of which 
 disease has been distinctly traced : — 
 
 " The purity of the water of Aldgate pump is a 
 firmly rooted tradition in the minds of many of the 
 citizens, and especially of the poorer denizens of the 
 East End. So great a hold, indeed, has this belief, 
 that a great many of them consider that a morning 
 draught of spring water from Aldgate pump is a 
 sovereign remedy for many ailments, and send for 
 the water very religiously when they feel ' out of 
 sorts.' There is much in the flavor and appearance 
 of the water which explains this belief. It is clear, 
 sparkling, and has that cool saline flavor which is 
 io very agreeable to the palate, and which is harm- 
 less enough when the saline ingredients are not 
 accompanied by organic taint. In this case, how- 
 ever, the analysis which we have had made by Pro- 
 
 1 Sanitary Record 
 
28 SANITARr DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 fessor Wanklyn, and of which we last week gave 
 the details, shows that this cool refreshing flavor is 
 due to the impregnation of the water with salts 
 derived from decomposing sewage which evidently 
 finds its way into the well, partially filtered and de- 
 composed by the surrounding soil. The soil itself is 
 evidently loaded with organic matter, and does not 
 form an eificient filter ; thus the water is polluted 
 with a considerable amount of organic matter." 
 
 Anent this pump. Punch had the following squib 
 at the time of the recent panic concerning Turkish 
 and Egyptian bonds : — 
 
 "General Shut Up. 
 " (Aldgate pump included.) 
 " O'er 'Change still hangs the fatal spell; 
 Clerics and spinsters Turkish sell ; 
 Egyptian drafts, too, downward jump, 
 And none may draw on Aldgate pump." 
 
 Mr. William Eassie, writing upon the sanitation 
 of houses, says : — 
 
 " The author had occasion lately to suspect, from 
 its very sparkling character, the water taken from 
 a well in a very healthy looking position, which 
 supplied several families and a large dairy, and had 
 the water analyzed. Professor Wanklyn's report 
 upon it was that it was absolutely poisonous, and 
 then it was found that the constant drinkers of this 
 water had long been suffering from a skin disease. 
 Inquiry also revealed that a farm steading had for- 
 merly stood there, and we can guess what these 
 used to be in the olden time, and that the subsoil 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 29 
 
 was, therefore, full of impurities. No amount of 
 filtering could render water of this kind pure. Fil- 
 ters can be made useful, without doubt, but even 
 they must be examined periodically^, and a proper 
 material chosen. He had an analysis made of some 
 water drawn at the butler's pantry in a nobleman's 
 house, and it was proved that the filter in use, with 
 its impure animal charcoal contents, actually ren- 
 dered a pure supply from the mains unfit to drink." 
 
 There is reason to suspect the poison to be some- 
 times, if not quite generally, odorless, and the dan- 
 ger seems to be the greatest where the natural 
 process of decomposition is secluded from air and 
 light. The decay of vegetables in dark and un ven- 
 tilated cellars, and of house wastes or street wash 
 in unventilated sewers, are especially to be feared. 
 
 In the town of Pittsfield, when the board of 
 health assiduously attended to the removal of all 
 nuisances, there was a very decided falling off in 
 the number of cases of typhoid fever. 
 
 Derby says : " Whether the vehicle be drinking- 
 water made foul by human excrement, sink drains, 
 or soiled clothing, or air made foul in inclosed places 
 by drains, decaying vegetables or fish, or old tim- 
 ber ; or, in open places, by pig-sties, drained ponds 
 or reservoirs, stagnant water, or accumulations ol 
 filth of every sort, — the one thing present in all 
 these circumstances is decomposition." 
 
 If anything has been clearly proven with refer- 
 ence to the whole subject, it is that nearly all of 
 the causes of typhoid fever are strictly within hu- 
 man control. 
 
30 SANITAKY DEAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Dr. Grimshaw regards simple fever as an abortive 
 attempt at either typhus or typhoid, the one arising 
 from decomposing sewage and the other from over 
 crowding, and thus ascribes even slight fevers al- 
 most invariably to unsanitary conditions. A War- 
 wickshire medical officer of health, firmly believes 
 that typhoid is far fromi wrongly named by Dr. 
 Murchison, " pythogenic," for that it cannot only 
 be fostered, but be produced, de novo, by decom- 
 posing organic matter, and in most if not all of Dr. 
 Armistead's cases, foul water or other unsanitary 
 suiToundings appear to have been present in greater 
 or less amounts. 
 
 Dr. Benjamin Rush, an eminent physician of the 
 last century, was so satisfied that the means of 
 preventing pestilential fevers are " as much under 
 the power of human reason and industry as the 
 means of preventing the evils of lightning or com- 
 mon fire," that he looked for the time when the law 
 should punish cities and villages " for permitting 
 any sources of malignant or bilious fevers to exist 
 within their jurisdiction." 
 
 No dense population can hope to escape recurrent 
 pestilential diseases, unless the inhabited area is 
 kept habitually free from the dejections and other 
 organic wastes of the population. 
 
 The instance of the " Maplewood " young ladies' 
 school, at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, has been so 
 often quoted in sanitary writings during the past 
 ten years, that it must seem almost an old story to 
 those who are familiar with the literature of the 
 
SANITAEY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 31 
 
 subject ; but it is at the same time such a striking 
 instance of the possibilities of the evils with which 
 we are contending, that it can never lose its in- 
 terest, and it is to be hoped, that it may always 
 remain the worst instance of its sort in our coun- 
 try's record. 
 
 The house was a large one, built of wood, closely 
 surrounded by trees, with a foul barn-yard near it, 
 containing water in which swine wallowed, and 
 emitting offensive odors. The cellar of the centre 
 main building was used for storing vegetables, and 
 its private closets connected by closed corridors with 
 the main halls of the building. The kitchen drain 
 opened eighty or ninety feet away from the build- 
 ing. The vaults of the private closets were shallow 
 and filled nearly to the surface with semi-fluid ma- 
 terial (they received the slops from the sleeping- 
 rooms). The house seems to have been beset with 
 danger on every side, and it was often necessary, in 
 the heat of summer to close the windows, to keep 
 out offensive odors. The whole case was examined 
 after the attack by Drs. Palmer, Ford, and Earle, 
 of the Berkshire Medical College, and they took, so 
 far as possible, the testimony of every member of 
 the household and of the relatives of those who had 
 di'ed after being removed to their homes. Their 
 investigation fixed the origin of the Maplewood 
 /-ever (which was clearly marked typhoid) unques- 
 cionably upon the unhealthfulness of the air of 
 the house-, made impure by the causes above spec- 
 ified. 
 
32 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 This Maplewood fever is dne of the most fatal 
 ever recorded. Of seventy-four resident pupils 
 heard from, sixty-six, or nearly ninety per cent., 
 had illness of some- sort, and fifty-one, or nearly 
 sixty -nine per cent., had well-marked typhoid fever. 
 Of the whole family of one hundred .and twelve 
 persons, fifty-six had typhoid fever, and of these 
 fifty-six, sixteen died. These proportions applied 
 to the eight thousand people living in Pittsfield 
 would have given four thousand cases of typhoid 
 fever within the space of a few weeks, and of these 
 eleven hundred and forty would have died. The 
 :utbreak was, however, so entirely local, that some 
 physicians in Pittsfield had no cases, and others 
 only two or three. The Maplewood fever was a 
 sudden explosion. It broke up the school in a very 
 short time, and the pupils scattered to their homes, 
 where, under the influence of pure air, many recov- 
 ered. 
 
 Dr. Palmer says of this epidemic, " Before the in- 
 vestigation, the matter was spoken of as the act of 
 a mysterious Providence, to whose rulings all must 
 submit. Looking with the eye of science upon the 
 overflowing cess-pools and reeking sewers as inevi- 
 table causes, and with the eye of humanity upon the 
 interesting and innocent victims languishing in pain 
 and peril, or moldering in their shrouds, I could but 
 regard such implications of Providence, though per- 
 haps sincerely made, as next to blasphemy, espe- 
 cially when uttered by the agents who were to be 
 held responsible ; — though the prayer of charity 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 33 
 
 might have been, ' Father, forgive them, they know 
 not what they do.' " 
 
 The sanitary reforms recommended by the exam- 
 ining physicians being carried out, Maplewood be 
 came, and still remains, free from malarial disease. 
 
 Dr. John L. Leconte, in reporting his inspection 
 of a school in Burlington, New Jersejr (St. Mary's 
 Hall), where there had been a serious outbreak of 
 typhoid, says that the water supply was taken from 
 two rain-water cisterns, in building which, as their 
 bottoms were below the level of the soil water, 
 a hole was left open to relieve the pressure while 
 the cement was hardening. These holes were 
 plugged, and the water supply was made to de- 
 pend entirely upon the river. A year later, the 
 plugs were removed, bringing the cisterns into 
 communication with the soil water. Some time aft- 
 erwards, privy vaults were dug, one of them only 
 ten or twelve feet from the cisterns, and although 
 these were supposed to be tightly made, the soil 
 (after three years) became poisoned with the efflu- 
 via and infiltrations, and the water from the cis- 
 terns became contaminated. The disuse cf these 
 cisterns was advised on the 18th of December, 1874, 
 the water being taken directly from the river. Ten 
 days later, the last case of typhoid fever occurred, 
 and the school has since that time been quite free 
 from all similar diseases. 
 
 Although many of the pupils were attacked, the 
 servants escaped entirely, and it was found that 
 they had drank no unboiled water, using only tea 
 
34 SANITARY DRAINAGE 01? HOUSES AtTO TOWNS. 
 
 and coffee. Among the pupils it was found that of 
 seven who drank only water, six had been attacked 
 with typhoid. 
 
 Dr. Leconte makes the following capital recom- 
 mendations for the prevention of zymotic dis- 
 eases : — 
 
 " 1. Before the plans of the building are fully 
 matured, let an expert in sanitary studies be em- 
 ployed to give directions to the architect in all that 
 relates to ventilation, drainage, and water supply. 
 
 " 2. After the building is completed, no altera- 
 tions should be made affecting these three essentials 
 of good hygienic condition without the suggestion 
 of a practiced sanitarian. 
 
 " 3. There should be stated inspections, say twice 
 a year, of each institution by some sanitarian of ac- 
 knowledged merit, who, after close examination and 
 the correction of any defect, would give a certificate 
 to be published in the circular or announcement of 
 the school. 
 
 " 4. On the outbreak of any zymotic disease in 
 the institution, the advice of a sanitarian expert 
 should at once be obtained, in order that means 
 may be taken for its restriction, suppression, and 
 prevention." 
 
 A century ago epidemic diseases carried with 
 them only calamity, not culpability; but now, when 
 their occurrence is chargeable to willful ignorance 
 or to wicked neglect, Dr. Rash's prophecy shoukl 
 be fulfilled and the law should hold the community 
 responsible for every death permitted to occur 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 35 
 
 from preventable disease •within the area that it 
 controls. 
 
 Dr. Anstie, in his " Notes on Epidemics," after 
 describing the fouling of wells by the escape of cess- 
 pool matter, and the fouling of the interior air of 
 houses by reason of imperfect drain-traps, says : — 
 
 " In short, all observers arrived at the conclusion 
 that it would be possible, by rendering our drinking 
 water absolutely pure, and by disinfecting our sew- 
 age at the earliest moment, entirely, or almost en- 
 tirely, to suppress typhoid fever." 
 
 Dr. John Simon, in his Report of 1874 (as medi- 
 cal officer of health to the Privy Council), says : — 
 
 " Whether the ferments of disease, if they could 
 be isolated in sufficient quantity, would prove them- 
 selves in any degree odorous, is a point on which no 
 guess needs be hazarded ; but it is certain that in 
 doses in which they can fatally infect the human 
 body they are infinitely out of reach of even the 
 jnost cultivated sense of smell, and that this sense 
 (though its positive warnings are of indispensable 
 sanitary service) is not able, except by indirect and 
 quite insufficient perceptions, to warn us against 
 risks of morbid infection." 
 
 " The ferments, so far as we know them, show no 
 power of active diffusion in dry air : diffusing in it 
 only as they are passively wafted, and then, proba- 
 bly, if the air be freely open, not carrying their 
 ritality far; but, as moisture is their nomal me- 
 dium, currents of humid air (as from sewers and 
 
36 SANITARY PBAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 drains) can doubtless lift them in their full effect- 
 iveness, and, if into houses or confined exterior 
 spaces, then with their chief chances of remaining 
 effective ; and ill-ventilated, low-lying localities, if 
 unclean as regai'ds the removal of their refuse, may 
 especially be expected to have these ferments pres- 
 ent in their common atmosphere, as well as of 
 course teeming in their soil and ground-water. 
 
 " Medical knowledge in support of this presump- 
 tion has of late been rapidly growing more positive 
 and precise ; and at the moment of my present 
 writing, I have the gratification of believing that 
 under my Lords of the Council it has received an 
 increase which may be of critical importance, in a 
 discovery which seems to give us for the first time 
 an ocular test of the contagium of enteric fever : in 
 the discovery, namely, of microscopical forms, ap- 
 parently of the lowest vegetable life, multiplying to 
 innumerable swarms in the intestinal tissues of the 
 sick, penetrating on the one hand from the mucous 
 surface into the general system of the patient, and 
 contributing on the other hand, with whatever in- 
 fective power they represent, to the bowel-contents 
 which have presently to pass forth from him. Ad- 
 verting then summarily, in an administrative point 
 of view, to the present state of medical knowledge 
 and opinion as to the way in which enteric fever 
 spreads its infection in this country, I ' would say 
 that it is difficult to conceive, in regard to any causa* 
 tion of disease in a civilized community, any phys- 
 ical picture more loathsome than that which is here 
 
SANITARY RELATIOKS OF DRAINAGE. 37 
 
 suggested ; that apparently, of all the diseases at- 
 tributable to filth, this, as an administrative scandal, 
 may be proclaimed as the very type and quintes- 
 sence ; that, though sometimes by covert processes 
 which I will hereafter explain, yet far oftener in 
 the most glaring way, it apparently has an invari- 
 able source in that which of filth is the filthiest ; 
 that apparently its infection runs its course, as with 
 successive inoculations from man to man, by instru- 
 mentality of the molecules of excrement which 
 man's filthiness lets mingle in his air, and food, 
 and drink." 
 
 Dr. Austin Flint says : " Typhoid fever is very 
 rarely if ever communicated by means of emana- 
 tions from the bodies of patients affected with the 
 disease. It does not spread from cases in hospitals 
 to fellow-patients, nurses, and medical attendants. 
 Isolated cases are numerous, occurring under cir- 
 cumstances which preclude the possibility of con- 
 tagion. Its special cause may be a product of the 
 decomposition of collections of human excrement." 
 
 Dr. Simon, speaking of the action of infective 
 matters on the mucous membrane of the intestinal 
 canal, says : — 
 
 " Whether they have been breathed, or drunk, or 
 eaten, or sucked up into the blood-vessels from the 
 surface of foul sores, or directly injected into blood- 
 vessels by the physiological experimenter, there pe- 
 culiarly the effect may be looked for ; just as wine, 
 however administered, would ' get into the head,' so 
 the septic ferment, whencesoever it may have en- 
 
38 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 bered the blood, is apt to find its way thence to the 
 bowels, and there, as universal result, to produce 
 diarrhoea." He believes that typhoid fever is a 
 "specific diarrhoea," and that every discharge from 
 the bowels of the patient must teem with the con- 
 tagium of the disease. 
 
 Dr. Flint investigated an outbreak of typhoid 
 fever in a village in Western New York, in 1843. 
 No case of typhoid fever had ever been known in 
 the county. The community numbered forty-three 
 persons ; twenty-eight of these were attacked with 
 fever, and ten died. All of those affected obtained 
 their drinking water from a well adjoining the tav- 
 ern ; but one familj', living in the midst of the in- 
 fected neighborhood, owing to a feud with the 
 tavern-keeper, did not use this water, and escaped 
 infection. Two families lived too far away to use 
 this well. This immunity on the part of the enemy 
 of the tavern-keeper led to a charge that he had 
 maliciously poisoned the well, a charge which re- 
 sulted in a suit for slander and the payment of one 
 hundred dollars damages. At this time the idea 
 that typhoid fever might be communicated by in- 
 fected drinking-water had not been advanced, but its 
 truth receives strong confirmation from the fact that 
 a passenger, coming from, a town in Massachusetts 
 ivhere typhoid prevailed, and traveling westward 
 in a stage-coach, having been taken ill, was obliged 
 to stop at this tavern. Twenty-eight days after his 
 arrival he died of typhoid fever, and thus, doul t- 
 less, communicated in some way to the water of this 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 39 
 
 well the germs of the disease, which speedily at- 
 tacked every family in the town, except the three 
 which did not resort to it for their supply. Dr. 
 Flint states it as his opinion that " in typhoid fever 
 the contagion is in the dejections, and this fever 
 may be, and generally is caused by a morbific mat- 
 ter produced in decomposing excrement from healthy 
 bodies." And he believes that "the spontaneous 
 occurrence of this disease is to be avoided by a com- 
 plete precaution against the pollution of water or 
 air by the dejecta from healthy persons." 
 
 In the summer vacation of 1874, ten students 
 from Oxford went on a reading party to a rural re- 
 treat in Cornwall, which was recommended as of 
 undoubted healthfulness and of quiet seclusion. 
 They fell into a fever trap. The water and the 
 soil of this village were polluted until it equaled 
 the worst slums of Liverpool. Detecting the sani- 
 tary short-comings of their retiring-place, they beat 
 a hasty retreat, but they carried with them the 
 germs of the disease, and before many days six of 
 the party were down with typhoid fever ; one has 
 since died. 
 
 Dr. Alfred Haviland gives an instance in which 
 in Uppingham, in England, an epidemic of typhoid 
 fever originated in a house of the best class : — 
 
 " Though the house itself in which the fever first 
 showed itself is a splendid mansion, the architect 
 seems to have altogether forgotten to provide for 
 the health of its inmates. Gigantic cess-pools were 
 in close relation to the water supply, and every ar- 
 
40 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 rangement was made for the pollution of tlie air by 
 regurgitation of gases from the water-closet." 
 
 The local government board of England lately 
 deputed Dr. Thorne to investigate an outbreak of 
 typhoid at Brierly. He found that the spread of 
 the fever was due to the poisonous dejecta of the 
 patients. Wherever those dejecta went, poison and 
 disease went also. The original case was in the 
 person of a dairy-man, and was of a mild type ; but 
 it was followed by two other cases in the same 
 house, and, by the tainting of the milk vessels, the 
 infection was carried to thirty-eight houses in the 
 village, in twenty-three of which the fever ap- 
 peared. From these centres it spread by excre- 
 mental contamination until nearly the whole village 
 was attacked. Dr. Thorne " wished it to be dis- 
 tinctly understood that he by no means attributed 
 all the cases occurring to the use of milk from the 
 infected dairy ; for when once the disease was 
 started another powerful means for distributing it 
 came into operation ; " and he proceeds to show a 
 very defective condition of the vaults and drains. 
 His irresistible conclusion was that the outbreak 
 had been due, primarily, to the use of milk from an 
 infected dairy, and that bad drainage and bad dis- 
 posal of excrement had done the rest. 
 
 Dr. Duncan, in his work on typhoid fever, speaks 
 of Crossbill, a suburb of Glasgow, where for three 
 years preceding 1875 the average death-rate was 
 only seventeen per thousand ; that of the city itself 
 during the same period being thirty per thousand. 
 
SANITARY EELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 41 
 
 In 1874 there was no death from typhoid in Cross- 
 hill. From January 18 to April 20, 1875, there 
 were twenty-four deaths in connection with this 
 epidemic. From January 18, when the epidemic 
 began, until March 31, when it ended, there had 
 occurred two hundred and eighty cases in Crosshill 
 and its neighborhood. This outbreak was distinctly 
 traced to milk coming from a farm where the fam- 
 ily was down with typhoid fever. Dr. Duncan 
 attended sixty-eight cases, sixty-four of which could 
 be traced directly to the tainted dairy ; the other 
 four were smitten late in the epidemic, and had 
 been visiting and drinking in infected houses. 
 
 During the autumn of 1874 there was an out- 
 break of typhoid fever in the town of Lewes, about 
 four hundred and fifty cases occurring. The town 
 is> divided into three sections, each having its own 
 water supply, and the disease was confined almost 
 entirely to the division supplied by the Lewes 
 Water Works Company. This company furnished 
 an intermittent supply of water, the head being 
 turned on for three or four hours in the morning 
 and for the same time in the afternoon. When the 
 head is taken off, the pipes empty themselves, suck- 
 ing in air at every opening. Examination showed 
 that there were many water-closets, some of them 
 used by fever patients, which were supplied by 
 pipes leading directly from the water-mains into 
 the soil-pan, and that it was a common habit to 
 leave the taps open so that the closets should be 
 flushed whenever the water was turned on. There 
 
i.2 SANITARY DEAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 were leaks in some of the old mains, and many of 
 these were laid in soil fouled with the overflow of 
 vaults. In one case a leak was found in a water- 
 main where it passed through a sewer. The lead 
 service-pipes of houses were frequently honey- 
 combed, especially in the immediate vicinity of 
 vaults, and in one case a leak was found directly 
 under a vault. In seeking for this while the water 
 was subsiding in the mains, the opening was ex- 
 posed, and the whole contents of the vault were 
 sucked into the water-pipe. In short, on every 
 occasion of the subsiding of the water supply, air 
 was drawn in violently at every opening, and the 
 pipes thus received air contaminated by closets and 
 vaults, and air from within a public sewer ; indeed, 
 in some cases at least, particles of excrement were 
 drawn in from closet pans. In one section of the 
 town only sixty houses out of a total of four hun- 
 dred and fifty-four were supplied by the water- 
 works company, and in this section, with tlie excep- 
 tion of two infants, every case of typhoid fever 
 occurred in these sixty houses, to the total exclusion 
 of the other three hundred and ninety-four. Even 
 after the epidemic became rife, and there were 
 many other means for its extension, it was found 
 that twenty-seven per cent, of the town-water 
 houses had been attacked, and only six per cent, of 
 all the others. 
 
 Tliere has recently been an investigation into the 
 origin of an outbreak of " filth fever " in Over- 
 Darwen, England, the origin of which for a long 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 43 
 
 bime eluded the careful search of the authorities. 
 It was' finally worked out by a sanitary officer dis- 
 patched from London. The first case was an im- 
 ported one, occurring in a house at a considerable 
 distance from the town. The patient had con- 
 tracted the disease, came home, and died with it. 
 On first inquiry it was stated that the town derived 
 its water supply from a distance, and that the water 
 was brought by covered channels and could not 
 possibly have been polluted by the excreta from 
 this case. Further examination showed that the 
 drain of the closet into which the excreta of this 
 patient were passed emptied itself through chan- 
 nels used for the irrigation of a neighboring field. 
 The water-main of the town passed through this 
 field, and although special precautions had been 
 taken to prevent any infiltration of sewage into the 
 main, it was found that the concrete had sprung a 
 leak and allowed the contents of the drain to be 
 sucked freely into the water-pipe. The poison was 
 regularly thrown down the drain, and as regularly 
 passed into the water-main of the town. This out- 
 break had a ferocity that attracted universal atten- 
 tion ; -within a very short period two thousand and 
 thirty-five people were attacked, and one hundred 
 and four died. The report of this investigation 
 closes as follows : " If an inquest were held on 
 every case of death from typhoid fever, as we have 
 long contended there should oe, a similar relation of 
 fatal effect to preventable cause could nearly always 
 be tiaced, and may always safely be presumed." 
 
44 SANITAEY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Thus mucli attention has been given to the sub- 
 ject of typhoid fever because it is universally rec- 
 ognized as the typical pythogenic disease, and the 
 most prominent of those which are believed to be 
 entirely preventable by human agency. 
 
 The recent great prevalence of a very fatal form 
 of diphtheria in New York, under conditions which 
 seem to connect its origin with the escape of sewer 
 gas into houses, brings it conspicuously into the 
 same class. 
 
 Two other prevalent scourges, not ascribed to or- 
 ganic uncleanliness but connected with the question 
 of soil- water removal, — consumption and fever and 
 ague, — must have a prominent place in any dis- 
 cussion of sanitary drainage.' 
 
 The scientific world has been quick to accept the 
 suggestion of Dr. Bowditch, of Boston, that the 
 genesis of pulmonary disease seems often to be con- 
 nected with excessive moisture either arising from a 
 wet soil, from a clay subsoil, which is usually a cause 
 of damp and cold, from springs breaking out near 
 the site of the house, from sluggish drains, damp 
 meadows, ponds of water, and other sources of fog 
 and atmospheric moisture, or from too. close shelter- 
 ing by trees. To one or more of these causes it is 
 now thought that we may ascribe the origin of a 
 large proportion of the cases of that painful disease 
 which, more than any other, characterizes New 
 England. 
 
 Dr. Bowditch says, " Private investigations ir 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 45 
 
 Europe and America have in these later times 
 proved that residence on a damp soil brings con- 
 sumption ; and second that drainage of the wet 
 soil of tovTOS tends to lessen the ravages of that 
 disease." 
 
 In 1865-66 the British government instituted an 
 examination into the effect of drainage works on 
 public health. Twenty-four towns sewered by the 
 modern system were examined. " It appeared that 
 while the general death-rate had greatly diminished, 
 it was most strikingly evident in the smaller num- 
 ber of deaths from consumption." As Bowditch 
 has pointed out, the drying of the soil as an inci- 
 dental effect of sewerage had led to the diminution 
 of this disease. 
 
 Those ailments which are caused by the influence 
 of stagnant water, or excessive wetness of the soil 
 — consumption in its most fatal form being one of 
 them — may be much alleviated by the simple re- 
 moval of the drainage-water, through exactly the 
 same process that is employed in farm drainage. 
 
 The connection of fever and ague with soil 
 moisture, and with the obstructed decomposition of 
 vegetable matter in saturated ground or in moist 
 air, is almost universally recognized. 
 
 The improvement resulting from drainage is fully 
 attested by wide areas in England, where whole 
 neighborhoods have been drained for farming pur- 
 poses, and where, as a consequence, malarial dis- 
 eases have entirely disappeared. 
 
 In the report of the Staten Island Improvement 
 
46 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Commission (1871), it is stated that where the 
 foundations of the dwelling and the land about it 
 for a certain space have been thoroughly under- 
 drained, and where considerable foliage interposes 
 between such space and any exterior source of ma- 
 laria, the liability to disease is greatly reduced, and 
 there is little danger that fever and ague would be 
 contracted by the inmates of such a house, except 
 by exposure outside their own grounds. An in- 
 stance is cited where four adjoining farms, near 
 Fresh Kills, were drained. Close to each of these 
 farms there has been much malarial disease, but the 
 seventy people living on them have had scarcely a 
 symptom of it. In another quarter formerly very 
 malarial, the occupants of which carried to other 
 residences the disease there contracted, those who 
 remained after the thorough drainage of the land 
 have recovered, and have not suffered at all since ; 
 while those who moved to them after their drainage 
 have lived there for years without injury. In thia 
 case as in the first, the neighborhood beyond the 
 iniluence of the under-drains is still highly malarial. 
 
 Pulmonary diseases, especially the early stages of 
 consumption ; all continued fevers, especially ty- 
 phoid fever ; degenerative diseases, such as scrofula 
 and cancer; and uterine diseases, both of tissues 
 and of function, are stated by the Staten Island 
 Commission, to become less severe with the nat- 
 aral or artificial reduction of the level of the 
 ground-moisture. 
 
 The Secretary of the General Board of Health 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 47 
 
 (England) published in 1852 " Minutes of Informa- 
 tion, collected in respect to the drainage of the land 
 forming the sites of towns, etc." 
 
 He says : " When experienced medical officers 
 see rows of houses springing up on a foundation of 
 deep, retentive clay, inefficiently drained, they fore- 
 tell the certain appearance among the inhabitants 
 of catarrh, rheumatism, scrofula, and other diseases, 
 the consequence of an excess of damp, which break 
 out more extensively and in severer forms in the 
 cottages of the poor, who have scanty means of 
 purchasing the larger quantities of fuel, and of ob- 
 taining the other appliances by which the rich 
 partly counteract the effects of dampness. Excess 
 of moisture is often rendered visible in the shape of 
 mist or fog, particularly towards evening. An in- 
 telligent medical officer took a member of the san- 
 itary commission to an elevated spot from which his 
 district could be seen. It being in the evening, 
 level white mists could be distinguished over a large 
 portion of the district. " These mists," said the 
 officer, " exactly mark out and cover the seats of dis- 
 eases, for which my attendance is required. Beyond 
 these mists, I have rarely any cases to attend, but 
 mid^vifery cases and accidents." Efficient drainage 
 causes the removal, or at least a diminution of such 
 mists, and a proportionate abatement of the disease 
 generated or aggravated by dampness. 
 
 " After houses built in the manner described, 
 tave been inhabited for some time, and especially 
 If crowded, fevers of a typhoid type are added to 
 
48 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 the preceding list of diseases, in consequence of 
 emanations from privies and cess-pools. The poi- 
 sonous gases, the product of decomposing animal and 
 vegetable matter, are mixed with the watery vapor 
 arising from excessive damp (such vapors being 
 now recognized as the vehicle for the diffusion of 
 the more subtle noxious gases), and both are in- 
 haled night and day, by the residents of these un- 
 wholesome houses. A further consequence of the 
 constant inhalation of these noxious gases, which 
 have an extremely depressing effect, is inducing the 
 habitual use of fermented liquors, ardent spirits, or 
 other stimulants, by which a temporary relief from 
 the feeling of oppression is obtained." 
 
 In the English Sanitary Report for 1852, the fol- 
 lowing propositions are laid down : — 
 
 " 1. Excess of moisture, even on lands not evi- 
 dently wet, is a cause of fogs and damps. 
 
 " 2. Dampness serves as the medium of convey- 
 ance, for any decomposing matter that may be 
 evolved, and adds to the injurious effect of such 
 matter in the air; in other words, the excess of 
 moisture may be said to increase or aggravate ex- 
 cess of impurities in the atmosphere. 
 
 " 3. The evaporation of the surplus moisture, 
 lowers temperature, produces chills, and creates or 
 aggravates the sudden and injurious changes of 
 temperature, by which health is injured." 
 
 The copious evidence taken by the Metropolitan 
 Sanitary Commission, in 1848, concerning the ef- 
 fect 01 ordinary agricultural land-drainage, as prac- 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 49 
 
 ticed in England, upon the improving healtlif illness 
 of men and animals, and upon climate, resulted in 
 tlie production of a vast amount of evidence of the 
 most telling character, to review which, even 
 briefly, would be impossible in this limited space ; 
 but it clearly showed that all the benefits that the 
 advocates of land-drainage have claimed for it, had 
 already been fully sustained by English experi- 
 ence. 
 
 The agricultural drainage of the land in and 
 about the sites of towns, and the soil-drainage which 
 is usually effected, even where no especial provision 
 is made for it, by the ordinary works of sewerage, 
 has fully demonstrated the sanitary benefit arising 
 from the removal of stagnant water, or water of 
 saturation, from the soil. The earth acts upon foul 
 organic matters much in the same way that charcoal 
 would do, having, though in less degree, the same 
 sort of capacity for condensing within its pores the 
 oxygen needed to consume the products of organic 
 decomposition. But no soil can act in this way so 
 long as its spaces are filled with water, and in order 
 to make it an efficient disinfectant it is necessary to 
 withdraw its surplus moisture and thus admit at- 
 mospheric air within its pores. 
 
 It is now generally believed that in addition to 
 the many other evils of excessive soil-moisture, its 
 effect in rendering a dwelling-house cold and un- 
 wholesome is especially marked in encouraging the 
 formation of tubercles in consumptive subjects ; and 
 the various forms of malarial fever, neuralgia, in- 
 4 
 
50 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 fluenza, dysentery, and diseases of the bowels, are 
 thought to be aggravated by excess of moisture in 
 the soil immediately about human habitations. 
 
 During the past thirty or forty years very large 
 contiguous areas have been drained in England for 
 agricultural purposes, and an invariable result of 
 the improvement has been a great decrease of ■ 
 malarial diseases, such as fever and ague and neu- 
 ralgia. The vast fen-lands of Norfolk, Lincoln- 
 shire, and Cumber] andshire were formerly the 
 seat of very vs^ide-spread diseases of a malarinl 
 type. Since the drainage of the fens these dis- 
 eases have become comparatively rare and mild in 
 form ; and it is asserted vrith regard to England 
 generally, that such diseases " have been steadily 
 decreasing both in frequency and severity for sev- 
 eral years ; and this decrease is attributed in nearly 
 every case mainly to one cause — improved land- 
 drainage." 
 
 The well-known Mr. James Howard, of Bedford, 
 England, says, " In my own county, ague and 
 fever thirty or forty years ago were very common 
 in certain villages ; since draining has been carried 
 out the former has quite disappeared, and the latter 
 has greatly decreased." 
 
 So far as the question of social prosperity is con- 
 cerned, it is quite proper to consider the financial 
 aspects of the question of health. The body politic 
 has perhaps no compassion for the sufferings of the 
 poor invalid or the bereaved mourner, but it has a 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 51 
 
 :juick and a vital interest in everything affecting its 
 worldly prosperity, and the deepest foundation of 
 its worldly prosperity lies in the strength and ef- 
 ficiency of its members. 
 
 Dr. Boardman of Boston, in the sixth annual re- 
 port of the Massachusetts Board of Health, enters 
 into a calculation, based on numerous data, which 
 seem to be sufficiently proved. 
 
 In the metropolitan district, including Boston, 
 the average loss of time from sickness for each in- 
 dividual is twenty-four days in the year. In the 
 western district, including Berkshire County, the 
 loss is about fourteen days ; and the average for the 
 whole State is nearly seventeen days for each mem- 
 ber of the population. This was in 1872 ; a sim- 
 ilar computation for the previous eight years shows 
 an average of fourteen days for each person. Calcu- 
 lating the cost of nursing, medical attendance, etc., 
 and the loss of time to persons of a productive age, 
 he finds that the loss to the State from the sickness 
 of working people alone is over fifteen million 
 dollars ; and the same computation for the entire 
 population would amount to nearly forty million 
 dollars. 
 
 Assuming that out of the nineteen persons in 
 every thousand who die annually in the whole State 
 of Massachusetts, four might be saved by the avoid- 
 ance of preventable diseases, — and this is certainly 
 very low, for it may be reasonably assumed that 
 eleven per thousand is the natural death-rate, or 
 ':he lowest that can be attained, — the following 
 
52 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 saving to the State would result : the annual mortal- 
 ity being 26,619 with a death-rate of nineteen per 
 one thousand, it would be, with a death-rate of 
 fifteen per thousand, 21,015, or an annual saving of 
 5,604 lives. Good grounds are given for assuming 
 that every death represents a total of 730 days of 
 sickness and disability ; the aggregate saving from 
 sickness therefore would be 4,090,920 days, which 
 would amount to $8,181,840, or for the working 
 population alone $3,190,916, which latter sum 
 would represent the interest on more than fifty mill- 
 ion dollars. The practical qtiestion then which the 
 commonwealth should consider is whether an in- 
 vestment of fifty million dollars in the improvement 
 of the sanitary condition of its population, and in 
 their enlightenment as to means for preserving 
 health, would result in a reduction of the death- 
 rate from nineteen to fifteen. If it would do so, 
 then the investment would be a profitable one. 
 That it might do this, and even more, is proven by 
 English experience, and no one can doubt it who 
 will give even casual attention to the degree to 
 which human life, in even our best communities, 
 whether in town or country, is hourly endangered 
 by the unwholesome conditions under which it ex- 
 ists. 
 
 In every household in which a pronounced case 
 of typhoid occurs, it may fairly be assumed that 
 the value of the whole family to themselves and to 
 the community is distinctly lessened ; and the large 
 proportion of "debilitated and weakly" persone 
 
SANITABY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 53 
 
 found in all our communities are but half-way vic- 
 tims struggling against the assaults of foul air and 
 contaminated water. Their lives are permanently 
 dulled by a malaria they are in part able to vpith- 
 stand. 
 
 In this ever-waged battle there are wounded as 
 well as killed ; and in England it is recognized that 
 "convulsions" and many attacks of nervous ail- 
 ments are marks of excremeutal poisoning. 
 
 There are several diseases which are now known 
 to indicate more or less definitely unfavorable sani- 
 tary arrangements, and as the knowledge of hy- 
 giene extends, other diseases are being added to the 
 list. Nervous toothache, neuralgia, scarlet fever, 
 cholera, dysentery, diphtheria, cerebro-spinal men- 
 ingitis, and consumption are among those which are 
 either generated by foul air or foul water, or which 
 are made worse because of unhealthy surroundings. 
 
 The " New York Medical Record " of June 19th, 
 says, " It may, safely be said that diphtheria, does 
 not appear to have any connection with the distri- 
 bution of the old water-courses of this city ; also 
 that a large number of cases have originated, with- 
 out any suspicion of contact with the diseased mat- 
 ter in any form, while in some of these instances, 
 sanitary defects of a very serious kind, have been 
 found in the dwellings, making it highly probable 
 ';hat noxious emanations and the like have pro- 
 duced the disease. It may possibly be due to the 
 foul emanations from slaughter-houses, and other 
 fluisances, or it may arise from some accident or 
 
54 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 neglect in one's own dwelling, where it was sup« 
 posed that every sanitary regulation was vigorously 
 enforced. Such might be the explanation of the 
 following interesting case : A prominent physician 
 of this city was suddenly taken ill of diphtheria, 
 and was confined to his room for five days. On re- 
 covering, and making a careful inspection of his 
 premises, he found that in some unknown way the 
 soil-pipe carrying the waste from the adjoining 
 houses, had burst, letting in upon his cellar-floor, 
 a collection of rottenness and filth, that was of the 
 most disgusting kind. It is difficult always to be 
 able to make a careful examination of the premises 
 in this way, but it seems probable that if each case 
 of diphtheria were carefully investigated, a large 
 number of the so-called idiopathic cases, might be 
 traced to some such source. Many similar instances 
 probably occur to the mind of most practitioners, 
 and there seems to be no reason why such influences 
 as these described, should not in .many cases be 
 causes of diphtheria, just as they may often produce 
 typhoid fever, puerperal fever, and erysipelas, — an 
 opinion that is beginning to be very generally 
 held." 
 
 The following is taken from the " Sanitary Rec- 
 ord " of March 13, 1875 : — 
 
 " In consequence of an outbreak of diphtheria in 
 Homsey, Mr. Oakeshott, the medical officer of 
 health for the district, instituted inquiries, and 
 traced the cause to the escape of sewer-gas into 
 houses. The first case occurred to a child attend- 
 
SANITARY BELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 55 
 
 ing a small school. The house was disinfected, 
 and it was supposed that the disease had been 
 stamped out, but several other cases having oc- 
 curred, the sanitary inspector made a minute exam- 
 ination, and found that notwithstanding the house 
 was generally in a good condition, the drains had 
 recently been connected with the main sewer, and 
 since then foul smells had been complained of. 
 The traps to the sink in the kitchen, where the 
 school was held, were defective, and, on measuring 
 the velocity of the rush of sewer-gas from the sink, 
 he found it to be two to three cubic feet per min- 
 ute. The room was only about ten feet square. It 
 was consequently very bad for the children there, 
 and the intensity of the poison rapidly proved 
 fatal, as might be expected, but it seemed impossi- 
 ble that thirty cases could have occurred, through 
 these few children who first had the disease. On 
 examining the Fortis Green National Schools, Mr. 
 Oakeshott and the sanitary inspector found a pit 
 at the rear, full of foul soil, the stench being very 
 bad. This was quite enough to cause the later 
 outbreak. Mr. Forstall, medical officer of health 
 of Highgate, who had been referred to, stated that 
 in three cases of diphtheria which he attended in one 
 family, sewage was found to have percolated under 
 the floor. He attributed the outbreak which oc- 
 curred at Fortis Green, to sewage gas. Great com- 
 plaints had been made of the foul smells emanating 
 Erom the main sewers ; the prevailing opinion being, 
 (ihat the smells were worse since the completion of 
 
56 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 the drainage scheme, than before ; the evil chiefly 
 arising from want of efficient trapping and ventila- 
 tion of the sewers." 
 
 Dr. Derby says : " That an obscure internal cause 
 — which, in our ignorance of its nature, is called a 
 proneness of disposition to receive the poison — is 
 necessary for its development does not affect the 
 truth of the fact that without filth the disease is not 
 
 born The improvement of public health as 
 
 expressed by that unerring guide, the death-rate, 
 corresponds with all the means by which air and 
 water are kept free from pollution." 
 
 Typhoid fever is the most conspicuous type of 
 the class of zymotic diseases, all of which are clearly 
 pythogenic, and none of which can originate under 
 conditions fit for proper hiiman habitation. 
 
 A fertile soil or an impervious subsoil is especially 
 favorable to typhoid poisoning ; while deep gravel 
 or sand, well drained, and offering free access to the 
 air, are the least so. Rock near the surface is bad 
 m the same way that a clay subsoil is bad, so far 
 as the foundation of the house is concerned, while 
 either rock or gravel may be, and often are, ex- 
 cellent. Neither is necessarilj'^ a certain security 
 against the sanitary evils under discussion, for, 
 through fissures in the rock and through the porous 
 soil there is too often an ingress of polluted water 
 from barn-yards, cess-pools, etc., or a spread of 
 dampness from adjacent ponds or rivers. 
 
 It is doubtless too early in the education of the 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 57 
 
 community in this free country to expect the people 
 to submit to the dictation of public authorities as to 
 the inanner in which they shall construct the foun- 
 dation of their houses, but the time cannot be far 
 distant when the public will assert its right to see 
 that walls, foundations, and chimneys are so con- 
 structed as to preserve the public health — at least 
 so far as to require that these important parts of 
 home-building are made to conform to the health 
 requirements of the situation. 
 
 As a rule, new residents in an unhealthj' locality 
 are more subject to disease than those who have 
 become accustomed to the unfavorable influence ; 
 yet when typhoid contagion appears, it attacks first 
 those whose systems have been debilitated by the 
 insidious influences of foul air or water. 
 
 Malarial evils cannot be counteracted ; they must 
 be removed. 
 
 In 1874, an International Sanitary Congress was 
 held at Vienna, at which it was unanimously 
 aflirmed, that there is no agent known which is 
 certainly capable of destroying a contagion, and 
 that we must look with suspicion, upon the eflicacy 
 of mere disinfectants. 
 
 A recent writer, discussing the epidemic of 
 cholera, in Vienna, during the exhibition year, di- 
 vides the causes of epidemic diseases, between 
 miasms and contagions ; the first being poisonous 
 gases ; and the second, germ cells. He states that 
 contagion flourishes only where miasm is developed. 
 Although this theory lacks scientific demonstration, 
 
58 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 it is in such close conformity with the results of all 
 observation, that it may be taken as true in practi- 
 cal effect. Whatever may be the character or 
 source of an infection, its development and activity 
 are always fostered by the presence of decomposing 
 matter, producing a miasmatic condition of the air. 
 
 Air, poisoned by stagnant water, in or on the soil, 
 or corrupted by emanations from the decomposing 
 wastes of human life, vyhether it originates an in- 
 fection or not, is quite sure to aggravate any infec- 
 tion that may already exist. 
 
 Liebermeister says that typhoid fever " is not 
 contagious in the proper sense of the word, for it 
 is never transmitted by direct contact. It is not 
 purely miasmatic, for external conditions alone are 
 
 not sufficient to produce it The development 
 
 can take place if the dejections are left to them- 
 selves, as in dirty linen ; but it seems to go on more 
 abundantly if the dejections are collected in privies, 
 sewers, or ground already saturated with organic 
 substances. In this way it can be explained how 
 a typhoid patient who comes to a house or region 
 previously free from the disease, can establish there 
 a focus of infection from which many other persons 
 
 become diseased When typhoid fever is once 
 
 established in any locality, it may disappear for a 
 long time and then suddenly reappear, without the 
 introduction of a new case." 
 
 Again he says : " From all that has been said, it 
 results that the real cause, in our opinion, of every 
 epidemic, and of every isolated case of typhoid fever 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 59 
 
 is only the specific poison of typhoid fever. All the 
 numerous conditions which have been called causes 
 are not real causes. If the specific poison is absent, 
 every other evil influence may act on the popula- 
 tion without producing typhoid fever. No matter 
 how well a field has been manured, wheat will not 
 grow unless wheat has been sown." In like man- 
 ner, the poison cannot be propagated unless the 
 proper conditions are present, as with wheat, which, 
 "if we sow on rocks, we sow in vain;" and so, 
 " besides the presence of typhoid poison, many other 
 conditions are necessary to produce typhoid fever." 
 And again : " The cause of typhoid fever is always 
 a specific poison ; if this poison is not received into 
 the body, anything else may be produced, but no 
 typhoid fever." 
 
 One naturally argues from circumstances w^tb 
 which he is most familiar, and as I have given more 
 especial attention to the sanitary short-comings of 
 my own town, I take it as an example, believing 
 however, that its interior arrangements are not less 
 favorable than those of the average of our prosper- 
 ous country places, and recognizing the important 
 fact that its position (on a neck of land hardly a 
 mile wide and sloping in one direction to the Atlan- 
 tic Ocean and in the other to Narragansett Bay, 
 without a hill or a forest to intercept the free-blow- 
 ing winds from every quarter) makes Newport nat- 
 urally a perfectly salubrious town. The population 
 in 1870 was 12,521, the larger number living in a 
 
60 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 compactly built district facing the west and drained 
 into a deep cove of Narragansett Bay. At the 
 north and at the south the land is flat, but nearly 
 all of it lies high enough for tolerable drainage. It 
 is underlaid with stratified rock, and has a heavy 
 clay subsoil interrupted by fissures of gravel sloping 
 similarly to the surface of the ground. 
 
 There is no public water supply, and probably a 
 large majority of the population drink water from 
 wells only, although there are many filtering cis- 
 terns. Nearly all the houses of well-to-do people 
 have the usual plumbing arrangements, which dis- 
 charge into cisterns or into cess-pools in the ground. 
 Some of these drain themselves through the gravel 
 streaks of the subsoil, and a very few are absolutely 
 tight, so that they require hand emptying. A rude 
 sort of sewerage has been attempted here and there, 
 laid without system and constructed apparently 
 without the least reference to the well-known re- 
 quirements of all town drains. 
 
 These sewers have the advantage of being at 
 every opening so noisomely offensive that persons 
 living near them are warned by the odor to keep 
 their windows closed when the wind comes from a 
 certain direction, and passers-by do not loiter in 
 their vicinity. There is less insidious sewer poison- 
 ing here, as the exhalations are blazoned to the 
 dullest sense. Usually where a sewer is available, 
 the private cess-pool overflows into it, but in a 
 great majority of cases the removal is by hand, with 
 carts trundling into the country and making winter 
 days and summer nights worse than hideous. 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 61 
 
 If the best winds of heaven did not blow almost 
 3onstaTitly through our streets, we should probably 
 be as badly off as a country town can be, but appar- 
 ently this free ventilation will for some time con- 
 tinue to stave off the epidemic that awaits us, and 
 which alone probably (here as elsewhere) will be 
 able to secure the needed reform. 
 
 With these advantages and disadvantages New- 
 port had a death-rate in 1863 of 34.16 per thousand 
 (even supposing the population not to have in- 
 creased between 1863 and 1870) ; a death-rate in 
 1878 of 25.76 per thousand, and an average death- 
 rate for eleven years ending 1873 of 21.05 per 
 thousand. The adjoining town (Middletown) which, 
 like Newport, extends quite across the island, with 
 a purely rural population of 1,074 persons, had in 
 1875 only 9 deaths, being a death-rate of only 8.38. 
 Its natural sanitary conditions are by no means 
 superior to those of Newport, — which owes its 
 shamefully high death-rate only to the lack of in- 
 telligence with which it allows the accumulation of 
 domestic filth to endanger the lives of its people 
 and its visitors. 
 
 The town of Worthing, on the south coast of Eng- 
 land, is probably more nearly like Newport in its 
 climate, population, and uses than any other sea- 
 coast town with which it can be compared. Like 
 Newport, Worthing is more or less a resort for in- 
 valids and persons seeking a beneficial change of 
 ftir, but unlike Newport it has an excellent and 
 abundant supply of pure water, and its drainage 
 
62 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 is said to be perhaps the most complete in Great 
 Britain, every cess-pool and surface drain having 
 been suppressed, and a main sewer emptying into 
 the sea two miles away. The sanitary effect of this 
 difference is shown by the fact that Worthing lias 
 the lowest death-rate ever recorded — 14.5 per 
 thousand (during the second quarter of 1874 it was 
 only 12.9 per thousand) ; and a death-rate of 14.5 
 means an average longevity of nearly sixty-nine years 
 for the whole population. In 1874 there was only 
 one death in Worthing from fever ; this was certi- 
 fied as enteric (typhoid). It is probably as nearly 
 certain as any such speculation can be, that could 
 Nevrport have the simple advantage of a pure water 
 supply and the perfect drainage that could so easily 
 be given it, its average death-rate could be reduced 
 to that of Worthing, causing us an annual saving of 
 nearly one third of our deaths, with the enormous 
 amount of costly and wearying illness and of debility 
 and ineflBciency that these deaths imply. Viewed 
 in another light, could the questionable reputation 
 under which Newport now suffers be replaced by 
 one like that of Worthing, it would lead to such a 
 growth of " stranger " population in summer and in 
 winter as would gladden the hearts and overflow 
 the coffers of all its eager army of purveyors. 
 
 All English watering places are not equally well 
 cared for. In a series of articles describing the 
 health of watering places in England we find the 
 following statement which is specially recommended 
 to the local governments of American sea-side re« 
 sorts. 
 
SANITARY EELATIONS OF DEAINAGE. 63 
 
 " For the benefit of those of our readers who may 
 have little local knowledge of Whitby, it may be 
 useful to refer to one or two matters which have a 
 direct bearing upon the health of the town. First, 
 as to the drainage. It appears almost incredible 
 that in any place depending in great measure upon 
 its reputation as a health resort, the whole of the 
 sewage of a town of more than 13,000 inhabitants 
 should be emptied into the harbor ; and yet such is 
 still the case with Whitby. The drawback to the 
 enjoyment of Whitby, as a watering place, to say 
 nothing of its health, arising from the condition of 
 the harbor, especially at low water, has attracted 
 considerable attention among the visitors during the 
 season just ended, as we can aver from personal ex- 
 perience." 
 
 In fifteen other watering places described, the 
 rate of mortality during 1874, was lower in twelve 
 of them than in Whitby which was only exceeded 
 by Southport, Falmouth, and Rhyl. 
 
 The degree to which the sanitary question has 
 taken hold of the popular mind in England is well 
 illustrated by the following, from the " Sanitary Rec- 
 ord : " " Taunton has been for a long time considered 
 to be — by its inhabitants, at least, if not by the 
 world at large — ' the cleanest town in England ; ' 
 and Tauntonians are accordingly just now greatly 
 concerned on account of the fact that two persons 
 in the town have died of typhoid fever ; the victims 
 being policemen, and the active cause of the fever 
 being the presence in the town of a filthy slaughter- 
 
64 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 house which has not yet secured a sufficient amount 
 of attention on the part of the board of health. 
 The offending slaughter-house keepers appeared last 
 week before the Taunton Bench, on an adjourned 
 summons, tardily taken out at the instance of the 
 local board of health. These cases of fever have 
 attracted an unusual amount of attention, and have 
 put Tauntonians ' quite in a flutter,' because the 
 reputation of their town for general salubrity and 
 exemption from fevers has hitherto been untar- 
 nished." When shall we see the day when two 
 deaths from typhoid in a large town in America 
 will put its people ' quite in a flutter ? ' 
 
 Nor are our cities better provided with sanitary 
 appliances than our smaller towns. Even Boston, 
 which congratulates itself on its refinement and 
 civilization, is assiduously planting the seeds of 
 future trouble. 
 
 The newer parts of the city, especially the dis- 
 trict toward the Mill-dam, may serve as a very 
 good illustration of what it is possible to do in the 
 way of providing unfit habitations. The annoyances 
 caused by the imperfect sewerage of this district 
 have long been a ground of complaint even among 
 persons who would accept the ordinarily defective 
 drainage of higher-lying town-districts as quite sat- 
 isfactory. 
 
 In this case the remedy though radical is simple, 
 and it would be much less costly than would be 
 supposed by those who are not acquainted with the 
 artificial pumping system largely in use in England 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 65 
 
 Indeed, this district is especially well adapted for 
 such drainage, for the reason that all its houses are 
 occupied by a class who use water very liberally, so 
 that there need be no fear that there would not be 
 an ample flow to remove all solid matter reaching 
 pioperlj'- made drains. 
 
 All street-wash and the rain-water falling on the 
 roofs, court-yards, etc. (beyond what would be 
 needed for occasional flushing of the honse sewers), 
 may be removed by surface gutters or by a system 
 of shallow drains discharging into' Massachusetts 
 Bay, and flushed, whenever needed, by water ad- 
 mitted to a flushing reservoir from Charles River 
 at high tide. The house drainage itself should be 
 disposed of through an independent system of small 
 sewers laid at least three feet below the level of the 
 lowest cellars, collected at one point and lifted by 
 steam power into the sewer leading to Massachu- 
 setts Bay. Nothing but the fact that it is sur- 
 rounded by wide stretches of water and great areas 
 of unoccupied land could account for the preserva- 
 tion of the city in a state of even tolerable health- 
 fulness, in the iface of the circumstance that the 
 water system is only partially introduced, and that 
 one half of its night-soil, or about five thousand 
 cords per annum, is still removed by carts : and it 
 should be borne in mind that this five thousand 
 cords is only what has been retained in the vaults 
 after enormous volumes of its liquid parts have 
 goaked away into a soil covered with a dense popu- 
 lation. 
 
66 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Reference has been made to the fact that there ia 
 often less danger from impure well-water than from 
 impure air, and some of the Massachusetts investi- 
 gations indicate that in that State contaminated 
 wells are not a very prominent source of infection. 
 At the same time, the fouling of well-water by or- 
 ganic impurities is a very frequent source of fatal 
 disease, and probably the reason why it does not ap- 
 pear relatively more serious in Massachusetts is that 
 so much of the soil of that State is of a light char- 
 acter to a very great depth, there being less lateral 
 movement of excessive soil-moisture than whero 
 strata of hardpan, or impervious soil, and seams in 
 stratified rocks are more prevalent. 
 
 The reason why well-water is often bad and un- 
 wholesome is, in plain English, because sink-drains 
 and vaults empty their foul contents into it. A well 
 may be good for a long time and subsequently be- 
 come poisoned, because the soil lying between the 
 source of the impurity and the well itself has a cer- 
 tain amount of cleansing power. While this is 
 effective, every impurity is withheld, but by degrees 
 the soil becomes foul farther and farther on, until at 
 last there is no grain of uncorrupted earth to stand 
 between the sink and our only source of the puro 
 water without which we cannot live in health. 
 
 The well is in effect a deeper drain, toward whicli 
 the water from the surrounding earth finds its way, 
 and in time, as impurities will follow water to any 
 outlet unless the filter that holds them back remains 
 9,1 ways active, the foulness of the earth within the 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 67 
 
 drawing range of the well is carried into the water, 
 which it renders unfit for human use. 
 
 In 1847 typhoid fever broke out nearly at once 
 in the thirteen houses of a single terrace in Clifton, 
 England, which took their drinking-water from a 
 certain well. Other houses in the same terrace es- 
 caped entirely, and it was found on investigation 
 that in every house supplied from the well in ques- 
 tion the disease was severe, while in no other house 
 of the terrace did it appear. The infected houses 
 were considerably scattered, and the only connect- 
 ing link between the inmates was the use of the 
 same drinking-water. 
 
 A very striking case in point which occurred in 
 Williamstown, Massachusetts, was well and skill- 
 fully investigated. A house-drain became choked, 
 and its contents mingled with those of a field-drain 
 that was near a well. The season was wet, the 
 ground was thoroughly saturated, and the surface 
 water oozed into the well. The house was a board- 
 ing-house, with from thirty to thirty-five persons, 
 mostly students, at table. Within two weeks most 
 of the boarders were affected, and twenty or more 
 of the students fell sick. At this time there was 
 one case of typhoid fever in town, and this patient 
 had been removed from his lodgings in the college 
 to this boarding-house, where, probably by means 
 of the escape of his dejections from the imperfect 
 drain, his disease was communicated through the 
 water of the well to all or nearly all of those who 
 drank the water unboiled. Those who drank no 
 
68 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 cold water escaped : but a family in an adjoining 
 house supplied from the same well were attacked, 
 except one member who habitually drank no cold 
 water. All who drank that water unboiled had the 
 disease; all who avoided it in that state escaped. 
 
 Dr. Stephen Smith describes a visit to a country 
 clergyman, a former schoolmate, who told him of a 
 family, five of the members of which had died, 
 while another was then fatally sick with typhoid 
 fever ; and he had not thought of attributing it to 
 anything else but a " visitation of Providence." 
 An investigation showed that during a busy har- 
 vest the valve of the pump had got out of order, 
 and there being no time to replace it, water had 
 been taken from a brook which received, higher up, 
 surface water and the drainage from several barn- 
 yards. Of the entire family but two escaped at- 
 tack, and they had not used the water. 
 
 The Broad Street pump in London is now fa- 
 mous in the annals of epidemics. During the 
 cholera visitation in 1848-49, it killed five hundred 
 persons in a single week. And many of the better 
 classes, who fled the town and went to reside five 
 miles farther up the Thames, were there attacked 
 with cholera, it being found that they had been in 
 the habit of sending to the Broad Street pump for 
 their tea-water. 
 
 Ha\ing been instrumental in introducing the 
 dry-earth system of sewerage into this country, it ia 
 proper for me to say here that my faith in the abil 
 
SANITARY RELATIONS OF DRAINAGE. 69 
 
 ity of that system to accomplish all that it has ever 
 promised remains unabated, and that, under cir- 
 cumstances where its application is practically fea- 
 sible, I should never recommend water sewerage ; 
 yet, in the present state of its development, it is so 
 inapplicable to a large majority of cases, or so dis- 
 tasteful to a mass of persons whose necessities de- 
 mand immediate relief, that, without in any way 
 receding from its advocacy (to which a later chap- 
 ter of this book is devoted), I freely acknowledge 
 that the practical good which is to come of early 
 sanitary reform is to be sought through other 
 means. 
 
 The drawback, so far as towns are concerned, lies 
 in the inability of this system to deal satisfactorily 
 with copious amounts of water. Twenty-five gal- 
 lons of waste running from a kitchen sink would 
 require for its absorption from four hundred to five 
 hundred pounds of earth. Still, earth sewerage 
 can be perfectly depended on in village and rural 
 establishments where there is a sufficient amount of 
 lawn or garden to absorb the waste by underground 
 irrigation ; such irrigation beginning at a point 
 sufficiently far from the house or the well. Dis- 
 posed of in this way, and made to feed a vigorous 
 vegetation, all of the liquid waters of the house 
 may be safely treated in a small lawn or garden. 
 
 The evidence as to the sanitary completeness of 
 this system is all as conclusive as the following re- 
 cent report from a very unhealthy quarter : Before 
 1868, dysentery and fever were very prevalent in 
 
70 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 bhe' fionvict-prison of Labuan, Borneo, and the old 
 Bystem of water-closets and cess-pits was abol- 
 ished, earth-closets' being substituted. Hereupon 
 the sickness and mortality declined. In 1870 a 
 great mortality broke out among the troops of the 
 station, and a government inquiry developed the 
 fact that in the barracks, where the earth system 
 had been neglected, thirty per cent, of the troops 
 died per annum ; the deaths in the prison, where it 
 had been assiduously used, amounted to but two 
 per cent. In Sierra Leone, where the commanding 
 officer had taken efficient measures to provide 
 earth-closets for the troops, the health of the offi- 
 cers and men was maintained " at the very time 
 when fever and dysentery were carrying off twenty 
 per cent, per annum of the European population 
 residing in the town." 
 
 A novel system of sewerage by pneumatic action, 
 invented a few years ago by a Dutch engineer 
 named Liernur, h^as been introduced on a large 
 scale in parts of Amsterdam, Leyden, and other 
 towns of Holland, and is now being much discussed 
 by those interested in sanitary matters in England. 
 The accounts given of the success of this method, 
 of the entire absence of odor in all its processes, 
 and of the complete saving for agricultural use of 
 almost every part of the household waste, indicate 
 that it is most efficient, economical, and admirable. 
 The Pneumatic System is treated more fully in sub- 
 sequent chapters. 
 
CHAPTER n. 
 
 THE DEAINAGB OP HOUSES. 
 " The house is the unit of sanitary administration." 
 
 Whatever means may be adopted by the board 
 of health of town or village for the removal of the 
 wastes incident to the life of its population ; what- 
 ever facilities for such removal may be offered by 
 the natural surroundings of isolated country houses ; 
 and whatever the public or the individual may do 
 toward rendering the natural character of the 
 ground dry and salubrious, the first aim of the 
 householder himself should be to secure a perfect 
 means for carrying safely beyond the walls of his 
 domicile everything of a dangerous character that 
 is generated or produced within it, and to secure his 
 living-rooms against the entrance of any manner 
 of foul air, impure water, or excessive dampness. 
 
 It would not be possible hei'e to consider the very 
 great variety of circumstances attending the loca- 
 tion and arrangement of different houses. It will 
 suffice for our general purposes to assume that all 
 liquid or semi-liquid drainage from the house 
 is to be delivered either into a public sewer, into 
 1 private place of deposit, or directly into a nat- 
 ural water-course. If we arrange a safe means for 
 
72 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 discharging our outflows at a sufficient distance 
 into one or otlier of these, for the exclusion from 
 the house of gas arising from their decomposition, 
 for preventing filtration from them into the source 
 of our domestic water and for excluding soil-damp- 
 ness, we shall, so far as exterior surroundings are 
 concerned, accomplish the most important aim. 
 General rules and principles, of which the mod- 
 ifications needed in particular cases will quite nat- 
 urally suggest themselves, are all that can here be 
 given. 
 
 The individual householder has these problems to 
 solve : — 
 
 1. To secure his house against excessive damp in 
 its walls, in its cellar, and, where practicable, in its 
 surrounding atmosphere. 
 
 2. To provide for the perfect and instant re- 
 moval of all manner of fluid or semi-fluid organic 
 wastes. 
 
 3. To provide a sufficient supply of pure water 
 for domestic use. 
 
 4. To guard against the evils arising from the 
 decomposition of organic matter in or under the 
 house. 
 
 5. To remove all sources of offense and danger 
 which may affect the atmosphere about the house. 
 
 6. (And almost more important than all the 
 rest.) To prevent the insidious entrance into the 
 house, through communications with the sewer, cess- 
 pool, or vault, of poisonous gases resulting from the 
 decomposition of the refuse of his own household) 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 73 
 
 or of other households with which a common sewer 
 or drain may bring him into communication. 
 
 The first item implies a dry cellar, an impervious 
 foundation wall, and, if the soil be heavy and liable 
 to be wet, or if it be underlaid too closely with 
 rock or clay, " thorough drainage," of the sort 
 employed in the agricultural improvement of land, 
 So far as this matter of drainage is concerned, it 
 will sufi&ce to refer to the well-known works on 
 agricultural drainage ; but the drying of the cellar 
 and foundation receives so little attention at the 
 hands of both owners and architects, that explicit 
 directions seem advisable. If the house is founded 
 on well-drained gravel or on a dry bed of ' sand 
 (which is the best of all foundations) no further 
 draining will be necessary ; but even here it is 
 always advisable to cover the floor of the cellar 
 with an impervious concrete, to prevent the exhala- 
 tion of moisture that arises from even the dryest 
 soil ; and in all cases where the foundation wall is 
 not built with hard and impervious stone, it should 
 be furnished with a course of some impervious 
 material, whether hydraulic cement, asphalted brick, 
 bluestone, slate laid in cement, or sheet-lead. An 
 excellent asphalt for an impervious course in the 
 foundation of houses is made of two parts of coal 
 tar and one part of pitch with three handfuls of 
 quicklime to each bucketful. Even with this precau- 
 tion, if the foundation wall below the impervious 
 course is of brick or soft stone, the inner surface of 
 the wall should be well washed with pure hydrau- 
 
74 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 lie cement, which will lessen the escape of the 
 moisture that penetrates the stones during driving 
 rain-storms, or soaks into them from the earth. 
 
 If the ground is at all inclined, even in the wet- 
 test seasons, to be wet or springy, whatever other 
 precautions are taken, a drain should be laid all 
 round the cellar inside of the wall, and at least a 
 foot lower than its lowest bed-stone, and carried 
 away to a free and sufficient outlet. This drain 
 may be made of gravel or broken stones, but or- 
 dinary land-drainage tile with open joints is usually 
 cheaper and always better, especially as preventing 
 the ingress of vermin. For the largest private 
 house, the smallest-sized land-drain tile will be suf- 
 ficient. If the soil is unduly wet, at any season, 
 similar drains should cross the cellar at intervals of 
 not more than fifteen feet. All of these drains 
 should have a slight but continuous fall toward the 
 outlet, and should be securely covered by having 
 earth well rammed over them, the whole cellar 
 bottom being then coated with concrete. For small 
 houses, where cobble-stones or gravel are plenty, if 
 the foundation rests on a layer of this porous mate- 
 rial a foot or more deep, and if a good outlet 
 be provided at the lowest point, the tile is not 
 needful. 
 
 The complete drainage of the house, that is, the 
 instant removal of the impurities incident to human 
 life, is the crowning work of the whole system of 
 sewerage. In towns, street drains, main sewers 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 75 
 
 outlets, and the whole paraphernalia of the system 
 have for their main purpose the furtherance of the 
 ultimate object of the sanitary drainage of the 
 house ; and the effect of sewerage on the health 
 and decency of the population must depend very 
 much upon the manner in which each house is pro- 
 vided with the necessary drainage system and is 
 connected with the public sewer. 
 
 In the country, whatever the final means of re- 
 moval, the house drainage, whether partial or com- 
 plete, must be equally guarded. If there is only a 
 kitchen drain, this should be perfectly well made 
 and arranged. 
 
 When we consider its immediate proximity to 
 the windows of the room in which the family of 
 the average farmer passes most of its time, the 
 kitchen drain probably heads the list of all the 
 agents by which our ingenious people violate the 
 universal sanitary law; and it doubtless carries 
 more victims to the grave than do all other sources 
 of defilement combined ; for with an enormous ma- 
 jority of our population this one pipe still repre- 
 sents the whole drainage of the house. 
 
 Receiving daily supplies of organic matter ready 
 to pass into dangerous decomposition, drenched 
 with sufficient water to soak far into the ground, 
 and kept warm enough for putrefaction to proceed 
 rapidly throughout a large part of the year ; send- 
 ing its exhalations into the kitchen and living-room 
 windows, and with a favorable summer breeze 
 throughout the whole house ; and leaking, too often, 
 
76 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 through a light surface soil, or through a poroua 
 stratum in a clay soil, into the adjacent well ; it at- 
 tacks the family through the lungs and through the 
 stomach with an almost unremitted assault, soon 
 achieving, in the case of those who live mainly in 
 close, stove-heated rooms and sleep on the ground 
 floor with a window opening over the back -yard, its 
 various measures of debility, disease, or death. 
 
 No house drain can be made which may not 
 be carelessly obstructed bj' the admission of sub- 
 stances for which it is not intended. Shedd enu- 
 merates, among the articles that have been found 
 in such drains, " sand, shavings, sticks, coal, bones, 
 garbage, bottles, spoons, knives, forks, apples, po- 
 tatoes, haj', shirts, towels, stockings, floor-cloths, 
 broken crockery," etc. 
 
 House drains in towns should of course be laid 
 at the expense of the owner; but, as they are a 
 part of the system by which the health of the com- 
 munity is to be protected, and as the obstruction of 
 a single house drain may establish a centre of in- 
 fection for a large district, the work should be done 
 in accordance with an established rule and under 
 the immediate supervision of an engineer having 
 charge of sewerage work. 
 
 The main outlet drain from a house may be 
 small, and even for the largest private dwelling 
 need not be more than four inches in diameter, if 
 proper precaution is taken to prevent its being 
 choked by the accumulation of kitchen grease 
 while, viithout such precaution, were it even a fool 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 77 
 
 m diameter, this same influence would cause it to 
 be ultimately obstructed by gradual accumulation. 
 In other words, with a proper grease trap, a four- 
 inch drain will furnish an ample outlet, while with- 
 out such grease trap no drain can be relied upon to 
 remain permanently effective. 
 
 There are various forms of grease trap, some 
 with open gullies for ventilation at the surface of 
 the ground, and all of them depending upon the 
 congealing of the grease and its accumulation at 
 the surface of water which has its outlet at a point 
 below the surface. 
 
 The removal of organic wastes is the chief pur- 
 pose of all house drains, whether a wooden pipe 
 from the kitchen sink, or the soil pipe of a house 
 fitted with all the modern plumbing appliances. It 
 is this part of the work that first suggests itself 
 when the question of house drainage arises, and it 
 is too often to this only that attention is given. 
 
 The water-closet, owing to its convenience and 
 seeming cleanliness, has made its way to almost 
 universal adoption, in spite of a very serious defect 
 which is generally disregarded, and, indeed, unrec- 
 ognized. This defect consists in the use of an un- 
 ventilated chamber between the sealing-pan and 
 the water trap of the soil pipe, — a chamber that 
 is always more or less foul, and where faecal gases 
 are constantly generated No means are provided, 
 and no perfect means could be provided, for the 
 removal of these gases, which are sure to find their 
 way more or less into the atmosphere of the house, 
 
78 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 if only by transrjaission through the water seal. 
 Persons living in the country think that they can 
 always detect the odor of the closet on entering a 
 city house, and this odor is very often due to the 
 cause here indicated. It is only very recently that 
 inventions (the Jennings closet, and later, Smith's 
 closet) have been made which entirely overcome 
 this defect ; although several other forms of closet 
 using large volumes of water and not depending 
 upon a tilting pan for their seahng seem to es- 
 cape it. 
 
 Some of the minor devices of modern plumbing 
 seem as objectionable as they are convenient : for 
 example, the ordinary fixed wash-basin having a 
 plug at its bottom effects a complete separation be- 
 tween the water in the basin and the foul, soap- 
 slimed escape pipe below it ; but the more conven- 
 ient shut-off cock placed some distance below the 
 basin is a most ingenious ari'angement for tainting 
 the water in the basin, which is in free communica- 
 tion with the water in the unclean escape pipe. 
 How readily impurities are diffused through still 
 water is shown by the rapid clouding of the con- 
 tents of a tumbler to which a used tooth-brush has 
 been returned; the invisible solution from an un- 
 clean waste pipe spreads with equal ease. 
 
 It is now quite usual, also, to ventilate the lower 
 chamber of the ordinary water-closet, and this is to 
 a certain extent effective for the purpose intended 
 but it does not accomplish a proper ventilation of 
 fche soil pipe, and it alone should by no means be 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 79 
 
 depended on. Indeed, this lower chamber is always 
 objectionable, sending forth such a whiff of fetid 
 air, whenever the water pan is emptied, as could 
 come only from a confined, dark, and wet vessel 
 where the most offensive matters are undergoing 
 decomposition. The cheap and simple siphon-closet, 
 with a copious flow of water, or, better, the Jennings 
 closet, with Blunt's overflow, or Smith's closet with 
 heated ventilator, are types of the only satisfactory 
 forms. 
 
 In the country and in villages, where each house 
 has to be provided not only with the ordinary inte- 
 rior arrangements, but also with means for the dis- 
 posal of its drainage after this has passed beyond its 
 own walls, a serious further difficulty arises. The 
 usual practice, where plumbing is introduced, and 
 very often where only the water of the kitchen drain 
 is to be provided for, is to discharge the whole mass 
 into a cess-pool not very far away, and often very 
 near to the well, trusting to the permeability of the 
 earth to afford an outlet through the uncemented 
 wall. The objections to this have been sufficiently 
 stated, and the remedy is not in all cases an easy one. 
 
 There is no royal road of escape from the respon- 
 sibility that the production of effete matters entails 
 upon us. If they can be run by a cemented drain 
 into a water-course, or elsewhere, far enough awaj' 
 from human habitations to be unobjectionable, this 
 course may be allowed ; but in the great majority of 
 instances it is absolutely necessary to provide for 
 their defoeoation in some inoffensive manner or for 
 
80 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 their inoffensive removal by carts to the country 
 The one thing that should never be allowed in a vil- 
 lage, and vrhich should even be regarded with great 
 caution in the case of an isolated house, is the ordi- 
 nary leaching cess-pool. 
 
 The importance of a close attention to the details 
 of household drainage cannot be overestimated. In 
 a paper on the Health of the Farmers of Massachu- 
 setts, Dr. Adams of Pittsfield says: "There is no 
 dwelling in the State, of any class, which possesses 
 an absolute immunity from these causes" (the vicin- 
 ity of putrescent animal and vegetable matter); 
 "for they are often so hidden and subtile as to elude 
 the search not only of the landlord, but also of the 
 most vigilant health officer." 
 
 The securing of pure drinking-water for the 
 household can hardly claim full attention here, ex- 
 cept so far as drinking-water wells are concerned ; 
 although the extent to which water coming from 
 public works is contaminated by an injudicious ar- 
 rangement of supply pipes and soil pipes is often 
 alarming, as was suggested in the preceding chap- 
 ter. 
 
 Quite generally, country houses and houses in 
 villages and towns depend entirely upon drinking- 
 water wells for their supply, and the degree to 
 which these wells are rendered dangerous by what 
 is called "surface water" — that is, rain-water pass- 
 ing over or through a surface soil made foul by 
 house slops, kitchen refuse, etc. — is more than 
 alarming. The purity of the water in any well de- 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 81 
 
 pends almost entirely on the ability of the earth 
 through which it descends to deprive it, by filtra- 
 tion, of its organic impurities. It is always a ques- 
 tion between the amount and character of the filter- 
 ing material, and the amount and character of the 
 impurity. In a deep, porous soil, where the water- 
 table lies at a great depth, and where the rain-water 
 descends vertically to the line of saturation below, 
 there is little danger, unless the grossest fouling of 
 the surface in the immediate vicinity is constant 
 and long-continued ; but where the water level is 
 near the surface of the ground, where the soil has 
 an impervious stratum a few feet below the surface, 
 or where the well is supplied through rock fissures 
 or gravel seams which open near to the surface of 
 the earth, the most serupulous cleanliness is needed 
 to prevent contamination. 
 
 Fresh earth is a capital purifying filter, and the 
 rapidity with which its filtering power is renewed 
 depends upon the freedom with which air circulates 
 within it, the purification being in nearly all cases 
 a process of oxidation. In a deep and porous soil, 
 as the water of a rain-storm settles away, it is im- 
 mediately followed by the entrance of air from the 
 surface, and the oxidation may be complete ; but in 
 clay and in other impervious soils, the entrance of 
 air being much more slow and diflBcult, the impuri- 
 ties accumulate and the foulness increases and too 
 often becomes permanent. In soil of this character 
 the curbing of the well should be laid in cement for 
 some distance below the surface, and wet clay should 
 
82 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 be closely puddled' round the curbing, to prevent 
 the trickling down of water bet-ween this and the 
 solid earth. The greater the distance between the 
 surface of the ground and the point at which water 
 first oozes from the earth into the well, the greater 
 the safety. 
 
 The above refers only to the fouling of wells by 
 the leaching down of impurities thrown upon or 
 accumulating in the surface soil. A much more fre- 
 quent and much more serious source of mischief is 
 their contamination by foul water leaking from 
 badly made house drains or flowing laterally from 
 cess-pools or vaults, — our own or our near or dis- 
 tant neighbors', — or the trickling down through 
 gravel seams in heavy soils or porous fissures in rock 
 of the surface liquid of adjacent or remote barn- 
 yards. When porous strata in rock or earth bring 
 the site of the cess-pool into communication with 
 the site of the well, the danger is immediate and 
 constant until the cess-pool is made absolutely tight. 
 
 The more insidious process is that of the gradual 
 fouling of the semi-porous earth lying between the 
 source of the impurity and the drinking-water well. 
 In such cases the exudation is usually quite or nearly 
 3onstant ; there is little opportunity for the air to 
 restore the filtering power of the soil, and it becomes 
 saturated with impurity inch by inch, until, perhaps 
 after a month or perhaps after several years, the sat- 
 uration reaches the well ; then every drop oozing in 
 from this source carries with it its atom of filth. 
 While the supply of water in the ground is copious, 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 83 
 
 and while there is more or less circulation through 
 the water veins, the foulness may be too much 
 diluted to do harm ; but in dry seasons, when the 
 supply recedes to a depth of onlj' a few feet at the 
 bottom of the well, the contribution of drain water 
 continuing the same, the dose becomes sufficient to 
 produce its poisonous effect. 
 
 The dangerous character of the water of such 
 wells, is often manifested by no odor or taste of 
 organic matter ; the chemical changes in this mat- 
 ter seem to have been carried so far, as to yield 
 little more than vivifying nitrates to the water, 
 their organic character having entirely disappeared. 
 Indeed, some of the most dangerous well-waters, 
 are especially sparkling and refreshing to the taste. 
 But the chemical processes which have effected this 
 change, appear to have had no effect on the germs 
 of disease — if germs they be — which retain their 
 injurious character to such a degree, that the worst 
 results have often come from the use of water that 
 was especially sparkling and pleasant as a bever- 
 
 The bad effects of organic decomposition, are 
 nowhere more manifest than when it takes place in 
 an unventilated cellar. 
 
 That large part of the American people who 
 were born and bred in the country, will appreciate 
 the following quotation from Judge French, describ- 
 ing childhood's experiences with New England cel- 
 lars : " You creep part way down the cellar-stairs, 
 
84 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 with only the light of a single tallow-candle, and 
 behold by its dim glimmer an expanse of dark 
 water boundless as the sea. On its surface, in dire 
 confusion, float barrels and boxes, butter-firkins, 
 wash-tubs, boards, planks, hoops and staves, with- 
 out number, interspersed with apples, turnips, and 
 cabbages, while half-drowned rats and mice, scram- 
 bling up the stair-way for dear life, drive you 
 affrighted back to the kitchen." This will seem to 
 many like exaggeration, but probably throughout 
 all America, one half of the population which lives 
 over cellars at all, lives over cellars which, at some 
 time during the year, approach the condition de- 
 scribed. 
 
 All this nastiness and wet and confined moldi- 
 ness and stagnation, must inevitably foul the air of 
 the whole house, rendering it impure to a degree 
 that makes us wonder how human beings, if they 
 can live at all, can live in even tolerable health in 
 such abodes. 
 
 A medical correspondent of the Massachusetts 
 Board of Health, gives an account of the cellar of 
 a house in Hadley, built by a clergyman, which 
 had an uncovered well within it, and into which a 
 sink drain with its deposit-box had full opportunity 
 to discharge its gases, there being no proper venti- 
 lation to the drain or box. The cellar was also 
 used for the storage of vegetables, and its windows 
 were never taken out. There was no escape for 
 the damp and foul air of the cellar, save through 
 •^he crevices of the floors into the rooms above. 
 
THE DEAINAGE OF HOUSES. 85 
 
 " After a few months' residence in the house, the 
 minister's wife died, of fever, so far as I can learn. 
 He soon married again, and within one year of the 
 death of the first wife tlie second died, from, as I 
 understand, the same disease. His children were 
 also sick. He lived in the house about two years. 
 
 The next occupant was a man named B . His 
 
 wife was desperately sick. A physician then took 
 the house. He mai-ried, and his wife died of the 
 fever. Another physician was the next occupant, 
 and he, within a few months, came near dying of 
 erysipelas. All this time matters had remained as 
 before described, with reference to ventilation." 
 After this a school-teacher took the house, and made 
 some unimportant changes. " The sickness and 
 the fatality of the property became so marked, that 
 the property became unsalable. When last sold, 
 every sort of prediction was made as to the risk of 
 occupancy, but by a thorough attention to sanitary 
 conditions, no such risks have been encountered." 
 
 It is hardly necessary to recur to extreme in- 
 stances of cellar foulness, such as those above de- 
 scribed, to convince any person of ordinary in- 
 telligence that in a confined and dimly-lighted 
 atmosphere, like that of an ordinary cellar, all de- 
 composition of organic matter must result in the 
 production of gases unfit for human breathing. 
 
 We especially need a condition of air, that can 
 be maintained only under the influence of light and 
 free ventilation. The great difficulty with our cel- 
 lars is, that as they have a more or less complete 
 
86 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 communication \Vith the house through open doors, 
 imperfectly laid floors, etc., and as the law of the 
 transfusion of gases is constantly operating even 
 though the means of communication may be im- 
 perfect, their unceasing tendency day and night is 
 to communicate their impurities to the air of t.Iie 
 house. Where floors are deafened and where the 
 ceiling of the cellar is lath-and-plastered, the dan- 
 ger is much less than where there- is only a single 
 thickness of boards with imperfect joints to check 
 the communication ; but no matter how perfect the 
 separation may be, everything like the decomposi- 
 tion of vegetable or animal matter should be studi- 
 ously avoided, and there should be at all times a 
 free (though slight) circulation of air in the cellar. 
 
 To live in a house standing amid offensive and 
 dangerous surroundings, is under no circumstances 
 either necessary or excusable. It has been well 
 said, that no man is so poor that he need have his 
 pig-trough at his front door, or that he need throw 
 his slops under his dining-room window. No place 
 is so small that it need contain a fermenting man- 
 ure heap, within dangerous proximity to the house ; 
 either the fermentation must be arrested, or the 
 accumulation must be entirely avoided. No yard 
 is so flat that the slops of the house may not be 
 drained away to a sufficient distance for safety. In 
 short, there are in this world no circumstances unfit 
 for wholesome living, which may not be either over- 
 lome or run away from. 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 87 
 
 To live wrongly is a danger and a disgrace to the 
 individual. To permit such wrong living is more 
 than a danger and a disgrace to the community ; 
 it is a criminal menace to its own health and life. 
 No special rules and regulations need be given here 
 for the avoidance of palpable sources of danger ; 
 all that is necessary is studiously to avoid the re- 
 ten tiow- of accumulations of organic filth of what- 
 ever description. 
 
 In the living of every family there is a certain 
 necessary production of waste organic matter. In 
 the economy of nature all such waste is destined 
 to return to its elementary condition and to become 
 a part of the air or soil or sea, awaiting its renewed 
 use in feeding plant life. Man has learned how to 
 avail himself of nature's organic products to supply 
 his demand for food and clothing. He seems not 
 yet to have learned how to hand back to the realm 
 of nature the refuse that is not useful to him, in 
 such a way as to avoid the injury with which its 
 neglect threatens him. Were each man dependent 
 only on the conditions in and about his own house, 
 it would be safer than it now is to leave the needed 
 reformation to individual action ; but unfortunately 
 all in the community are dependent for life and 
 health more completely than they realize on the 
 condition and surroundings of their poorest and 
 most ignorant neighbor. 
 
 The public has long asserted and exercised its 
 right to abate nuisances, but its definition of the 
 term "nuisance" begins at a point far removed 
 
88 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 from the stricter sanitary limit. Our communitiea 
 seem not yet to realize that they have a clear right 
 to the health and strength of their individual mem- 
 bers, and especially to insist that no man shall, by 
 incurring the risk of disease in his own family, en- 
 danger others to whom his disease may be com- 
 municated. The stamping-out process must extend 
 to the very bottom of society, and if vee apply our- 
 selves to the stamping out of causes, the effect (in- 
 fectious disease) will not demand our attention. 
 
 If slops thrown out at the kitchen door of the 
 poorest house in the town threaten the health of 
 those living in that house, all who may eventually 
 suffer from the sickness beginiyng in that family 
 have as clear a right to prevent the cause as they 
 would have to put the family in quarantine were 
 they suffering from small-pox. 
 
 The art of purveying has been brought very near 
 to perfection, and it may well be left to the com- 
 mercial instincts of those whose business it is ; but 
 the hardly less important art of scavenging has 
 received from the outset nothing but the sheerest 
 neglect. It is as yet hardly in its infancy ; if we 
 can hide our filth away iinderground, shove it down 
 the gutter to our neighbors' premises, or secrete 
 it in one of those fermenting retorts, a public sewer 
 (as usually constructed), we think we have done 
 all that our own safety requires of us, and the 
 safety of others 'we have not yet learned to regard. 
 But our own safety is by no means secured ; we are 
 always in danger from our neglected wastes, and in 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 89 
 
 proportion as we and others use the common sewer 
 do they endanger us and we them. 
 
 That precursor of the sewer, the receptacle in our 
 own yards, is certainly less dangerous than its mod- 
 ern substitute, but it is usually very far from being 
 a safe neighbor to even an isolated house. A.8 
 houses accumulate, the risk from ib increases. 
 
 I was recently conversing with an intelligent 
 builder about the construction of a contemplated 
 uess-pool. 
 
 "It is useless to suppose that in such heavy 
 ground a filtering cess-pool can very long answer 
 a good purpose." 
 
 " I don't know how that is, but my own cess-pool 
 in similar ground has been in constant use for eight 
 years without being cleaned out, and it works all 
 right yet." 
 
 " How do you know that it is not leaching into 
 your well ? " 
 
 " Be' ause I put my well a good distance away 
 from it, on the up-hill side." 
 
 " How about your neighbors' wells, down the hill 
 below you ?" 
 
 " Oh, I don't know anything about them ; that 's 
 their lookout." 
 
 The fact is that the whole hill-side near the top 
 of which this man lives is supplied with alternate 
 cess-pools and wells, and there is every reason to 
 suppose that the porous strata through which the 
 ?ess-pools are emptied are the very strata from which 
 the wells are filled. 
 
90 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 It is not to be understood that the ordinary out- 
 house vault is necessarily a source of danger ; there 
 is enough to be said against this arrangement on 
 the score of convenience and of decency to serve as 
 an argument for its abolition ; but if it be cemented 
 perfectly tight, and if its contents be daily disin- 
 fected with carbolic acid, sulphate of iron, or other 
 suitable chemical addition, there is no fear of either 
 the poisoning or the dangerous fouling of the air. 
 
 So, too, if it be used only for its legitimate pur- 
 poses, if no liquid matter of any sort be poured 
 into it, and if it have a copious daily sprinkling of 
 ashes or dry earth, it will be equally free from sani- 
 tary objection. 
 
 But if these precautions are not adopted and 
 carried into effect under a rigid supervision, there 
 is certainly no single appurtenance of the life of an 
 ordinary household so fraught with danger and 
 annoyance to all who live within reach of its in- 
 fluence. 
 
 In all towns and villages where this expedient is 
 allowed to remain in iise, the strongest and most 
 persistent effort of the health authorities, reinforced 
 with full power for the infliction of penalties, should 
 be devoted to the regular, frequent, and efficient 
 supervision and inspection of every out-of-door 
 closet of whatever description. The removal of the 
 contents should never be left to the uncontrolled 
 action of the proprietor, but should be carried out 
 by well-directed workmen in the employment of 
 the board, or at least under its direct inspection. 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 91 
 
 However perfect the ventilation of sewers or cess- 
 pools, the safety of individual families and of all to 
 whom they may communicate disease demands a 
 careful attention to the ventilation of the house 
 drain. It is chiefly through this drain that cess-pool 
 and sewer gas finds its way into the house, and the 
 house drain itself will be relatively more foul than 
 will the public sev7er which takes also the wash of 
 streets. Dust and foul roatters of various sorts are 
 very apt to accumulate with the congealed grease 
 that so frequently coats the sides of the drain. 
 Therefore, so far as the house itself is concerned, its 
 greatest source of danger lies in the return to its 
 rooms of the emanations from its own offscourings, 
 entering through the water traps or through leaks 
 in the pipes, whether such return be caused by their 
 own expansive force or by the pressure of the sewer 
 air behind them. Chemical disinfection can, at best, 
 afford only temporary relief. Dr. Simon says on 
 the subject of the disinfection of houses which are 
 said to have offensive smells or which inspectors 
 find in a stinking state, " It cannot be too distinctly 
 understood that cleanliness and ventilation and dry- 
 ness, are the proper deodorizers of houses, and that 
 artificial deodorizers will no more serve in their 
 stead than, in regard of perfumes, these could serve 
 instead of soap and water." 
 
 The following extracts are taken from Dr. Robert 
 Angus Smith's work on " Disinfectants and Disin- 
 fection." 
 
 "Animal matter, which chiefly is found to be 
 
92 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 dangerous, is, in fact, the faeces or dejecta of human 
 beings and of cattle. It might be supposed that 
 these substances had already been decomposed, but 
 such is not the case. The decomposition is very 
 imperfect, and when they are allowed to stand pu- 
 trefaction sets in, closely allied to, perhaps exactly 
 the sanie, as that which takes place in other animal 
 matters, such as blood, or in a mixture of flesh and 
 water. When these substances decompose, the re- 
 sult is, so far as we know, nearly the same as the 
 decomposition of the entire animal body. We are 
 not able to tell the difference between the products 
 of putrefaction from our cess-pools and those from 
 our graveyards. The problem, then, of preserving 
 meat, or of preserving the entire animal from cor- 
 ruption, and the problem of preserving sewage and 
 faeces from decomposition, become entirely one and 
 the same. We are required to do for the faces that 
 which the Egyptians did for their bodies, until they 
 shall be thrown upon the ground, and mixed with 
 the soil and become the food of plants 
 
 " Every substance in fine powder disinfects — 
 dust of all kinds, whether platinum powder or pow- 
 der of sandstone. The surface is enormously in- 
 creased in such bodies, and surfaces attract the air, 
 which is confined and pressed into service, causing 
 mere active oxidation, and therefore more purifica- 
 tion 
 
 " Pettenkofer says that carbolic acid preserves 
 inert the ferment cells, but when it is removed they 
 become active. If this is true, the disinfectant 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 93 
 
 must be used continuously, and the impure matter 
 must be cleared away continuously, whilst soon in 
 time, and especially in the earth the infectious 
 matter will die 
 
 " One may very correctly look on the soil as 
 the greatest agent for purifying and disinfecting. 
 Every impurity is thrown on it in abundance, and 
 yet it is pure, and the breathing of air having the 
 odor of the soil has, on what exact evidence I do 
 not know, but very generally, been considered 
 wholesome." 
 
 It is by no means enough to establish even the 
 most perfect water trap in the line of a house drain. 
 It is of at least equal importance that there should 
 be a free vent for the escape of all air from the sewer 
 and all gases generated within the house drain or in 
 the soil pipe, not into the attic of the house nor at 
 its eaves, near sleeping-room windows, but well up 
 through and above the highest point of the roof. 
 
 House-drain ventilators are often introduced into 
 chimneys, but they are nearly as often removed 
 after a short trial. So long as there is a constant 
 upward draft in the chimney, this disposition of the 
 gases is good enough, but when no fires are used, 
 the chimney frequently becomes a down-cast shaft, 
 or when gusts of wind drive the smoke or the soot- 
 smelling air into rooms, the ventilator gas is sure to 
 accompany it. 
 
 House drains are even more liable to changes of 
 temperature, and therefore more subject to a vary- 
 \ng pressure of the air within them, than are sewers 
 of themselves. 
 
94 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 What is known under the general term " sewer 
 gas " is the emanation from waste matters under- 
 going decomposition in the absence of free air and 
 light, and in the presence of water, whether in a 
 sewer, a house drain, a cess-pool, a vault, or a foul, 
 wet, and unventilated cellar. It frequently exists 
 in the case of a detached country house, and is 
 never absent from a town sewer, though it is possi- 
 ble in the case of these, by perfect ventilation, 
 greatly to lessen its production, and so to dilute it 
 as to prevent its doing serious harm. 
 
 Poisonous sewer gas cannot be clearly defined. 
 It is known chiefly by its effect ; even its odor is 
 rarely a marked one, and danger is believed to lurk 
 not so much in those foul stenches which appeal to 
 our senses, as in the odorless, mawkish exhalations 
 which first announce themselves by headache and 
 debility. This gas, in its most dangerous form, is 
 believed to be some product of organic matter 
 undergoing decomposition in the presence of super- 
 abundant water, and in the absence of light and 
 free ventilation. 
 
 It may be present without detection ; and, in 
 addition to its frequent passing of the usual water 
 traps, it is largely drawn into our living-rooms by 
 the, draught of heated chimneys when their demand 
 for air is not abundantly supplied through other 
 and easier channels of ingress. 
 
 Furthermore, soil pipes, as frequently constracted, 
 crack or open their joints, by the frequent expan- 
 sion and contraction that alternate floods of hot and 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 95 
 
 cold water occasion, and thus give vent to their 
 gases. 
 
 It is well known that leaden waste pipes decay 
 and frequently become so perforated as to allow the 
 escape of gas into the house. This decay always 
 takes place from the inside, and generally at the 
 upper sides of a pipe running in a horizontal or ob- 
 lique direction ; that is, in the horizontal pipe lead- 
 ing from a closet to the descending soil pipe more 
 often than in the descending soil pipe itself. If 
 there is a bend in the pipe the perforation occurs in 
 its upper part. It usually occurs first in the highest 
 pipes in the house. The perforation is very much 
 the most rapid in the entire absence of ventilation. 
 If the ventilation is by means of free and clear 
 openings above and below, the corrosion amounts to 
 very little. 
 
 The fact that the point of attack lies in that part 
 of the pipe which is not covered with water, and 
 more especially in the higher portions, — to which 
 heated sewer gas at once rises, and where it ac- 
 cumulates, — indicates clearly that the corrosive 
 action is due to the resultant gases of fsecal de- 
 composition and not to the liquid contents of the 
 pipe. As the corrosion begins on the inside of 
 the pipe, and at a point where perforation would 
 not ordinarily cause leakage, it is very likely to bo 
 overlooked, even when sought for by a plumber 
 appyling the usual tests for leakage. 
 
 The diseases resulting to the inmates of the house 
 from this condition of the pipes, and from other 
 
96 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 means for the admission of sewer gas, are those usu- 
 ally caused by excrementitious poisoning: namely, 
 typhoid fever, diphtheria, diarrhoea, cerebro-spinal 
 meningitis, scarlet fever, etc. ; and it is always safe 
 to advise any one in whose house such diseases ap- 
 pear, to uncover his soil pipes and have them thor- 
 oughly examined. Dr. Fergus, in his pamphlet 
 " The Sewage Question : with special reference to 
 traps and pipes " (Glasgow, 1874), says : " Lead has 
 generally been used as the material for soil pipes, 
 and as we have seen how capable it is of corrosion, 
 it becomes a very important sanitary question to in- 
 quire how long a good lead soil pipe will hold out. 
 I have been studying this question for years, and it 
 is now about seven years since I first exhibited de- 
 cayed pipes in public, yet, I would not wish to dog- 
 matize on the subject, but rather give approxima- 
 tions, and would remark that the time will vary 
 under the various circumstances according to the 
 strength and rapidity of the flow of the sewage, as 
 well as the original thickness of the pipe. But after 
 allowing for this, we must broadly distinguish be- 
 tween soil pipes which are ventilated and those 
 which are not. By the former I mean when the 
 pipe is carried up to the roof of the house and open 
 to the external air ; by the latter, I mean when the 
 pipes are closed up. Of these last mentioned, the 
 duration may be stated to be about twelve years, 
 the extremes of variation being from a minimum of 
 eight to a maximum of twenty years. In ventilated 
 pipes the duration may be stated to be nearly double, 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 97 
 
 running from twenty-one to thirty-three years, the 
 extremes of variation being from eighteen to thirty 
 or even more years. The practical sanitary conclu- 
 sion which it concerns us all to keep in mind is, that 
 any house, no matter how carefully or well built, 
 may become unhealthy from this source, and that 
 wlien cases of typhoid fever, diphtheria, etc., occur, 
 the pipes should be thoroughly inspected, especially 
 their upper surface, and the whole of the soil pipe 
 uncovered. I must strongly insist on this, as in 
 many cases the plumbers have declared pipes to be 
 all right, which turned out to be vei-y defective when 
 uncovered. For some years back, I have insisted 
 on a careful examination of the soil pipes wherever 
 I have cases of typhoid or diphtheria, and in every 
 case where I could get this carefully carried out, I 
 have detected these perforated pipes, or sewer air 
 getting into the houses in some other way." 
 
 One of the other ways he believes to be by the 
 transfusion of the gas through the water of the 
 trap, which he seems clearly to have detected. In 
 experiments with glass pipes having bends or water 
 traps it was found that the light gases passed through 
 by the top of the bend, and the heavy gases by the 
 bottom. " The action of the gas was curious. It 
 was found, first, to saturate the surface of the water 
 next to it in the trap ; then to sink down in a fine 
 stream, and then gradually travel through to the 
 other or house side of the trap, when it again spread 
 out and began to diffuse itself both into the atmos- 
 phere above it and downward through the water 
 
98 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES 'AND TOWNS. 
 
 also." More recently Dr. Fergus made a series of 
 experiments with a bent tube, the bend being filled 
 with water after the manner of the usual trap. In 
 the sewer end of the tube he inserted a small vessel 
 containing a solution of ammonia. In fifteen min- 
 utes the ammonia had passed through the water of 
 the trap, and had bleached the colored litmus papei' 
 exposed at the house end. In another expei'iraent 
 he produced the rapid corrosion of a metal wire ex- 
 posed at the house end. To prove that this trans- 
 mission takes place not only with ammonia, whicli 
 is lighter than air, he made the same experiment 
 with sulphurous acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, chlo- 
 rine, and carbonic acid, all of which were ti-ansmitted 
 so as to produce their chemical effect on the other 
 side of the trap in from one to four hours. 
 
 Dr. Carpenter of Croydon, England, says, " The 
 demands of air for fires and for respiration must be 
 supplied from some source, and as the easiest means 
 of access is often the communication between the 
 house and the sewer, the poisonous gases which are 
 lightest, and therefore in the highest parts of the 
 drains nearest at hand, are first drawn in." 
 
 He gives the following means by which the ad- 
 mission of these gases is obtained : through the 
 water-closet trap, when the soil pipe itself is unven- 
 tilated ; through defective joints or fissures in the 
 soil pipe, resulting from bad workmanship, accident, 
 or decay; through the waste pipes of house-maids' 
 sinks, butlers' sinks, kitchen sinks, and untrapped 
 bath outlets ; through the overflow pipe from wash 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 99 
 
 basins, etc. He especially emphasizes the emptying 
 of the traps by siphon-like suction, or, where the 
 trap is not constantly used, by the evaporation of 
 the sealing water. He thinks that not one trap in 
 ten thousand is properly protected, and that with- 
 out protection they are worse than useless. 
 
 The healthful arrangement of the water supply 
 and drainage of the house in its minutest details 
 ought to be a chief care of the architect, whereas, in 
 practice, it is almost invariably left to a plumber, 
 doing the work too often by contract, and having no 
 conception of what is needed, — only of what has 
 hitherto been done. 
 
 Evils resulting from the admission of sewer gas 
 into living-rooms are popularly called " accidents," 
 but they are accidents which may always be fore- 
 known and the prevention of which is perfectly un- 
 derstood ; they are no longer accidents, but gross 
 faults of commission. 
 
 Until lately, in applying the water system, it has 
 been considered sufficient to interpose what is called 
 a water trap — usually an inverted siphon, in which 
 water is supposed to be always standing — between 
 the house and the waste pipe leading to the sewer. 
 These traps, as commonly constructed, are in every 
 way defective : even a light wind blowing into the 
 mouth of the sewer often increases the pressure 
 sufficiently to send the sewer gas bubbling through 
 them into the house ; a great rush of water into 
 the sewer during heavy rains, by lessening the air- 
 space and compressing the contained air, often sim- 
 
100 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 ilarly forces the traps. The same effect is pro- 
 duced in a marked degree by the rise of the tides 
 into the mouths of outlet sewers in sea-side towns, 
 the air being compressed into a smaller space and 
 forced to find a vent. Even did these difficulties 
 not exist, the fact that water transmits aeriform 
 matter would alvrays remain as an objection ; sewer 
 gas is absorbed by the water of the end of the trap 
 which is toward the sewer, and is given off to con- 
 taminate the air at the end which has a communi- 
 cation with the interior of the house. 
 
 The ordinary soil pipe has a trap at its lower part, 
 and, if unventilated, its air stagnates often for hours 
 together. When the pipe is used, every gallon of 
 water povired down causes a displacement of some 
 of the contained gas, which will seek its easiest 
 means of escape, probably into the house. When a 
 current is set up in a siphon-shaped trap below, its 
 contents necessarily vibrate back and forth for a 
 certain time, giving an impulsion to the confined 
 air above that will tend to force it through fissures 
 or feeble traps. 
 
 All soil pipes should deliver into ventilated traps 
 outside of the house so that gases forced from the 
 sewer need not even depend upon the open ven- 
 tilator from the top of the soil pipe, but shall not bo 
 allowed to escape into the house at all. 
 
 Instances of fatal disease arising from imperfect 
 plumbing have been and still are numberless, many 
 of them as glaring as the following, described by 
 Hakerman, who says that in the prisons at Brest 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 101 
 
 the apartments which were supplied with water- 
 closets were filled with sewer gas when the south- 
 west wind drove the air through the sewers and 
 forced the traps. In these apartments the cholera 
 raged with great intensity, while those parts of the 
 prison not supplied with closets remained free from it. 
 
 Dr. Fergus asserts that diarrhoea, cholera, diph- 
 thei-ia, and dysentery have increased fourfold since 
 the introduction of the water-closet system with its 
 numerous inlets for sewer gas into houses and water- 
 supply cisterns. 
 
 In 1872, the Medical Officer for Edinburgh re- 
 ported that wherever water-closets were introduced, 
 " in the course of one year there were double the 
 number of deaths from typhoid and scarlet fever, 
 and any epidemic fever occurring in these houses 
 assumed a character of malignant mortality." In 
 our own cities it is known that the fatal prevalence 
 of typhoid, and it is believed that frequent epidem- 
 ics of diphtheria and cerebro-spinal meningitis, are 
 due to faulty drainage alone. 
 
 In doing away with cess-pools and substituting 
 sewers, unless proper precautions are taken, we 
 simply make an elongated cess-pool, rarely suffi- 
 ciently cleansed, and often grossly foul, and com- 
 municating with the interior of every dwelling- 
 house. If typhoid excreta are thrown into a sewer 
 a mile away from us, we have no security against 
 she danger that its poisonous contagium will float 
 iD the gas of the sewer, and enter our own living- 
 fooms. Grave as this difficulty is, it may be almost 
 
102 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 entirely removed by a proper arrangement of the 
 drainage works of the house itself. 
 
 How slight a change in temperature in a sewer 
 or cess-pool suffices to force a water trap, may be 
 seen by experimenting with 
 the simple apparatus illus- 
 trated herewith. 
 
 The bend in the pipe. A, 
 filled with water, represents 
 the common trap of house 
 plumbing ; the flask is filled 
 with air. If the hand be 
 simply placed upon the flask, 
 the bodily heat will expand 
 the air sufficiently to throw 
 the water quite out of the 
 pipe, although its upper arm 
 may be several inches long. 
 In like manner, on opening 
 the cock in the pipe leading 
 from the vessel above, con- 
 taining water, the contents 
 of this vessel will flow into 
 the jar and bring to bear 
 upon its contained air such a pressure as will force 
 the water out of the bent tube. This represents 
 precisely the condition of things when the quan- 
 tity of water in the sewer is materially increased 
 by sudden rains or by the rise of the tide into the 
 outlet. 
 
 Another cause of changing pressure upon the ail 
 
 Figure 1. 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF HOUSES. 103 
 
 of the sewer, is the frequent ebb and flow of the 
 volume of sewage, now only a thread of water 
 along the floor, and now an amount sufficient to fill 
 it to half its height. 
 
 The ventilation of soil pipes is not only needful 
 to carry away sewer gas, which would otherwise be 
 for(!ed through the traps or transmitted by their 
 water, but also to prevent the formation of a vac- 
 uum when large volumes of water are poured dovra 
 them. The vacuum thus formed is quite sure to 
 suck open one or more of the water-traps, — which, 
 until it is filled at its next use, will remain free for 
 the passage of the gas from the pipe into the 
 house. 
 
 A soil pipe in un trapped communication with a 
 sewer, has been described by Dr. Carpenter, as an 
 elongated bell-glass, affording a certain depot for 
 the lighter products of decomposition and putre- 
 faction ; if the soil pipe has a free ventilation by a 
 direct channel to the outer air above, these gases 
 will escape harmlessly, but unless such outlet is 
 provided, they will themselves seek out (or create) 
 defective spots through which to find their way to 
 the interior of the house. 
 
 Unused water-closets are especially dangerous, 
 as the water in the trap, which was their only fee- 
 ble barrier to the communication between the in- 
 side of the sewer and the inside of the house, is 
 soon removed by evaporation ; and as ordinarily 
 arranged, the overflow pipes of little used bath-tubs 
 xnd stationary wash-basins, have their traps empty 
 ind open during a large part of the time. 
 
104 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 In the very complete sewerage work of Croydon, 
 Dr. Carpenter early insisted upon the compulsory 
 ventilation of soil pipes, but his opinion and advice 
 had to be reinforced by a long list of deaths trace- 
 able to the lack of ventilation, before the authori- 
 ties adopted the rule. The work was systematically 
 carried out by Mr. Latham, who was then a di- 
 rector of the Croydon board, and who has since 
 become a leading authority in matters of sanitary 
 engineering. Although he had himself given full 
 credence to Dr. Carpenter's belief, he was aston- 
 ished at the result. " Typhoid was sprinkled here 
 and there before him ; but as the work progressed it 
 entirely disappeared from behind him and has not 
 returned." Since this statement was made, typhoid 
 has occasionally reappeared in Croydon, — owing to 
 the fact that preventive regulations were in some 
 cases made applicable only to -new houses, defective 
 arrangements already existing being allowed to re- 
 main. A recent severe attack has led to more com- 
 plete reforms, and it is hoped that a better con- 
 dition as to health will result. 
 
 Popular attention is now being resolutely drawn 
 to these important sanitary considerations, and we 
 may reasonably hope that we have fairly entered 
 on an era, in which the improvement of sanitary 
 conditions will be an important attendant of ad- 
 vancing civilization. 
 
 In a later chapter of this book, more explicit 
 practical directions concerning the drainage and 
 ventilation of houses, will be given. 
 
CHAPTEE ni. 
 
 THE DRAINAGE OF TOWNS. 
 " All filth is absolute poison." — Bo wditch. 
 
 It should be the first purpose of town sewerage 
 to remove the unclean refuse of life rapidly beyond 
 the limit of danger ; the second, to prevent it from 
 doing harm during .its passage ; and the third, to 
 regulate its final disposal. 
 
 The channel through which the removal is effected 
 — the sewer — whether large or small, must con- 
 form to certain conditions, or it had better never 
 have been built : — 
 
 a. It must be perfectly tight from one end to the 
 other, so that all matters entering it shall securely 
 be carried to its outlet, not a particle of impurity 
 leaking through into the soil. 
 
 h. It must have a continuous fall from the head 
 to the outlet, in order that its contents may " keep 
 moving," there being no halting to putrefy by the 
 way, and no depositing of silt that would endanger 
 the channel. 
 
 e« It must be perfectly ventilated, so that the 
 injurious gases that necessarily arise from the de- 
 composition of matters carried along in water, or 
 adhering to the sides of the conduit, shall be diluted 
 
106 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 with fresh air, and shall have such means of escape 
 as will prevent them from forcing their way into 
 houses through the traps of house drains. 
 
 d. It must be provided with means for inspection, 
 and, where necessary, for flushing. 
 
 e. Its size and form must be so adjusted to its 
 work, or to its flushing appliances, that the usual 
 dry-weather flow may be made to keep it free from 
 silt and organic deposits. 
 
 A sewer that is deficient in any one of these par- 
 ticulars is an unsafe neighbor to any inhabited 
 house, and a fair subject for indictment as a dan- 
 gerous nuisance. Dr. Simon says : " I accordingly 
 think it an essential principle that the evil of a 
 stinking sewer should always be dealt with at its 
 root. Thus, a sewer which is imperfectly ventilated 
 should have perfect ventilation provided for it ; a 
 sewer which, though fairly constructed, is from poor- 
 ness of current not completely self-scouring, should 
 at due intervals have extrinsic flushing ; and sewers 
 which, with radical ill-construction, are virtually but 
 cess-pools under the street, should, without delay, be 
 abolished." 
 
 Frequently, when the systematic sewerage of a 
 town is undertaken, there comes up the question of 
 private drains, which have been built by individual 
 enterprise and are really the property of private 
 owners ; but owing to this complication, and to the 
 fact that they are thought to be good enough for 
 temporary purposes, they are often left to the last. 
 
 This is entirely wrong. So far as cireumstancei 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF TOWNS. 107 
 
 will permit, the first action of the authorities should 
 he to stop all connection of house drains with these 
 sewers. The next should be to stop all connection 
 of house drains with private cess-pools. This may 
 seem, to those who have not considered the subject, 
 like an extreme statement ; but all who have studied 
 the evidence as to the means of propagation of in- 
 fectious diseases will recognize its justice. The 
 health of the community would really be less en- 
 dangered if the offensive matters sought to be got 
 rid of were allowed to flow, in the full light of day, 
 and with free exposure .to the diluting air, in road- 
 side gutters, than it now is by their introduction 
 into the soil from which the water of house wells 
 proceeds, and by the accumulation of putrefying 
 masses in unventilated and leaky caverns, whence 
 the poisonous gases sure to be produced find their 
 way through the drains into our houses, or into their 
 immediate vicinity. In the open air, their offensive- 
 ness would make us avoid them, and their poisonous 
 emanations would be dissipated in the atmosphere. 
 In the cess-pool and in a leaky sewer (which is but 
 an elongated cess-pool) they too often find only one 
 means of escape — through the drains into houses. 
 
 It is an almost invariable rule, in this country, to 
 hold, the question of sewerage in abeyance until 
 jome time after a public water supply has been pro- 
 dded. This is in every way unwise. It is a more 
 than sufficient tax upon the soil of any ordinary vil- 
 lage to receive its household wastes and subject 
 tiheni to a slow process of oxidation, so as to keep 
 
108 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 them, even under the most favorable circumstances, 
 from doing great harm ; but when the volume of 
 these wastes is enormously increased by the liberal 
 use of water from public works running free in 
 every house, the case becomes at once serious. The 
 soil is oversaturated, not only with water, but with 
 water containing the most threatening elements of 
 danger. 
 
 On the other hand, no system of sewerage ar- 
 ranged to accommodate an abundant water supply 
 should be introduced until enough water is provided 
 to secure the thorough cleansing of the drains. 
 
 Both branches of the work should be carried out 
 at once, so that the oversaturation of the ground 
 and the danger of sedimentary deposits in the sewer 
 may alike be avoided. Even where the introduction 
 of water is not contemplated, the local avithorities of 
 towns and villages should regard it as their most 
 important duty to provide and maintain sufficient 
 and absolutely impervious sewers wherever these 
 are needed. 
 
 Nor is the simple foul-water drainage enough, 
 save where the soil is so dry as to be free from such 
 sources of malaria as do not depend on the wastes 
 of human life. Malaria is a poison in the atmos- 
 phere which is recognized only by its effects on 
 hcaltli. It often accompanies foul-smelling gases, 
 but it is not necessarily heralded by any form of 
 appeal to the senses, unless it be in the way of 
 aervous headaches and a general feeling of debility. 
 
 Its presence is often marked by a disturbance of 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF TOWNS. 109 
 
 sleep, UDeasiness, lassitude, and digestive irregu- 
 larity. Sir Thomas Watson, who has made one of 
 the best statements of the case, says : "For produc- 
 ing malaria it appears to be requisite that there 
 should be a surface capable of absorbing moisti:re, 
 and that this surface should be flooded or soaked 
 with water and then dried ; the higher the temper- 
 ature and the quicker the drying process, the mor^ 
 plentiful and the more virulent the poison that it 
 evolved." 
 
 If malaria come from cryptogams, then drainagft 
 may prevent the germination of these, just as it 
 prevents the germination of the seeds of the cat-tail 
 flag. 
 
 The districts soaked by hill-waters about Rome 
 were malarious for many centuries. Tarquin, by a 
 system of deep subterranean drainage, collected 
 this stagnant water and turned it into the Tiber. 
 The lands became at once healthy, and were oc- 
 cupied by a large population. After the Gothic 
 invasion the drains were neglected, and became 
 obstructed, and so they still continue ; and for 
 hundreds of years these once fertile and populous 
 districts have remained almost uninhabitable. 
 
 In addition to the frequent examples of sanitary 
 drainage in Europe, and conspicuously in England, 
 there are some instances in our own country which 
 are sufficiently striking. 
 
 The town of Batavia, in New York, became at 
 me time so malarious that it was almost threat- 
 ened with destruction. It was decided to drain 
 
110 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 some saturated lands near the town. The first 
 work was carried on by subscription, but the agri- 
 cultural profit demonstrated was enough to induce 
 land-owners to continue it at their own expense. 
 The malaria was immediately mitigated, and for 
 the past twenty years the town has been practically 
 free from it. 
 
 Shawneetown, in Illinois, was formerly exceed- 
 ingly unhealthy. One seventh of the men engaged 
 in building the railroad there died of malarious dis- 
 ease. The draining of the surface water by a ditch 
 (which at one point had to be cut to a depth of 
 forty feet) removed the cause of the diflBculty, and 
 the town has remained healthy ever since. 
 
 Embryo towns and paper cities — their surface 
 being obstructed by partly finished roads, and the 
 land being withdrawn from cultivation and left to 
 the care of no one in particular — are often much 
 more unhealthy than their sites would have been 
 had the same population planted itself in the open 
 fields. 
 
 Stagnant pools on which cryptogams grow are 
 frequent sources of disease. Most surface ponds 
 have their areas contracted in summer by evapora- 
 tion, and their newly-exposed, foul margins are 
 quite sure to poison the atmosphere. 
 
 The increase of population in malarious districts 
 always exerts an especially bad influence, because 
 the organic wastes of human life accumulate in the 
 »oil and aggravate its insalubrity. 
 
 Closely allied to the malarious influences of satu 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF TOWNS. Ill 
 
 rated soils (especially in densely built districts) are 
 those which attend the escape of sewer gas. The 
 pernicious action of this gas is especially felt in the 
 higher districts of sewered towns. As a rule, sewer 
 air finds its escape in the higher-lying districts, and 
 often conveys the germs of diseases originating in 
 the lower and poorer parts of the town. 
 
 The medical officer of Glasgow says : " It has 
 been conclusively shown that houses presumed to 
 be beyond suspicion of any possible danger from 
 this cause — houses in which the most skillful en- 
 gineers and architects have, as they believed, ex- 
 hausted the resources of modern science — have 
 been exposed in a high degree to the diseases aris- 
 ing from air in contact with the products of decom- 
 position in the sewers. And this for a very obvious 
 reason. Such houses are usually built on' high 
 levels, where the drains have a very rapid fall." 
 
 Thon says that in Cassel, in the higher part of 
 the town, which one would suppose the healthiest, 
 typhoid fever was brought into houses by sewer 
 gas which rose to them by reason of its lightness. 
 In Oxford, in 1850, cholera, by the same action, 
 appeared in several houses in the higher and 
 healthier parts of the town. 
 
 In Berlin, in 1866, in those parts of the ciby 
 where there were no sewers or water-closets, the 
 deaths amounted to 0.37 per cent, of the popula- 
 tion, while in the Louisenstadt, where sewers and 
 water-closets were in general use, the deaths 
 reached 4.85 per cent. Owing to errors in the con- 
 
112 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 struction of the sewers of Croydon (England), 
 their early use was followed by a violent outbreak 
 of typhoid fever, which attacked no less than 
 eleven per cent, of the population. 
 
 All experience and all scientific demonstrations 
 go to show that the only safety in the water car- 
 riage system of sewering lies in the freest possible 
 ventilation of the sewer and all its branches. , 
 
 The evidence is almost universal, that wherever 
 sewerage works are badly executed, and where 
 proper precautions against the invasion of houses 
 by sewer gas are not taken, typhoid fever and other 
 diseases of the bowels are quite sure to be increased 
 in intensity, and to appear in parts of the town 
 which, before sewerage was undertaken, were com- 
 paratively healthy. 
 
 In 1856 there was an epidemic of typhoid fever 
 in Windsor, England. Four hundred and forty 
 persons, or five per cent, of the wrhole population, 
 were attacked, and thirty-nine died. The disease 
 affected the rich quite as much as the poor, but it 
 confined itself entirely to houses that were in com- 
 munication with a certain defective town drain. 
 Windsor Castle had its own drain, and its inmates 
 were entirely untouched ; in the town, places only 
 a block apart suffered severely or escaped entirely 
 according as they were in communication with the 
 town drain or with the castle drain. 
 
 It should be understood that sewage matters, 
 though offensive, are not dangerous iintil two or 
 three days after their production. The great point 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF TOWNS. 113 
 
 sought to be gained in the water system of sewer- 
 age, and that which constitutes its chief claim to 
 confidence, is the instant removal of all organic re- 
 fuse, everything being carried entirely away from 
 the vicinity of the town before decomposition can 
 have begun. Any plan not effecting this is en- 
 tirely inadequate, and, on sanitary grounds, objec- 
 tionable. 
 
 In many towns where there is no water supply, 
 a rude system of sewerage is adopted, with the 
 precaution of prohibiting water-closet connections. 
 This is really hardly a precaution at all. Investiga- 
 tions made in towns where the earth and ash 
 systems prevail, as in many of the large manufact- 
 uring towns of the north of England, show that 
 the ordinary contents of the public sewers are in 
 all respects not less foul and offensive, and probably 
 little less dangerous, than are the contents of those 
 which receive all of the ordure of the town with a 
 copious flow of water. That is to say, the kitchen 
 wastes and house slops when mixed with the wash 
 of the streets constitute so prolific a source of offen- 
 sive sewer gases that the night-soil is not especially 
 marked, save as a specific vehicle for the spreading 
 of such epidemics as are communicated by means 
 of bowel-discharges. 
 
 On the other hand. Dr. Voelcker, who is excellent 
 authority, does not accept the theory that sewage is 
 as foul where house drainage is excluded from the 
 sewers as where it is admitted. He says, " I do not 
 think the Thames Conservators would have any ob- 
 8 
 
114 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 jection to the surface water passing into the Thames 
 through a separate sewer from the sewage. The 
 statement that the proportion of the pollution of 
 surface water to sewage is as ten to twelve must be 
 founded on some mistake, I do not believe that 
 water passing down the streets and running from 
 the roofs of houses would naturally contaminate the 
 river." 
 
 It is not the least benefit of the water supply in 
 towns and villages that it sooner or later compels 
 proper attention to the sewerage question ; for a 
 liberal supply of water, running free of cost in every 
 house, soon leads to a great increase in the amount 
 of water used and allowed to run to waste, and the 
 result is that the people are awakened to the only 
 argument by which average communities are at all 
 affected, — the argument of life and death, — and 
 are compelled, often in spite of themselves, to adopt 
 more complete sewerage. It would show a wiser 
 forethought, and lead to ultimate economj'^, if our 
 towns would at once, on agitating the question of 
 the introduction of water, couple with the scheme 
 a plan of complete sewerage. It is a very ostrich- 
 like blindness which hopes to escape the sure con- 
 sequence of the beginning of the work. If it ia 
 undertaken at all, the double expense is inevitable, 
 and it had better be honestly acknowledged and 
 sufficiently provided for at the outset, especially as 
 it is in every way better that the two operations 
 should proceed simultaneously. 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF TOWNS. 115 
 
 The question of cost should be taken into very 
 early consideration, and it will not be slight ; but 
 pari passu there should be a due estimate of the 
 benefits to accrue. These are not of such a char- 
 acter that they can be very readily calculated in 
 dollars and cents, but there few cases, in towns of 
 five thousand inhabitants and over, where their im- 
 portance will not be very fully appreciated. 
 
 The construction of a proper system of sewerage 
 is at best expensive, but it may be much more 
 cheaply done if taken in hand at once and carried 
 on systematically until the whole is complete, than 
 if done piecemeal, here and there, as property- 
 holders may elect, which is the general custom in 
 America. I do not know that the English method 
 of paying for the cost by distributing principal and 
 interest over a period of years has been adopted 
 with us, but it seems the most just and the least 
 oppressive. It is more fair to posterity, without 
 bearing heavily on the present generation, than pay- 
 ment by interest-bearing bonds to be redeemed 
 twenty or thirty years hence. 
 
 Latham, in his inaugural address as President of 
 the Society of Engineers, made a calculation of the 
 cost and value of the water-works and sewerage of 
 the town of Croydon, as follows : — 
 
 Cost: purchase of land (for sewage utilization), 
 £50,000 ; water-works, £70,000 ; sewers, irriga- 
 tion works, baths, abattoirs, and general improve- 
 ments, £75,000. Total, £195,000. The money 
 savings during thirteen years since the completion 
 
116 SANITARY DEAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 of the work, he estimates to have been : 2,439 funer- 
 als, which would have cost ^£12,195 ; 60,975 cases 
 of sickness prevented, £60,975 ; value of the labor 
 for six and one half years of 1,317 adult persons 
 whose lives were extended, £166,930. Total, 
 £240,100. *He says, "Although it has been at- 
 tempted to put a money value on human life, we 
 individually feel that life is priceless, and we may 
 look to the 2,439 persons saved from the jaws of 
 death in this single town as the living testimony of 
 the great value of sanitary works." 
 
 It is well known to physicians that their chances 
 of success in the treatment of disease are very much 
 reduced with persons living in unhealthy places. 
 
 The cost of sewerage works is often made un- 
 necessarily great with the idea that it is the duty 
 of the public to furnish on outlet for factories, 
 slaughter-houses, and all manner of establishments 
 which are carried on for individual profit, and in 
 which the cost of removing the resultant refuse is 
 fairly chargeable on the business rather than on the 
 public purse. 
 
 So far as the community is concerned, it should 
 be compelled to construct sewers only for the re- 
 moval of such waste matters as are incident to the 
 daily life of all classes of the population. If brew- 
 eries, chemical works, and other manufactories pro- 
 ducing a large amount of liquid waste, are to be 
 provided with a means of outlet, this should be 
 done entirely at their own charge ; their profit and 
 convenience should not be advanced at the cost 
 
THE DKAINAGE OF TOWNS. 117 
 
 Df every member of the community. And more 
 than this, the wastes of factories being often per- 
 nicious, not only on reaching the outlet of the 
 sewer, but by the generation of gases within them 
 which may pervade all their ramifications, it is a 
 serious question whether such establishments should 
 not be compelled to secure independent outlets at 
 their own expense, or at least to render their wastes 
 innoxious before discharging them into the public 
 drain ; paying even then an extra sewer-rate, pro- 
 portionate to the extra service they require. 
 
 The sanitary authority of every town should have 
 entire control over the sewers, with power to decide 
 what shall be admitted to them, and what excluded, 
 and to levy an additional tax in all cases where an 
 undue use is made of the public convenience. 
 
 The economical use of the organic wastes of the 
 house or town, demands most careful consideration. 
 The utilitarian question, important though it is, is 
 only secondarj^, but as an accessory, the matter of 
 economy is very important, and in every perfect 
 system of sanitary improvement the arrangements 
 must be such that there shall be a complete utiliza- 
 tion of all the valuable constituents of the wastes 
 »f domestic life ; and practically our arrangements 
 should be so nearly perfect, that nothing shall be 
 lost that can be economically saved. 
 
 The more important considerations affecting the 
 question of town sewerage, were stated in the 
 
118 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 ■' general conclusions " of the English Board of 
 Health, after a thorough investigation of the whole 
 subject of sewerage, as follows : — 
 
 1. That no population living amidst aerial im- 
 purities arising from putrid emanations from cess- 
 pools, drains, or sewers of deposit, can be healthy 
 or free from attacks of devastating epidemics. 
 
 2. That as a primary condition to salubrity, no 
 ordure or refuse can be permitted to remain be- 
 neath or near habitations, and by no other means 
 can remedial operations be so conveniently, eco- 
 nomically, inoffensively, and quickly effected, as by 
 the removal of all such refuse dissolved or sus- 
 pended in water. 
 
 3. That the general use of large brick sewers 
 has resulted from ignorance or neglect ; such sewers 
 being wasteful in construction and repair, and 
 costly through ineflBcient efforts to keep them free 
 from deposits. 
 
 4. That brick and stone house drains are "false 
 in principle, and wasteful in the cleansing, con- 
 struction, and repair That house drains 
 
 and sewers, properly constructed of vitrified pipe, 
 detain and accumulate no deposit, emit no offensive 
 smells, and require no additional supplies of water 
 to keep them clear." 
 
 5. That an artificial fall inay be cheaply and 
 economically obtained by steam pumping, and that 
 the cost of the whole system to each house is much 
 less than the cost to that house of removing its 
 refuse by hand. 
 
THE DRAINAGE OF TO^'NS. 119 
 
 6. All offensive smells proceeding from any works 
 intended for house or town drainage, indicate the 
 fact of the detention and decomposition of ordure, 
 and afford decisive evidence of malconstruction, or 
 of ignorant or defective arrangement. 
 
PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AERANGING PLANS FOE TOWN SEWBEAGB. 
 
 Whether ifc is contemplated to execute the 
 whole work of sewering of towns immediately or 
 not, the first step in every case, should be to pre- 
 pare a complete plan of the whole work, so that 
 when it shall finally be finished it will be harmo- 
 nious, — each part being adapted to the work that 
 it will have to perform, when all the lines are in 
 operation. In arranging this plan, the engineer 
 will consider, not only what are to be the demands 
 of the town as it now exists, but in what way the 
 sewage of parts to be built in the future will be 
 likely to affect the demand upon its main lines. Of 
 course it will be impossible to foresee with precision 
 the extent and direction of the future growth of 
 any town, and this element of uncertainty must al- 
 ways remain. Still, so far as the probabilities of 
 the case are concerned, much economy can be se- 
 cured by a careful consideration of the prospect, — 
 providing for rather more than less of what will 
 probably be necessary, but arranging so far as may 
 be that these parts to be added shall not all de- 
 mand an outlet through the same main line. In this 
 way we may avoid the necessity for making any 
 sewer very much larger than present needs require, 
 
124 SANITAEY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 while by increasing the size of several mains we 
 may provide all of the adjacent area when the occa- 
 sion shall arise. So far as future extensions of the 
 present town are concerned, all that need be done is 
 to provide main outlets, of a size adapted to their 
 area. 
 
 OUTLETS. — INTEKCEPTQTG SEWERS. 
 
 The first question to be considered in arranging 
 the plan for tjie sewerage of a town or village is 
 that of an outlet, at which the foul sewage of the 
 streets and houses may be delivered without danger 
 of polluting water-courses or destroying their fish, 
 or of silting up harbors or navigable streams ; and 
 without forming within dangerous proximity to the 
 town a deposit of offensive sewage matters which 
 might constitute a source of annoyance or of insalu- 
 brity. 
 
 In all cases where this part of the problem pre- 
 sents difficulties, it should be considered whether a 
 separate direction or a shorter outfall may not be 
 given to the storm-water drainage, allowing the 
 sewers to deliver at their main outlet only the ordi- 
 nary drainage of houses and the street-wash of very 
 slight rains. The cases are frequent where the re- 
 moval of the sewage proper from low lying parts 
 of a town may be best and most economically se- 
 cured by artificial pumping ; though, in the major- 
 ity of instances, it will be practicable, by the use of 
 intercepting sewers, to deliver by natural outfall the 
 drainage of all except the very lowest portions of 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOB TOWN SEWERAGE. 125 
 
 the town. It is in the adjustment of this part of 
 the work that the experience and judgment of the 
 engineer in charge will be the most severely tested ; 
 in all matters of construction, ventilation, house 
 connections, etc., certain rules and explicit directions 
 can be applied, but the arrangement of the outlet 
 varies with nearly every new undertaking, and with 
 reference to this branch of the subject it is possible 
 here to give only general indications. 
 
 It would often be practicable to take the small 
 ordinary flow of public sewage to a remote point, 
 by the use of an intercepting sewer, even when the 
 cost of providing such an outlet for storm water 
 would be so great as to make it impracticable. In 
 such cases there may be carried from the point of 
 outlet to the distant point of discharge the smallest 
 pipe that will accommodate the usual flow, so ar- 
 ranged that whenever, as during storms, the volume 
 is increased beyond the capacity of this pipe, it shall 
 overflow and be carried directly into the stream or 
 harbor at hand. At such times the amount of water 
 in the sewage will so dilute it that no bad effect 
 need be apprehended. 
 
 The great danger in nearly all the towns of our 
 Atlantic seaboard lies in the fact that they dis- 
 charge some of their most important sewers below 
 high-water mark, so that at each rise of tide not 
 only is the flow at these points checked, and foul 
 silt allowed to collect in the stilled water, but the 
 closing of the vent at this end of the sewer and the 
 rise of water within it, whether by the action of 
 
126 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 the tide or through the accumulation of the flow 
 from above, brings a pressure to bear upon the con- 
 tained air and forces it to escape at the higher 
 points ; the state of the tide is in this way often 
 made perceptible by the forcing of water traps a 
 mile or more distant from the outlet. 
 
 Outlets, especially of large sewers, exposed to 
 Btrong winds, are likewise very objectionable, the 
 pressure of the wind forcing the tainted air to find 
 vent too often through badly trapped drains leading 
 into occupied houses. 
 
 Where necessary to secure a constant flow of 
 sewage, pumping should always be resorted to, to 
 avoid the expedient, now often adopted, of using 
 some part of the system for the temporary storage 
 of sewage during high tides. With coal at nine 
 dollars per ton, the cost of lifting thirty thousand 
 gallons ten feet high with a twenty-five horse-power 
 engine V70uld not exceed seventy-five cents, while 
 with a larger engine and a larger flow the relative 
 cost would be much less. It was estimated that 
 to lift the whole sewage and rain-fall from a low- 
 lying district in London, occupying four thousand 
 acres, to a height of thirty-one feet would cost 
 about five cents per annum per head of popula- 
 tion. Whatever the cost of pumping, it may be 
 made in level districts to do away with any out- 
 lay for cleansing or flushing sewers, which without 
 pumping must have been laid nearly level. 
 
 There are as yet few cases in this country where 
 it is necessary to discharge the sewage of a towB 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 127 
 
 into a stream from which other towns receive their 
 water supply, though the towns along the Schuyl- 
 kill River still stand in this relation to the city of 
 Philadelphia. The time is probably not very dis- 
 tant when this question will become here, as it now 
 is in England, a very serious one. 
 
 Tidal estuaries and bays receiving the drainage 
 of a town are sure to have those parts of their bot- 
 toms and sides which are alternately covered and 
 exposed by the changing tides fouled with organic 
 matter, and to become thereby seriously offensive 
 and dangerous. 
 
 Recent sewage floats in water. After maceration 
 it sinks in still water and in currents having a less 
 velocity than one hundred and seventy feet per 
 minute. Its specific gravity is about 1.325. 
 
 The condition of Newtown Creek, Wallabout 
 Bay, and the Gowanus Canal and Bay, near Brook- 
 lyn, are examples of the subsidence of sewage in 
 eddies and slack water. 
 
 Tides may be made extremely useful in the flush- 
 ing of sewers in level lowlands, but care should be 
 taken to carry the outlet to a point where the in- 
 convenience from subsidence will be reduced to the 
 
 minimum. 
 
 SIZES OP SEWBES. 
 
 Nearly the most important item in connection 
 with the arrangement of a plan for sewerage, and 
 one in which professional experience is especially 
 important, is the regulation of the sizes of the dif- 
 
128 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HODSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 ferent main drains and laterals. This involves a 
 consideration of the amount of sewage proper ; the 
 customary rain-fall of the district ; the grade or in- 
 clination of the surface, as indicating the rapidity 
 with which storm waters will find their way to the 
 entrances of the sewers ; and the extent to which, 
 in order to avoid the flooding of cellars and other 
 injury during copious rains, it is advisable to in- 
 crease the sizes of the conduits beyond what is 
 needed for ordinary use. 
 
 It is doubtful whether even large cities can really 
 afford, in arranging their sewerage, to provide for 
 the underground removal of the water of heavy 
 rains, and certainly in smaller towns and villages it 
 would be far cheaper to pay for repairing whatever 
 damage might be caused by occasional heavy floods 
 in the streets, or to provide for the removal of the 
 water of these storms by surface gutters, than to 
 make the size of the whole system of sewerage ade- 
 quate for such work. Not only this, but sewers 
 large enough to accommodate the water of very 
 heavy storms would usually be too large for perfect 
 cleansing with their daily flow, and would require 
 expensive flushing appliances, which with smaller 
 pipes would not be needed. In country towns it 
 would not generally be wise to provide for remov- 
 ing through the pipes the flow of a heavier storm 
 than one quarter inch per hour. Gutters are much 
 cheaper than sewers, and there is usually no objec- 
 tion to their being relied on to remove the surplus 
 water of sudden sbowers. 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 129 
 
 It is not unusual to provide in cities for a rain- 
 fall of one inch per hour, and to assume that one 
 haK of this will reach the sewer within the hour. 
 Even this is far more than is necessarj', if any 
 other provision can be made for exceptional storms. 
 For example : In Providence, one hundred and 
 eighty-five storms were recorded in twenty-six 
 years. Of these only twenty-seven were of more 
 than one half inch, and one hundred and thirty-one 
 of them were of one fourtli inch or less. One half 
 inch per hour equals thirty and one fourth cubic 
 feet per minute per acre. 
 
 If the supply of water in a town is ten gallons 
 per head per day, for the whole population, the 
 quantity of sewage to be removed will be about one 
 hundred pounds daily for each person. Of this the 
 closet flow will constitute about one third. This as- 
 sumes that the use of the water-closet is universal, 
 that vaults are entirely done away with, and that the 
 water is employed for all domestic requirements. 
 
 In Brooklyn, it is estimated that, aside from rain 
 the sewage equals one and one fourth times the 
 water supply, or fifty million gallons per day, the 
 half of which running off between nine A. M. and 
 five P. M. gives 3,125,000 gallons per hour, escaping 
 during eight hours. This, from twelve hundred 
 acres, gives two hundred and sixty gallons or thirty- 
 three cubic feet per acre per hour, being less than 
 one hundredth of an inch in depth over the whole 
 area. 
 
 Mr. Shedd, engineer to the city of Providence, 
 
130 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSKS AND TOWNS. 
 
 says on the subject of the size to be given to a 
 sewer : " Tlie capacity of sewers to carry water de- 
 pends mainly on their sectional area — if of proper 
 form — and the rate of fall. In order to render 
 sewers as nearly self-cleansing as possible, they 
 must, as before stated, be adapted, in size and in- 
 clination, to the ordinary flow of sewage, so far as 
 to keep up a velocity sufficient to carry on all light 
 matters, and to leave only so much heavy matter aa 
 will be finally carried along by the scouring effect 
 of the storm waters 
 
 " There is room for question as to how far the 
 sewer should be made capable of carrying extraor- 
 dinary storms. The original cost of large sewers, 
 as well as the cost of maintenance, is so much greater, 
 that a city can afford to pay for damages done by 
 storms of unfrequent occurrence, rather than to con- 
 struct them. Just where to stop in providing for 
 such storms is a matter of doubt ; and what would 
 secure true economy in one place would not neces- 
 sarily do so in another. The frequency of the 
 heavy storms, the amount of rainfall, and the dam- 
 age likely to be done, depend upon the location and 
 the circumstances of each place." 
 
 Very careful records of rainfalls were kept for a 
 long time by President Caswell of Providence, show- 
 ing the following tabulated result which gives in an 
 interesting form the data that are of value in sew- 
 erage work. 
 
 " In twenty-six years previous to 1860, the time 
 of rainfall is recorded in 185 storms : — 
 
AREANGING PLANS FOB TOWN SEWERAGE. 131 
 
 In 131 storms, rain fell at tlie rate of 25 inch per hour, or less. 
 
 In 18 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.33 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 9 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.40 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 7 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.50 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 8 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.62 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 3 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.67 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 3 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.75 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 4 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.87 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 1 storm, rain fell at the rate of 1.00 inch per hour, about. 
 
 la 1 storm, rain fell at the rate of 1.75 inch per hour, about. 
 
 185 
 
 " The two storms giving 1 inch and If inch per 
 hour fell on the 5th and on the 14th of July, 1841. 
 
 " In one case, where the time of rain-fall was less 
 than an hour, the rate is made as though the rain 
 was an hour in falling. 
 
 " In fourteen years, to the 1st of January, 1874, 
 the time of rain-fall is recorded in 139 storms : — 
 
 In 98 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.25 inch per hour, or less. 
 
 In 9 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.33 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 2 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.40 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 10 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.50 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 5 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.00 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 3 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.70 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 2 storms, rain fell at the rate of 0.80 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 1 storm, rain fell at the rate of 0.90 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 1 storm, rain fell at the rate of 1.00 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 1 storm, rain fell at the rate of 1.12 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 1 storm, rain fell at the rate of 1.20 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 1 storm, rain fell at the rate of 1.40 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 1 storm, rain fell at the rate of 1.52 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 1 storm, rain fell at the rate of 1.83 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 1 storm, rain fell at the rate of 2.00 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 1 storm, rain fell at the rate of 2.32 inch per hour, about. 
 
 In 1 storm, rain fell at the rate of 3.15 inch per hour, about. 
 
 139 
 
 " Of those storms giving an inch or more per 
 hour, — 
 
132 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 One fell in 1862. " Three fell in 1870. 
 
 One fell in 1863. One fell in 1871. 
 
 One fell in 1868. One fell in 1873. 
 One fell in 1869. 
 
 Making nine such storms in fourteen years, agunst 
 two in the previous period of twenty-six years. 
 Seven of these storms occurred in the last six years. 
 
 " Where the time of rain-fall was less than an hour, 
 it is reckoned as having been an hour in falling." 
 
 During my direction of the draining work of the 
 Central Park in New York, there was gauged (on 
 the 13th of July, 1859) a sudden shower in which 
 between 5.15 P. M. and 5.45 P. M. two inches of 
 rain fell. 
 
 On the 30th and 31st of October, 1866, the Croton 
 Aqueduct Department gauged a rain storm in New 
 York which lasted for about five hours and meas- 
 ured four inches of rain. 
 
 Mr. Rowe, for a long time superintendent of sew- 
 ers in the Holborn and Finsbury District of London, 
 writing in defense of large sewers which he had con- 
 structed, says : — 
 
 " I have observed twenty-five cubic feet of water 
 per minute per acre reach the sewers from an inch 
 fall of rain in the hour, from a surface where the 
 houses have much garden ground attached ; and in 
 another case, where the houses were nearer together, 
 thirty-three cubic feet per acre per minute. That 
 greater falls of water do take place, and that not 
 unfrequently, is a well-known fact. I have known 
 ten instances of the kind during the period of my 
 observations" (twenty years). 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOE TOWN SEWERAGE. 133 
 
 It is a safe rule to estimate all sewage except 
 rain-fall at eight cubic feet per head of population 
 per day. Of this, one half will be discharged be- 
 tween nine A. M. and five P. M., equal to a flow of 
 five hundred cubic feet per hour for each thousand 
 of the population. 
 
 Sewers choke and overflow during heavy storms 
 mainly because they are too lai'ge for the work they 
 are ordinarily called on to perform. If a sewer is 
 so small that its usual 
 flow is concentrated to a 
 suSicient depth to carry 
 before it any ordinary 
 obstruction, it will keep 
 itself clean. But if, as 
 is almost always the case 
 where the engineer lacks 
 experience or where he 
 defers to the ignorance 
 of the local authorities, 
 it is so large that its 
 ordinary flow is hardly 
 more than a film, with 
 no power even to remove 
 sand, we may be quite , ^'S'^'-^ ^•~,?'?t '\'"™ ".* "! 
 
 ■' Tj large sewer filled by the gradual 
 
 sure that its refuse solid accumulation of silt until only suf- 
 
 matters will gradually ficient water-way is left for the 
 
 1 , jji i.T. smallest constant flow. 
 
 accumulate until they 
 
 leave, near the crown of the arch, only the space 
 needed for the smallest constant stream. And, in 
 order to make room for a rain-fall flow, the whole 
 
134 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 sewer will have to be cleared by the costly and 
 offensive process of removal by manual labor. A 
 smaller sewer would have been kept clear by its 
 own flow. 
 
 The shallower and broader the stream, the more 
 the friction against the bottom and sides and the 
 greater the retarding of velocity. A brick will 
 stand unmoved in a shallow stream of water run- 
 ning sluggishly through a fifteen-inch drain, while 
 if the same stream were concentrated into a five- 
 inch drain it would have so much greater depth, 
 force, and velocity, that the brick would be entirely 
 covered and swept away. 
 
 The passion for too large pipes seems to be an 
 almost universal one. The feeling is that it is best 
 to make the conduit " big enough anyhow," and as 
 a result, nearly every drain that is laid, in town or 
 country, is so much larger than is needful that the 
 cost of keeping it clean is often the most serious 
 item of cost connected with it. 
 
 One principle is very apt to be disregarded in 
 regulating the sizes of sewers ; that is, that after 
 water has once fairly entered a smooth conduit 
 having a fall or inclination towards its outlet, the 
 :'apidity of the flow is constantly accelerated up 
 to a certain point, and the faster the stream runs 
 the smaller it becomes ; consequently, although the 
 sewer may be quite full at its upper end, the 
 increasing velocity soon reduces the size of the 
 stream, and gives room for more water. It is 
 found possible, in practice, to make constant addi* 
 
AEEANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 135 
 
 bions to the volume of water flowing through a sewer 
 by means of inlets entering at short intervals, and 
 the aggregate area of the inlets is thus increased 
 to very many times the area of the sewer itself. 
 Where a proper inclination can be obtained, a pipe 
 eighteen inches in diameter makes an ample sewer 
 for a population of ten thousand. 
 
 It was formerly the custom with architects and 
 engineers to enlarge the area of any main pipe or 
 sewer in proportion to the sectional area of each 
 subsidiary drain delivering into it. But this is no 
 longer done, since it has become known that ad- 
 ditions to the stream increase its velocity, so that 
 there is no proportionate increase of its sectional 
 area. For example, the addition of eight junctions, 
 each three inches in diameter to a main line of four- 
 inch pipe, did not increase the sectional area of its 
 flow, but made the flow only more rapid and cleans- 
 ing. Ranger thus illustrates the average architect's 
 
 Figure 3, 
 
 A, 3-inch drop or soil pipe. 
 
 B, 9-inch intermediate drain (9 times the area of A). 
 
 C, 26-inch sewer (8^ times the area of B, and 75 times the area 
 aiA). 
 
136 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 metliod of draining a house and court. The reason 
 for making B so large is to prevent its choking, an 
 effect that its extra size is quite sure to produce. 
 
 The main sewer in Upper George Street, in Lon- 
 don, is five and one half feet high and three and 
 one half feet wide. In the bottom of this sewer 
 there was laid a twelve-inch pipe five hundred and 
 sixty feet long. A head-wall or dam was built at 
 the upper end of this, so that all the sewage had to 
 pass through the pipe. The whole area drained was 
 about forty-four acres (built area). The velocity 
 of the water in the pipe was found to be four and 
 one half times greater than on the bed of the old 
 sewer. The pipe contained no deposit, and during 
 rains stones could be heard rattling through it. 
 The force of water issuing from the pi})e kept the 
 bottom of the old sewer perfectly clean for about 
 twelve feet below its mouth. From this point bricks 
 and stones began to be deposited, and farther on 
 sand, mud, and other refuse, to the depth of several 
 inches. In one trial a quantity of sand, bricks, 
 stones, mud, etc., was put into the head of the pipe ; 
 the whole of this was passed clear through the pipe, 
 and much of it was deposited on the bottom of the 
 old sewer some distance from its end. The pipe was 
 rarely observed to be more than half full at its head. 
 It was found that the sum of the cross sections of 
 the house drains delivering to this half-full twelve- 
 inch pipe was equal to a circle thirty feet in diam- 
 eter. 
 
 Another experiment was made with a sewer in 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOE TOWN SEWERAGE. 137 
 
 Earl Street, which took the drainage from twelve 
 hundred average-sized London houses, the area oc- 
 cupied being forty-three acres of paved or covered 
 surface. It was three feet wide and had a sectional 
 area of fifteen feet, with an average fall of one in 
 one hundred and eighteen. The solid deposit from 
 the twelve hundred houses accumulated to the 
 amount of six thousand cubic feet per month (two 
 hundred and twenty-two cart-loads). A fifteen-inch 
 pipe placed in this sewer, with an inclination of one 
 in one hundred and fifty-three, kept perfectly clear 
 of deposit. The average flow from each house was 
 about fifty-one gallons per day, and, apart from 
 rain-fall, the twelve hundred houses would have 
 been drained by a five-inch pipe. It was estimated 
 that at that time (about twenty-five years ago) the 
 mere house drainage of the whole of London might 
 be discharged through a sewer three feet in diam- 
 eter; yet there is probably not a village of five 
 thousand inhabitants in the United States whose 
 magnates would be satisfied with a sewer of much 
 less size for their own purposes ; and a single hotel 
 in Saratoga has secured future trouble in the way 
 of the accumulation of raw material for the produc- 
 tion of poisonous sewer gas, by laying a drain for 
 its own use thirty inches in diameter. 
 
 A fifteen-inch sewer was formerly considered the 
 smallest size admissible for the drainage of a " man- 
 sion." Such a sewer, with a fall of one in one hun- 
 dred and twenty, or one inch in ten feet, would 
 drain nearly two hundred of the largest city houses ; 
 
138 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 and a nine-incli drain with the same inclination 
 would remove the house-drainage and storm water 
 from twenty such houses. 
 
 A curious example of the capacity of small pipes 
 was furnished in a case where a six-inch pipe was 
 laid for the drainage of one detached house. One 
 after another, as new houses were built, new drains 
 were connected with this same pipe, until, after a 
 time, it was found to be clean and in perfect action, 
 though carrying all the drainage of one hundred and 
 fifty houses. In a second instance a workman by 
 mistake used for the drainage of a large block of 
 houses a pipe which the architect had intended for 
 a single house, and it was found to work perfectly. 
 
 It may be taken as a rule that, with even a slight 
 fall, a well-constructed eighteen-inch pipe sewer is 
 ample for the drainage of an ordinary village area 
 containing seven or eight hundred houses. In one 
 instance a sewer of this size, having a fall of one in 
 one thousand, accumulated but little deposit, and 
 this was always removed by storms. In Tottenham 
 (London), a main sewer of nine-inch pipe, widening 
 to twelve-inch and afterward to eighteen-inch, and 
 having a fall of one in one thousand and sixty-two, 
 drained an area containing sixteen hundred houses. 
 Its ordinary current was two and one half miles per 
 hour, and brickbats introduced into it were carried 
 to the outlet. During ordinary continued rains it 
 was not more than half full half a mile from the 
 outlet, and at the outlet the stream was only twc 
 and three fourths inches deep. 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOE TOWN SEWERAGE. 139 
 
 Rats and vermin live and breed in large sewers, 
 never in small pipes. 
 
 "While these chapters were being prepared for 
 publication, the Sewer Commissioners of Saratoga 
 (the writer being employed as their consulting en- 
 gineer) completed a main sewer more than two miles 
 long, for the removal of the entire sewage, rain-fall, 
 and spi-ing-water drainage of that village. The ex- 
 perience with this work affords so pertinent an illus- 
 tration of the principles here advanced that it seems 
 worth while to refer to it. The village is large and 
 scattered, has an abundant water supply, is so 
 inclined that during showers its storm waters con- 
 centrate rapidly, and has, aside from its regular 
 population, five or six enormous hotels, entertain- 
 ing, when full, about as many thousand guests. 
 The village brook itself, being mainly supplied by 
 spring water flowing from various points over a 
 wide district, is always a considerable stream. As 
 it flowed through its old channel — a conduit with 
 rough, loosely-laid stone side- walls, and with a more 
 or less irregular bottom — its sectional area was 
 about five feet. During heavy rains it was some- 
 times thrice this. 
 
 From the very beginning of the work we encoun 
 tered the most violent opposition on the part of 
 many citizens, who believed that the sewer contem- 
 plated (circular, three feet in diameter) would be 
 entirely inadequate, not only for the removal of the 
 water of heavy rains, but even for the drainage of 
 •vhe hotels alone, or the carrying of the storm waters 
 
140 SAMTAEY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 alone ; and throughout its construction this main 
 sewer was derided as a " cat hole." We were con- 
 stantly, reminded that one hotel had a ftiain drain 
 eighteen inches in diameter, and another a drain two 
 and one half feet in diameter, and that it was mad- 
 ness, with these drains as our guide, to attempt to 
 accomplish the whole work with a three-foot sewer ; 
 especially as our fall was said to be slight, one foot 
 in four hundred feet. 
 
 On the 9th of July, 1875, the connections were 
 made with all of the hotels ; the village brook itself 
 was turned into the sewer at its head, and its insuffi- 
 ciency was to be demonstrated. After every avail- 
 able source of water had been drained, the depth of 
 flow in the upper part of the sewer was six and one 
 ,half inches. Nearer the outlet, where the water had 
 acquired its maximum velocity, it was only four and 
 one half inches. As this was not sufficient to wash 
 out the few loose boards carelessly left by the work- 
 men who had done the final pointing of the joints, 
 a hydrant was turned on at the upper end of the 
 sewer, with a full head, and it had the effect only 
 of raising the flow one inch at the upper end and 
 less than half an inch at the lower end of the sewer. 
 On the 10th there fell a violent thunder-shower, 
 flooding the street gutters until the water ran to the 
 top of the curb-stones, and when this flood had 
 reached the catch-basins and the open brook that 
 discharged into the head of the sewer, its only effect 
 was to raise the flow, at the highest point, less than 
 two inches, justifying the original opinion that a 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 141 
 
 two-foot sewer would haYe been more than adequate 
 for all that was required of it. On the 30th day of 
 August the entire village brook, with its tributaries 
 and its many springs, was turned into the three-foot 
 sewer, near the water-works, about one-half mile 
 beyond the outskirts of the village. The effect of 
 this addition was to increase the depth of flow in 
 the sewer from about six inches to nine inches, and 
 to increase the velocity of its stream from one hun- 
 dred and fifty feet per minute to one hundred and 
 eighty-five feet per minute. I can excuse my course 
 in recommending so large a sewer as one of three 
 feet, only by the fact that in the state of public 
 opinion then it would have been entirely impossible 
 to secure the making of anything smaller. Before 
 the introduction of the brook I examined the out- 
 let of the Grand Union Hotel, which had then about 
 eight hundred and fifty guests and four hundred and 
 fifty servants, or about thirteen hundred inmates in 
 all. There can hardly be fewer than one hundred 
 water-closets in the house, and the use of water in 
 this hotel seems to be in every way as copious as 
 possible. The hour of examination was ten in the 
 morning, at which time, as the landlord supposes, 
 the largest flow is running. By the most careful 
 measurement and estimate that I could make, the 
 amount of sewage then flowing from that hotel meas- 
 ured four and one half inches in sectional area, and 
 might have all been discharged by a two and one 
 half inch pipe. 
 
 Concerning the rate of fall necessary for the re- 
 
142 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 moval of ordinary road silt from sewers, Adams 
 gives the following table of inclination for pipes of 
 different sizes running half full ; based on careful 
 calculations and practical trials with, the sewerage 
 works of the city of Brooklyn. 
 
 For 6-inch pipes d, grade of 1 in 60. 
 For 9-mch pipes a grade of 1 in 90. 
 For 12-inch pipes a grade of 1 in 200. 
 For 15-inch pipes a grade of 1 in 250. 
 For 18-inch pipes a grade of 1 in 300. 
 For 24-inch pipes a grade of 1 in 400. 
 For 30-inch pipes a grade of 1 in 500. 
 For 36-inch pipes a grade of 1 in 600. 
 For 42-inch pipes a grade of 1 in 700. 
 For 48-iinch pipes a grade of 1 in 800. 
 
 When the direction changes, the friction is in- 
 creased, and the fall must be increased to com- 
 pensate for this. 
 
 When the lay of the land permits it, the most 
 rapid fall should be given at the upper end of the 
 sewer, where the quantity of water is least, and 
 where the greatest velocity is consequently needed 
 to secure a cleansing flow. 
 
 The object of giving an inclination or fall to the 
 sewer is to secure the velocity necessary for the re- 
 moval of such solid matters as may exist in the 
 sewage, but if the amount of water flowing is pro- 
 portionate to the size of the conduit, sewers of dif- 
 ferent sizes give the same velocity at different incli- 
 nations : for instance, a ten-foot sewer with a fall of 
 two feet per mile, a five-foot sewer with a fall of 
 four feet per mile, a two-foot sewer with a fall of 
 ten feet per mile, and a one-foot sewer with a fall 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 143 
 
 of twenty feet per mile, will have the same veloc- 
 ity, provided they are filled in proportion to their 
 capacity ; but the ten-foot sewer will require one 
 hundred times as much sewage as will the one-foot 
 sewer, and unless it carries a volume of water 
 proportioned to its capacity/, the velocity of its 
 stream will he correspondingly lessened. It be- 
 comes, therefore, especially important that the size 
 of the conduit be adjusted to the volume of the 
 stream, this being as important as the rate of incli- 
 nation in securing a cleansing flow, and being so 
 little understood that it cannot be too much em- 
 phasized in any attempt to bring the mechanism 
 of sewerage works to the notice of the general 
 public. 
 
 Latham gives a velocity of three feet per second 
 as the least that should be allowed for the outlet 
 drain of a house. A four-inch drain to secure this 
 flow should have a minimum inclination of one in 
 ninety-two ; a six-inch drain, one in one hundred 
 and thirty-seven ; a nine-inch drain, one in two 
 hundred and six ; and to attain a velocity of three 
 feet per second at these inclinations they must run 
 at least half full ; that is, the four-inch drain must 
 discharge 7.85 cubic feet per minute; six-inch 17.66 
 cubic feet per minute ; and nine-inch, 39.76 cubic 
 feet per minute. It is very seldom indeed that 
 even a large boarding-house discharges a flow equal 
 to 7.85 cubic feet per minute, and in practice, while 
 too large outlets should aways be avoided for house 
 grains, any such drain should have considerably 
 
144 SANITABY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 more than tlie minimum rate of fall indicated 
 above. 
 
 It cannot be too often reiterated that the great 
 purpose of modern water sewerage is to remove 
 immediately, entirely beyond the occupied portions 
 of a town, all manner of domestic waste and filth 
 before it has time to enter into decomposition ; 
 thus preventing an accumulation of dangerous 
 matter, and obviating the necessity for employing 
 men in the unwholesome work of hand-cleansing of 
 cess-pools and of sewers of deposit, which all sewers 
 are apt to become when materially too large for the 
 work they have to perform. 
 
 The pipe sewer has been so long in successful use 
 that there is no further- question of its value. Even 
 ten years ago, fifty miles of such pipe were made 
 per week in Great Britain alone. 
 
 Accuracy in form and joints, and smoothness of 
 surface, are very important. A perfectly round 
 pipe, accurately laid at the joints, will deliver, 
 under the same circumstances, fifty per cent, more 
 water than one of distorted form or with ill-fitting 
 joints. 
 
 Any roughness of surface as in even the best 
 made cement pipes, tends to catch hair and lint and 
 thus to form nuclei for accumulating obstructions, 
 sometimes so hard that they can be removed only 
 by forcible mechanical means. 
 
 With a well-constructed system of pipe sewers, 
 not too large for the work required of them, of 
 good form and surface, with perfect joints, with 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 145 
 
 only curved junctions, and with a well regulated 
 even if slight fall, every particle of the sewage of 
 the town may be delivered at the outlet, far away 
 from the built-up districts, long before any decom- 
 position of the refuse matter has set in ; though 
 occasional flushing may be necessary to cleanse the 
 sides of the pipes from slimy matters adhering to 
 them. 
 
 The material of the pipe should be a hard, vitre- 
 ous substance, not porous, since this would lead to 
 the absorption of the impure contents of the drain, 
 would have less actual strength to resist pressure, 
 would be more affected by frost or by the formation 
 of crystals in connection with certain chemical com- 
 binations, or would be more susceptible to the 
 chemical action of the constituents of the sew- 
 age. The best pipe known in our market is the 
 Scotch ; but some American work is very nearly as 
 good. 
 
 Much experience with cement sewer pipes seem 
 to demonstrate that they are not sufBciently uni- 
 form in quality, nor sufficiently strong and durable 
 to be used with confidence in any important work, 
 — whether public or private. 
 
 Sewer pipes should be salt-glazed, as this re- 
 quires them to be subjected to a much more intense 
 heat than is needed Tor slip-glazing, and thus secures 
 a harder material. 
 
 Pipes having a socket at one end should be fur- 
 nished with a gasket before being cemented, in 
 order that no cement may be pressed through into 
 
 10 
 
146 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 the bore of the sewer, to cause a disturbance of the 
 flow. Where there is danger of the penetration of 
 roots, as near elm-trees, the sewer should be bedded 
 in a sufficient thickness of concrete to prevent the 
 entrance of rootlets, which are sure to find and to 
 penetrate the smallest aperture. An entrance once 
 effected, a mass of fibres soon forms, sufficient to 
 retard or entirely to arrest the flow. 
 
 There has been patented in England a joint for 
 earthern-ware drains which is made by casting upon 
 the spigot and in the socket of each pipe, by means 
 of prepared molds, rings of good cement which will 
 make a tight fit and bring the bore exactly into 
 line. 
 
 A chief argument in favor of the use of pipes 
 rather than brick sewers lies in their greater essen- 
 tial cleanliness. Brick sewers are always offensive, 
 even though small, because their porous walls are 
 more or less permeated by the filth of their con- 
 tents. If (as is almost always the case) they are 
 too large, there will be the additional annoyance of 
 accumulations of refuse as foul and dangerous as 
 the contents of any cess-pool, prodticing poisonous 
 gases whicli are free to travel through the sewer 
 and all its branches. 
 
 FORMS OP SEWERS. 
 
 The desirable forms of sewers are three in num- 
 ber : the round, the elliptic, or egg-shaped, and that 
 with perpendicular walls, having a semi-circular roof 
 ind a hollowed floor. 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGP;. 147 
 
 The circular form gives the greatest sectional area 
 for the amount of wall required, and, therefore, the 
 greatest capacity for discharge. All sewers which 
 are at all well adapted in their size to the regular 
 daily work that they will' have to perform are best 
 made of circular shape, but where in addition to the 
 daily use provision has to be made for the removal 
 of the waters of heavy rains, so that at times a very 
 much greater capacity will be needed, the elliptical 
 form is to be preferred. 
 
 V 
 
 Figure 4. 
 
 Figure 4 illustrates the advantage of the elliptical 
 form for this purpose. The circle 1) C represents 
 a circular sewer twelve inches in diameter, which we 
 will suppose to be sufficient for the ordinary sew- 
 age of a district in which the minimum depth of 
 flow would be three inches. 
 
148 SANITARY DKAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 As there is ordinarily only this minimum flow, 
 and as it is desirable to preserve this depth in order 
 to cleanse the sewer, it would be unwise, in order to 
 secure the storm water capacity desired, to adopt a 
 large circular sewer in which, because of its greater 
 width, the minimum flow would be less than one 
 inch deep, — not sufficient in depth or velocity for 
 the removal of deposits. Therefore, in order to in- 
 crease the capacity as much as is necessary, instead 
 of enlai-ging the circle we preserve the bottom form, 
 C E C, remove the top of the circle and carry it up 
 to a height of thirty-six inches, its greatest width 
 being twenty-four inches. In this way we preserve 
 always our cleansing flow in a narrow and deep 
 channel and give the needed capacity for the re- 
 moval of storm waters. 
 
 Pipe sewers, which may be economically used up 
 to a size of eighteen inches diameter, should always 
 be round, — the slight warping to which earthen- 
 ware is subjected in burning being likely to throw 
 the ellipse out of its form, so that good joints can- 
 not be made, while with the circle we can at least 
 be sure of a perfect fitting in the water-way by 
 turning the truest side of the pipe to the bottom. 
 Larger sewers, if they have sufficient regular flow 
 to carry off all sedimentary matters, should still be 
 made round, as this form is the cheapest and the 
 strongest. 
 
 It is only when the flow is very irregular, and 
 when this is the only available means for securing 
 the proper cleansing minimum flow, that the egg 
 ^hR,ned should be adoT3ted. 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 149 
 
 The sewer with vertical sides and arched roof is to 
 be adopted only under exceptional circumstances, 
 when the minimum flow is always large, and where 
 great capacity is needed. 
 
 THE SEPABATB SYSTEM. 
 
 In what has been said, the carrying away of the 
 water of excessive floods to a separate point of out- 
 let, giving a more remote or more artificial outflow 
 to the regular sewage of the town, I am not to be 
 understood as indorsing all that its advocates claim 
 for what they call "The Separate System," which 
 is (theoretically) the carrying of all rain-fall and 
 all surface water away by one outlet, and the car- 
 carrying of the foul sewage (house waste, etc.) 
 through the regular system of pipes, delivering it 
 in a concentrated form for agricultural use. 
 
 Whatever advantage may arise to the farmer 
 from the fact that he receives his liquid manure in 
 a more concentrated form, and that it comes to him 
 in a regular daily quantity which he may more 
 readily arrange to use, there would be a more than 
 corresponding disadvantage to the public in the 
 fact that the house waste alone is not suflB.cient, 
 save perhaps where the grades are very steep, to 
 keep the sewers clean. Under ordinary circum- 
 stances, an attempt to make this disposition of the 
 sewage matters of a town would undoubtedly result 
 in the necessity for much artificial flushing and 
 cleansing, and to the danger of the frequent stop 
 page of smaller pipes and house drains. 
 
150 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 To keep all rain-fall out of the public sewers is 
 objectionable for more reasons than one, for no arti- 
 ficial flushing which can be depended on in practice 
 can be so efficient in cleansing the sewers as the 
 frequent introduction of a sufficient amount of rain 
 water. On the other hand, where it is practicable 
 to do so, the removal of the surface water of exces- 
 sive storms by some channel entirely separate from 
 the general system of sewerage has the great ad- 
 vantage of economy, while it often enables us to 
 secure within reasonable cost the more distant re- 
 moval of the foul sewage. (See note on page 171.^ 
 
 THE VENTILATION OE SEWEES. 
 
 All sewers must at least be vented, and for per- 
 fect security all ought to be well ventilated. It is 
 of the first importance to provide openings for the 
 escape of the contained air and gases when these 
 are compressed, either by a wind blowing into the 
 outlet or by the increase of the quantity of water 
 in the sewer from the rise of the tide or from heavy 
 rain-fall. Unless such precaution is taken, house 
 traps will surely be forced and sewer gas will surely 
 escape into dwellings. It is, however, hardly less 
 important that there should be such a free circula- 
 tion of air through the sewer as will prevent the 
 formation of those poisonous, mephitic gases which 
 are especially generated in the absence of a suffi- 
 cient supply of oxygen. 
 
 Latham says that unventilated sewers are fai 
 more dangerous than steam-engines without safety 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 151 
 
 valves. They contain in their air some quality 
 that is pestilential and dangerous to health, and 
 this can be disposed of or neutralized only by giv- 
 ing the air of the sewer a free communication with 
 the atmosphere. Typhoid fever is said rarely to 
 be absent from towns with unventilated sewers. 
 The constantly changing pressure upon the confined 
 air within these conduits acts in connection with 
 the draughts of chimneys and the force of winds 
 to cause the bubbling of house traps, accompanied 
 ■with an entrance of more or less of the sewer 
 emanations. 
 
 When the sevrerage works of Croydon were 
 nearly completed and the town was visited by an 
 epidemic of typhoid fever, the mortality rose from 
 18.53 per thousand to 28.57 per thousand. Al- 
 though it is probable that the only matters decom- 
 posing in the sewer were such as adhered to the 
 pipes (which were well flushed), there were fre- 
 quent outbreaks of fever until 1866. Diseases 
 which had formerly made their haunts in the 
 .ower parts of the town traveled by means of the 
 sewers and infected the higher districts. In 1866 
 the sewers were systematically ventilated, and since 
 that time there have been, until lately, no period- 
 ical outbreaks of fever, and, with a doubled popula- 
 tion, " the rate of mortality rarely exceeds eighteen 
 in the thousand, which is a standard of health un- 
 paralleled in the history of sanitary science for a dis- 
 trict having so large a population." Quite recently 
 «, serious epidemic of typhoid made its appearance 
 
152 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 owing to defects which were described in Chapter 
 II. 
 
 The principle of the ventilation of a sewer is 
 practically the same as that adopted by builders for 
 the prevention of dry-rot. The fungi which cause 
 this rot in timber cannot produce their germs in a 
 current of air, and if a sufficient number of ven- 
 tilating openings are made, communicating with 
 each other, the action of the wind from one side 
 or the other will cause a sufficient current. So in 
 a sewer, a continuous movement of the air in one 
 direction or the other carries away and dilutes sewer 
 gases, and if they contain germs of organic disease 
 capable of infecting the human blood, these are be- 
 lieved to be destroyed by oxidation or otherwise. 
 
 A safe sewer always has a current of air passing 
 through it, and if it contains sewage matters at 
 all, these also must be in constant motion. On this 
 incessant movement of the air and the liquid must 
 we rely for our only security. A solution of sugar 
 in water, remaining stagnant, and protected from a 
 free circulation of air, will enter into a vinous fer- 
 mentation. If well ventilated and agitated, no such 
 fermentation takes place. It is asserted that the 
 excrement of a typhoid patient, continually agitated 
 in contact with fresh air and a fair admixture of 
 water, passes through a series of complete chemical 
 changes, with no injurious product ; but if allowed 
 to remain stagnant, if not freely exposed to the air, 
 or if it gain access to human circulation before a 
 certain oxidation, it will, like a ferment, reproduce 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 153 
 
 tself, and give rise to the conditions under which 
 it was itself produced. Motion and aeration are 
 therefore needed to prevent infection, which is sure 
 to be generated when typhoid evacuations are con- 
 fined and stagnant. Unventilated and badly con- 
 structed sewers are sure agents for the propagation 
 of the disease, when once it has taken root. 
 
 The resulting gases of sewer decomposition are 
 the vehicle or medium for the conveyance of infec- 
 tion, and from their lightness they give rise to a 
 rapid diffusion owing to the eagerness with which 
 they seek means of escape at the higher parts of 
 the sewer system, that is, in house drains, soil pipes, 
 etc. It may not be possible entirely to prevent the 
 development of the poison in even the best ar- 
 ranged sewer, but it is possible, by a free admission 
 of air, to supply the oxygen which will take away 
 its sting and render it harmless. Sewers which 
 have large and frequent openings at the street sur- 
 face, and through which the liquid contents have 
 a constant flow, may give forth offensive smells, 
 but, if they have proper attention, sanitary evils do 
 not often result. 
 
 Sewer gas, when largely diluted on its escape 
 (at frequent intervals) into the air of the street, is 
 probably nearly or quite innoxious, but when it 
 forces its way into the limited atmosphere of a 
 closed living-room, the poison, or the germs of dis- 
 ease accompanying it, may easily work their fatal 
 effects. 
 
 Sulphuretted hydrogen is found in all sewers in 
 
154 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 which the sewage itself or' the mucous matters ad- 
 hering to the pipe assume a certain "degree of putrid- 
 ity in the absence of a sufficient supply of fresh air. 
 This gaa is extremely poisonous ; so much so that 
 one part of the gas to two hundred and fifty parts 
 of atmospheric air will kill a horse. At one half 
 this intensity it will kill a dog. A rabbit was killed 
 by having its body immersed in a bag of it, although 
 its head was not inclosed and it could breathe pure 
 air freely. 
 
 One of the most frequent sources of pressure upon 
 the air within a sewer is the increase of temperature 
 arising from the hot water escaping from kitchens 
 and baths. The repeated expansions and contrac- 
 tions caused by the admission of hot and cold water 
 produce a constant effect on all water traps connect- 
 ing with unventilated sewers. With ventilation, 
 the breathing in and out, as the air of the sewer 
 contracts or expands, does not affect the water traps, 
 because an easier passage is found through the ven- 
 tilators. 
 
 The constantly changing volume of water in many 
 sewers, as has been before stated, exerts a powerful 
 influence on the confined air. As the water rises it 
 reduces the air space, and if it reduces this to one 
 half, it brings to bear upon the air a pressure equal 
 to a column of water thirty-four feet in height, and 
 this pressure is relieved by a forcing out of air 
 through the most available channel, — the channel 
 where there is the least resistance ; if there is no 
 other vent, a sufficient number of water traps must 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 155 
 
 be forced to allow the pressure to become reduced. 
 It being reduced, and the water falling again to a 
 lower level, a vacuum is created which must be sup- 
 plied by air forcing the traps in a reverse direction, 
 and in either case the forced trap may remain open 
 for the free passage of foul air until another use fills 
 it with water. In the ebb and flow, too, a part of 
 the perimeter of the sewer is made alternately wet 
 and dry, with an accompanying production of vapor 
 and gas. 
 
 As the chief domestic use of sewers is between 
 morning and noon, and as at this time the most hot 
 water passes into them, the pressure on the air in 
 the sewer is during this period increased both by an 
 elevation of the temperature and by a reduction of 
 the air space. Then, from about noon until the next 
 morning, the quantity of the flow decreases, the air- 
 space increases, the temperature falls, and more air 
 must be admitted to supply the partial vacuum 
 created. Such fluctuations are constantly occurring, 
 accompanied with a drawing in and forcing out of 
 air, for which ample passage must be made inde- 
 pendently of the water traps of houses, or sewer gas 
 will surely enter them. Where proper air vents are 
 provided, this ebb and flow of the sewer may be in- 
 creased, with great advantage in the matter of ven- 
 tilation, by artificial flushing arrangements which 
 will allow the water to be dammed back and released 
 at frequent intervals. 
 
 The movement of the air in and out of the sewer 
 is also affected by barometric changes. 
 
156 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Where proper ventilation is furnished there will 
 be an advantage in exposing the outlets of sewers to 
 the direct action of the wind, but where there is not 
 sufficient vent for escape, such outlets should, as has 
 been stated, always be screened against strong cur- 
 rents of air. 
 
 Numerous experiments have been made with tall 
 chimneys and fires, having for their purpose the 
 creation of a strong draught from the sewer, but 
 these are said in England never to have worked sat- 
 isfactorily, and to be in no case recommended, being 
 both expensive and troublesome. In Frankfort, on 
 the contrary, such ventilating shafts are used with 
 apparent good effect. 
 
 By reason of the causes constantly at work tend- 
 ing to the increase and decrease of the pressure of 
 the air in the sewer, this variation may safely be 
 depended on to furnish all needed ventilation, if 
 only sufficient openings are provided from which air 
 can pass in and out at frequent intervals. 
 
 Ventilation by rain-water pipes from the eaves of 
 houses has often been recommended, but experience 
 has shown that it is unsatisfactory, not only because 
 it frequently discharges sewer gas near the windows 
 if sleeping-rooms, but because at the time when 
 ventilation is much needed these pipes are not avail- 
 able ; either being filled with a rush of water or else 
 having such a rapid downward current as to move 
 the air toward the sewer rather than away from it, 
 or because, from the position at which rain-watet 
 \nlets are often introduced into sewers, these are en- 
 
AKRANGING PLANS FOE TOWN SEWERAGE. 157 
 
 birely closed when there is a large amount of sewage 
 flowing, — as during heavy rains, when ventilation 
 is especially demanded. 
 
 This system was adopted during the early days of 
 the Croydon work, and was rigorously pursued. 
 In 1860 such ventilation was compulsory in all cases. 
 The mortality was very much increased until a bet- 
 ter system was adopted in 1866, when the death- 
 rate fell again to its old standard. 
 
 In "Hints on House Drainage," by Dr. Carpen- 
 ter of Croydon, we are told, with reference to fatal 
 epidemics of typhoid fever, that the illness dated 
 from two distinct times, at both of which, with a 
 high temperature and a stifling atmosphere, there 
 was a heavy fall of rain. " I do not mean to assert 
 that each case commenced immediately after the 
 rain-fall, but in upwards of twenty fatal cases into 
 the history of which I examined, the commencement 
 curiously ran up to two distinct dates, and of many 
 slighter cases the patients stated that they had iiot 
 felt %vell about the same periods." One case oc- 
 curred in his own house. The water-pipe ventilators 
 being closed by the rain water, and the air in the 
 sewers being compressed by the increased volume of 
 the flow, the gas forced the water trap of his soil 
 oipe and escaped into his tank room, where the 
 upper end of the ventilator was used as an overflow 
 pipe for the cistern. This air ascended to a room 
 occupied by two persons, botn of whom were at- 
 tacked with typhoid fever. There were no other 
 <!ases in the house. 
 
158 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 After all the experiments that have been tried 
 with shafts, furnaces, mechanical blowers, steam jets, 
 electricity, etc., the most experienced engineers have 
 settled upon more frequent ventilation, by means of 
 man-holes and lamp-holes opening at the centres of 
 streets, as in all respects the best and safest. If 
 these openings are suificiently frequent and large, 
 there is such an easy and thorough circulation of 
 air in the sewer that the concentration of poisonous 
 or of offensive gases is prevented, and their escape 
 into the open air takes place at a point where they 
 will be more diluted before reaching the sidevs^alks 
 or the houses than if withdrawn by any other means 
 yet devised. By the use of the charcoal ventilators 
 described below, so arranged as to give free vent at 
 their openings, it has been claimed that all practi- 
 cal danger or objection may be obviated. On the 
 other hand, it is held by many competent author- 
 ities that even the best of these ventilators, while 
 they do good as disinfecting agents, are objection- 
 able as retarding the free circulation of air into and 
 out of the sewer, which is the sovereign remedy for 
 all the evil arising from the decomposition of the 
 foul contents. 
 
 The great safety lies in the dilution of the gases 
 by the free admission of air, and by their escape, 
 when they escape at all, into the open air as far 
 as possible from the house line. The effect of di- 
 lution is fully shown in fever hospitals ; formerly, 
 the mortality among both patients and attendants 
 was frightful to contemplate ; but now, although 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOE TOWN SEWERAGE. 159 
 
 the ventilation is often far from complete, the con- 
 dition of the patients themselves is much improved, 
 and contagion is almost done away with ; so much so 
 that if an attendant contracts the disease it is taken 
 as clear evidence that there has not been a sufficient 
 dilution of the exhalations from the patients, or, in 
 other words, that the ventilation has been imperfect. 
 
 The absorbing and disinfecting power of charcoal 
 fully sustains its reputation. Latham quotes the 
 following from Professor Musprat : " The absorb- 
 ing powers of charcoal are so great that some have 
 doubted whether it is really a disinfectant. This 
 opinion has probably arisen from imperfect views of 
 its modus operandi, since it not only imbibes and 
 destroys all offensive exhalations and oxidizes many 
 of the products of decomposition, but there is 
 scarcely a reasonable ground of doubt remaining 
 that it does really possess the property of a true dis- 
 infectant, acting by destroying those lethal com- 
 pounds upon which infection depends." 
 
 Strictly speaking, the charcoal is simply an ap- 
 paratus by which a natural process is carried on in 
 an intensified form. It has the two important 
 qualities of condensing upon the surfaces of its 
 inner particles eight or ten times its volume of oxy- 
 gen, and of attracting to itself all manner of other 
 gases. It is not necessary that sewer gas be 
 brought into direct contact with it by external 
 pressure. By the operation of the law of the dif- 
 fusion of gases, the impurities of the air next to 
 <he charcoal being absorbed, remoter impurities 
 
160 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS 
 
 How to this space and are in turn taken up, until 
 the contents of a close room may be entirely 
 purified by a small dish of charcoal. The oxygen 
 that consumes or burns up the organic matter is 
 speedily replaced from the atmosphere, and the con- 
 stant efficiency of the apparatus is thus maintained. 
 The clogging of the pores of the charcoal with 
 dust, or their saturation with water, prevents this 
 action, and charcoal that has become wet or foul 
 must be dried or burned in a retort before it be- 
 comes again perfect in its action. If charcoal venti- 
 lators are so situated as to keep dry and free from 
 dust, they will not require changing or reburning 
 more often than once a year. 
 
 The efficiency of even a small quantity of, char- 
 coal will be understood when we remember Liebig's 
 statement, that a cubic inch of beech-wood char- 
 coal contains a 
 surface of inte- 
 rior particles 
 equal to one hun- 
 dred square feet. 
 The especial 
 adaptability of 
 charcoal to use in 
 sewer ventilators 
 is further shown 
 by the fact that 
 it absorbs gases 
 contained in or 
 accompanied by the vapor of water (as they always 
 
 Figure 5. — Latham's charcoal ventilator 
 for sewer and man-holes. 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOE TOWN SEWERAGE. 161 
 
 escape from the sewer) much more readily than 
 those which are dry. 
 
 Several forms of charcoal ventilators have been 
 devised. The best of them seems to be that of Mr. 
 Baldwin Latham, which is a type of the class, all of 
 which work on essentially the same principle. It 
 is illustrated in the accompanying diagrams (Figs. 
 5, 6). The central cover, C, which is of wood, pro- 
 tects the charcoal from rain or water used in sprink- 
 ling the streets ; ^ is a grating out- asTk^i 
 side of the closed part, through which — ^-j-jmi!! 
 
 the air escapes from the sewer or is 
 drawn into it. Under this grating 
 is a dirt-box surrounding the venti- 
 lator and intended to catch dirt fall- 
 ing through the grating. There is Eigui-c 6.— The 
 
 n ^ r<x 1 charcoal tray for 
 
 an overflow (*S) arranged to carry Latham's ventiia- 
 to the sewer all water reaching the ""'■ 
 dirt-boxes. The spiral tray t is made of galvanized 
 wire-cloth and is filled with charcoal ; it is screwed 
 into the ventilator over the spiral trough S by means 
 of the handle h. 
 
 The arrangement of this disinfector is such that 
 all air escaping from the sewer must pass either 
 through the charcoal or through the spiral passage 
 between layers of charcoal. If the layers become 
 so obstructed by dust that a free passage through 
 them is not afforded for the air, there is still an 
 easy vent through the spiral open spaces. The 
 charcoal is thoroughly protected against dirt and 
 wet, and will remain effective for a long time, apd 
 11 
 
162 SANITARY DEAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 bhe arrangement is such that there can be no in- 
 terruption of the working by the accumulations in 
 the dirt-boxes, nor by the overflow of the water 
 escaping from them. The sewer gas is all brought 
 into close contact with charcoal, and has no possible 
 means for escape except through the protected 
 channels intended for it. The spiral tray should 
 be filled with charcoal broken to about the size of 
 marbles, and if care is taken in screening out its 
 finer dust, it will afford a very permeable passage 
 for gas. The dirt-box can be easily taken out and 
 dumped, and readily replaced. 
 
 Ventilators should be closer together in the lower 
 and filthier parts of a town than on higher lands or 
 steeper inclines. 
 
 Mr. Latham thinks that they should never be 
 more than two hundred yards apart. He advises 
 renewing the charcoal once a month. Five hundred 
 and sixty-two sets of his apparatus were used in 
 Croydon. Their total cost, including labor, new 
 charcoal, fuel for reburning, etc., made a charge of 
 less than one dollar and twenty-five cents per annum 
 for each. The charcoal is reburned in iron retorts 
 having small pipes to carry away the escaping gases. 
 
 The usefulness of the charcoal ventilators is dem- 
 onstrated by the fact that in Croydon the written 
 complaints of smells from certain sewers coincided 
 with the absence of the trays (taken out for re- 
 pairs), and the cause of the complaint was removed 
 ■y replacing them. 
 
 I am informed that notwithstanding the succesa 
 
AEKANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 163 
 
 of these ventilators in Croydon, they are (there as 
 elsewhere) being removed for the sake of giving a 
 freer passage by simple open grating at the man- 
 holes. It may therefore be assumed that however 
 useful charcoal trays may be in cases where it is 
 necessary to have ventilating openings close to 
 houses, it will be best to dispense with them in street 
 sewers, — trusting, i-ather, to the less obstructive 
 communication through open gratings. (See note 
 on page 171.) 
 
 On steep grades, where there would be a tendency 
 for the air of the sewer to be drawn toward the 
 ventilators on the highest land, discharging at this 
 point an amount of gas that should be distributed 
 along the whole street, it is well to place a light 
 hanging valve in front of each outlet into a man- 
 hole. Such a valve will not obstruct the flow of 
 the sewage, -while it will prevent the air below from 
 finding its way up the drain, compelling it to escape 
 at its own ventilator. 
 
 Where the ventilators used are not in connection 
 with man-holes, they should rise, not from the 
 crown of the sewer itself, but from a recess or cham 
 ber carried up to the height of a foot or more. Into 
 this recess the sewer air will naturally rise instead 
 of passing on up the line, as it would be likely to do 
 were there only a small ventilator-opening to divert 
 it. 
 
 With a free ventilation through the soil pipes at 
 every house, there is an immense preponderance of 
 area in favor of the vertical escapes, and these are 
 
164 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 heated to create a strong upward current. In a dis- 
 trict containing a population of fifty thousand there 
 would probably be ten thousand of these vertical 
 openings, with a combined area equal to from 
 twenty to forty times the area of the sewer at its 
 mouth, so that their action would result more or less 
 generally in the drawing in of air at the street open- 
 ings ; a fact which is sufficiently proved in Croydon, 
 by the accumulation of dust in dry weather in the 
 charcoal-baskets with which the street openings are 
 furnished. Where the orifice is a continuous exit, 
 — that is, where there is no inward draught of 
 air, — the charcoal remains black in spite of dusty 
 streets. 
 
 It is a frequent practice with engineers to admit 
 house drains at a very low point in the wall of the 
 sewer, where they will ordinarily be entirely sub- 
 merged. This renders such connections inoperative 
 as a means for ventilating the sewer, and the venti- 
 lation of the soil pipes of houses so connected will 
 consequently be of no avail as a part of the public 
 system of ventilation. If the drain has no ingress 
 for air at its lower end, the ventilation of the soil 
 pipe itself will be much less complete ; the pent-up 
 gases arising from the decomposition of the con- 
 tained organic matters may escape, but there will 
 be little of the needed circulation of air in the pipe. 
 With a free sweep of air from below, this decompo- 
 sition would not take place in a pent-up condition, 
 but would be carried on with a full supply of con- 
 stantly changing atmosphere. Under these circum- 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 165 
 
 stances the ventilation of the street sewer would 
 have to depend upon its street openings alone. In 
 a perfect system these should even play a somewhat 
 secondary part, acting more as a means for the inlet 
 of fresh air to supply the higher ventilators than as 
 a means of escape for the air of the sewer itself. 
 
 All manner of chemicals used for disinfecting 
 sewer gas are objectionable, from their unpleasant 
 odor, their own injurious character, the constant 
 attention their use demands, their inefficiency and 
 their expense ; nothing has yet been discovered that 
 can at all compare with the simple use of wood 
 charcoal. 
 
 THE FLUSHING AND CLEANSING OF SEWEES. 
 
 It is an important condition of all properly con- 
 structed sewers that they should be kept at all times 
 entirely free from sedimentary deposit and from the 
 adhesion of foul and slimy matters to their side 
 walls. Theoretically, this cleanly condition should 
 be absolute ; practically, we must endeavor to ap- 
 proach as near to it as possible. 
 
 In practice, perfection in this respect is rarely to 
 be attained throughout the whole series of sewers 
 of a town. It will more or less often become nec- 
 essary to resort to some artificial means for remov- 
 ing sedimentary deposits, and for washing the walls 
 of sewers which have become coated with slime, — 
 the deposition of which is one of the evils to be 
 guarded against on the score of health. 
 
 If from imperfect construction, from too great 
 
166 SANITARY DEAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 size, from lack of flow, or from any other cause, the 
 Bswers do not keep themselves clean with their nat- 
 ural flow, then it becomes absolutely necessary that 
 their deposits be removed either by hand labor or 
 by flushing with copious floods of water. The less 
 this is needed, of course the better, but if needed it 
 is quite imperative. 
 
 The purpose of all flushing is to create a flow of 
 suflicient depth to be thoroughly cleansing, and to 
 keep it up for a long enough time to wash away all 
 accumulated matters. 
 
 For small sewers, where an intermittent sudden 
 addition of a few cubic feet of water to the natural 
 flow would be sufficient to keep the line clean, a 
 tumbler tank set on trunions directly in the line of 
 the sewer and in connection with the man-hole will 
 be useful. The accompanying illustration (Figure 
 7) of such an apparatus is taken from Latham's 
 " Sanitary Engineering," where it is thus described : 
 
 " When empty, this tank would remain level, as 
 the portion B behind the trunion is heavier than 
 the portion A before the trunion, but when the 
 tank fills with water or sewage the portion A be- 
 comes the heaviest, and the consequence is the tank 
 tilts, discharging its contents into the sewer below, 
 and afterwards righting itself ready to receive a 
 fresh charge." 
 
 The tank should be made of cast iron, and its 
 end, as it falls in either direction, should be received 
 on wood, rather than on stone or metal. 
 
 Special flushing appliances are frequently re- 
 
AEEANGING PLANS FOE TOWN SEWERAGE. 167 
 
 quired. These appliances are Dams ; Reservoirs ; 
 Tidal Basins ; the use of Street Hydrants, etc. Each 
 of these may have its special advantages for special 
 circumstances. 
 
 Dams are obstructions placed in the sewers for 
 holding back to a greater or less extent the sewage 
 coming from above until its volume shall become 
 
 Figure 7. 
 
 sufficient (on the removal of the dam) to wash 
 clean all that part of the line lying below them. 
 Dams may be either elaborate cast or wrought iron 
 appliances (sometimes with gun-metal facings) or 
 any cheaper, or simpler contrivance, down to a 
 pimple wooden gate to be raised or lowered from 
 the mouth of a man-hole. The dam may close the 
 
168 SANITARY DEAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Bewer entirely, or only partially. Where the grade 
 is slight so that the damming back of the water to 
 half the diameter of the sewer will set it back for a 
 long distance, giving in this way sufl&cient volume, 
 a half-dam will suffice, and it has the advantage, 
 that if forgotten or neglected the flow of the sewer 
 will not be totallj'^ obstructed, there being sufficient 
 
 Figure 8. 
 
 w ater way left over the top of the dam. Where it 
 is necessary to choke the flow entirely and to close 
 the whole sewer with a dam, a special overflow way 
 should be provided, in order that if this dam is not 
 removed in time, there can still be an escape for the 
 accumulation from above to avoid the danger that 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 169 
 
 tbe sewage will set back into the house drains. The 
 modifications of the system of damming and the 
 variety of apparatus for preventing the set back of 
 the dammed sewage into lateral branches or house 
 drains are so various, and the requirements for them 
 differ so much with different circumstances, that it 
 is hardly worth while to describe them minutely 
 here. 
 
 As an illustration of such apparatus, the pipe 
 sewer dam in connection with man-holes, shown in 
 Figure 8, is taken from Latham, who thus describes 
 its action : — 
 
 " For small sewers the author has used an earth- 
 en-ware flushing block which is built into the head 
 of every sewer running out of a man-hole as shown 
 at A. These flushing blocks have a ground face 
 against which a wooden disk, B, is placed. The 
 presence of the water tends to fix the disk in its 
 position, and the disk is connected to a chain. To 
 guard against neglect, the float c is fixed on the 
 chain, so that if the disk is left fixed in the sewer 
 or as soon as the man-hole fills with sewage to such 
 an extent that the float begins to swim by its power 
 of floatation, it liberates the wooden disk from the 
 mouth of the sewer, and the sewage escapes to the 
 lower level." 
 
 Reservoirs are frequently useful for the accumu- 
 lation of either sewage or extraneous water in 
 greater or less quantities, to be ultimately set free 
 to flood the sewers. Frequently the water of a 
 brook or a storm flow may be used to supply these 
 
170 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 reservoirs, — which have the advantage that their 
 conteuts may be retained for any desired time, and 
 let loose whenever flusliiiig is most required. 
 
 Tidal basins (or tidal reservoirs) are receptacles 
 to be filled by the high tide, and let loose at low 
 tide, and are chiefly useful at the upper ends of 
 long flat grades emptying into tide water. By 
 their means even absolutely level sewers may be 
 kept quite clean from deposit. 
 
 Street hydrants are useful for large sewers when 
 used in combination with dams or reservoirs, and for 
 smaller lateral sewers by their direct flow. 
 
 The arrangement of these flushing appliances, 
 one or more, or all of them being useful according 
 to circumstances, must of course depend upon the 
 conditions obtaining in different localities. There 
 are few towns where some or all of them are not 
 needed for the comparatively satisfactory working 
 of tlae sewers. 
 
 In New York, in 1867, the cost of cleansing about 
 two hundred miles of pipe sewers was only one hun- 
 dred and twenty-five dollars. 
 
 The following extract from a statement made by 
 the engineer for the construction of sewers of the 
 city of New York (published February 3, 1873), 
 illustrates the comparative foulness of brick sewers 
 and pipe sewers : — 
 
 " The usual price of cleaning sewers by hand is 
 about $2.50 per load, and while under good sewer 
 Bystem solid deposits should be carried off with 
 the flow, the city has been yearly paying from 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOB TOWN SEWERAGE. 171 
 
 r,000 to 116,000 per year to remove them. It 
 is notorious that persons who, under the old Tam- 
 many regime, had contracts for cleaning these sew- 
 ers, finding it profitable to remove the deposits at 
 $2.50 per load, were in the habit of putting ob- 
 structions in the sewers with a view of creating 
 solid deposits. The present commissioner of public 
 works has, however, put a stop to all this, and last 
 3''ear reduced the cost of cleaning the sewers to 
 $14,412, against |44,690 for the year 1871. The 
 following table, furnished by Engineer Towle, 
 shows the comparative cost of cleaning brick and 
 pipe sewers from 1867 to 1871 inclusive. The 
 water supply having increased last year, the de- 
 partment has resorted to the flushing process, and 
 two or three nights per week the water from the 
 hydrants has been let into the sewers, reducing the 
 expense of cleaning for the year to f 14,000. 
 
 Note to page 150. — By the use of Field's Sewer Flushing Tank, it 19 
 no longer necessav}' to rely on rain-fall for this work. 
 
 Note to page 163. — More recent experience has clearly shown the 
 advantage, save in special cases, of depending exclusively on open ven- 
 tilation at the man-hole, rather than to obstruct the flow of air by the 
 interposition of charcoal screens 
 
172 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
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AREANGING PLANS FOE TOWN SEWERAGE. 173 
 
 It was formerly supposed that with pipe sewers 
 not too large for the amount of liquid they were to 
 carrjr, there would be no necessity for flushing, and 
 BO far as sedimentary deposits are concerned this is 
 usually true ; but a slimy coating often forms on 
 the wall of the pipe and enters into decomposition, 
 generating objectionable sewer gases. For this rea- 
 son, all pipes used for house drainage only should 
 be so arranged that they can be occasionally flushed 
 out with a good flow of fresh water ; but where rain- 
 fall is admitted from roadways and from the roofs 
 of houses, additional flushing will not, generally, be 
 needed, except during epidemics, or in dry, hot sea- 
 sons. At such times there is always a great advan- 
 tage in frequent flushing, and occasional disinfection. 
 
 In flushing, always begin with the lower part of 
 the system, nearest to the outlet, and work back 
 toward the heads of the lines, so that there shall be 
 no danger that, deposit already existing in the lower 
 parts will stop that coming from above in such a 
 way as to cause the complete choking of the channel. 
 
 Hand cleansing is to be avoided whenever possi- 
 ble, and the circumstances are few under whicli it 
 is necessary to construct a system of sewers in which 
 this costly and objectionable process will be re- 
 quired. It is now and then inevitable. 
 
 STEEBT GTJLLTES. 
 
 So far as it is a part of the plan to take surface 
 rain-water into the sewers, proper openings must be 
 made at street corners, or elsewhere, according to the 
 
174 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 rapidity of the inclination of the gutter, the location 
 of the lowest point of the grade, the extent of sur- 
 face to be drained, the frequency with which it is de- 
 sirable to establish flushing points, and other consid- 
 erations which may arise under certain circumstances. 
 These street openings should not be used as sewer 
 ventilators, that is to say, that they should be well 
 trapped in order to prevent the air of the sewer from 
 escaping at the side of the foot-way. In addition 
 to their trapping they should be provided with some 
 form of receptacle for the arresting of the sand and 
 other heavy detritus washed from the roadway. 
 Various devices have been adopted to secure the 
 
 admission of sur- 
 face water from 
 ^^^^A glitters to the sew- 
 er without allow- 
 ing the escape of 
 sewer gas. These 
 are usually ar- 
 ranged with a 
 deep recess below 
 the outlet for the 
 accumulation of 
 sand and silt 
 washed from the 
 roadway, and with 
 some form of 
 water trap. Their 
 construction in our northern climate should have 
 careful reference to a severe action of the frost, and 
 
 Figure 9. 
 
 Catcb-basin for admitting 
 street wasb. 
 
AERANGING PLANS FOE TOWN SEWERAGE. 175 
 
 00 plan that has come under my notice seems so 
 well adapted for this as one used by Mf . J. Herbert 
 Shedd, the engineer of the sewerage in the city of 
 Providence, the arrangement of which is shown in 
 the accompanying diagrams. The trap for sealing 
 
 Figuve 10. — 8ide view of 
 catch-basiu trap. 
 
 Figure 11. — Top view of 
 catch-basin trap. 
 
 the outlet is made of cast-iron, hinged with a copper 
 bolt. It is firmly attached to the side of the basin 
 with cement, and, if disturbed by frost, is simply 
 torn loose from the brick-work, and can be easily 
 cemented to its place in the spring. 
 
 MAN-HOLES AND LAMP-HOLES. 
 All sewers should be provided with man-holes for 
 ventilation and for service during examination ; and 
 pipe drains should have, between the man-holes, and 
 at every point where the vertical or horizontal direc- 
 tion of the sewer is changed, lamp-holes, at the bot- 
 
176 SANITAEY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 torn of which lanterns may be suspended which will 
 enable the line to be examined from the nearest 
 man-hole. The removal of all such obstructions ac- 
 cumulating in pipe drains as cannot be washed out 
 by flushing is effected by various instruments at- 
 tached to jointed rods, like chimney-sweep tools, 
 which serve as handles, enabling them to be used 
 even at a distance of several hundred feet. 
 
 The man-hole is a shaft or chimney built up from 
 the sewer to the surface of the street, having an 
 opening large enough for men to enter for work 
 and some provision for steps to enable them to de- 
 scend easilJ^ 
 
 Lamp-holes are smaller shafts which may be fur- 
 nished with vitrified pipe reaching to the surface of 
 the street, with an opening sufficiently large to al- 
 low a lantern to be lowered into the sewer. As all 
 sewers should be straight (vertically and laterally), 
 between all man-holes and lamp-holes (except in 
 rounding corners), by sighting from a man-hole to 
 a lamp-hole, the workman can easily determine 
 whether the sewer is obstructed or free. 
 
 Man-holes and lamp-holes are generally covered 
 ivith tight cast-iron caps, but it would be better in 
 all cases to substitute for these strong iron gratings 
 with the largest possible air spaces, the cover being 
 raised very slightly above the grade of the street in 
 order that there shall be no surface flow into it. 
 And, even when this is done, it is often advisable to 
 make a recess or catch-pit in the bottom of the 
 sewer under the man-hole, to retain any earth 
 
AERANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWEBAGK. 177 
 
 entering through the grating. The advantage of 
 the grating over the close cover is, that it gives the 
 best means of ventilating the sewer that has yet 
 been devised. 
 
 PEIVATE DRAINS. 
 
 The public sewer or drain may properly afford 
 an outlet to the land drainage of private property, 
 but before reaching the public drain, this should 
 pass through at least two rods of sub-main drain 
 laid under the direction of the public engineer, and 
 trapped as he may direct for the exclusion of silt or 
 refuse. This sub-main should deliver its water into 
 the public drain as nearly as possible in the di- 
 rection of the flow of the latter, so that the streams 
 may run together without confusion, and the dan- 
 ger from eddies be obviated. Drains from houses 
 and all private establishments should be connected 
 with the sewer under similar official regulation, and 
 should enter at sufficient height to act as ventilators 
 of the sewer, — their own ventilation being aided 
 by this means for the entrance of air from below. 
 
 SEWER JUNCTIONS. 
 
 The character of the junctions of main and tribu- 
 tary sewers has much influence on their capacity. 
 It has been found that when equal quantities of 
 water were running in two sewers, each in a direct 
 line, at a rate of ninety seconds, if their junction 
 was at right angles their discharge was effected 
 only in one hundred and forty seconds, while if it 
 
178 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 met with a gentle curve, the discharge was effected 
 in one hundred seconds. 
 
 In one recorded instance, a pipe, having been 
 gorged by reason of a right-angled junction, which 
 kept the velocity of its flow down to one hundred 
 and twenty-two feet per minute, had its flow in- 
 creased to two hundred and eight feet per minute, 
 and the difficulty entirely removed by making the 
 junction on a curve of sixty feet radius. The same 
 objection holds with right-angled junctions falling 
 vertically into the sewer. In this case, as in tlie 
 other, the inlet should be on a curved line ; but ver- 
 tical junctions are usually objectionable. 
 
 Frequent junctions are of great advantage. Ex- 
 periment has shown that, with a pipe having a fall 
 of one in sixty, its capacity, with junctions at fre- 
 quent intervals, is more than three times what it 
 would be if flowing only from a full head at the up- 
 per end of the pipe. In sewers of larger sizes the 
 capacity is increased more than eight times. 
 
 TIDE VALVES. 
 
 In all cases where the outlet of the sewer is the 
 level of tide water, it is considered desirable to es- 
 tablish some form of valve or dam which shall pre- 
 vent the tide from setting back into the sewer. 
 
 For large sewers, the most available form of tide 
 gate seems to be that used in the case of canal 
 locks, — two gates swinging together by the pressure 
 from without, and holding back the rising waters ; 
 opening as soon as these waters recede below the 
 
ARRANGING PLANS FOR TOWN SEWERAGE. 179 
 
 level of the sewage within. All discharging of sew- 
 age below the level of high water is to be avoided 
 whenever possible, unless for the removal of storm 
 waters ; for although the ebb and flow of the tide 
 in a sewer suffices to keep the part thus traversed 
 clean, there is usually a sedimentary accumulation 
 about the point reached by the top of the tide 
 water flow. So far as the ordinary house sewage is 
 concerned, it should, even if pumping is necessary, 
 be kept constantly in motion, except in those cases 
 where it is desired to store it temporarily for flush- 
 ing purposes. 
 
CHAf TER V, 
 
 THE CONSTEUCTION OF SEWBES. 
 
 In a work not intended for the practical guidance 
 of engineers, it is, not necessary to say very much on 
 this head beyond what is contained in the preceding 
 chapters. In determining tlie size of sewers needed 
 for the area to be drained, — making allowance for 
 the inclination or steepness of the grade on which 
 the line is to be made, and for the proportion exist- 
 ing between the regular flow of sewage and the 
 amount of storm water that it will be necessary to 
 provide for, — the considerations heretofore set forth, 
 will be a sufficient guide to any engineer qualified 
 to take the direction of such work. To give all the 
 necessary details required for the instruction of a 
 novice would be far beyond the scope of this work, 
 nor would it be possible here to qualify amateurs, 
 and sewer authorities who lack professional expe- 
 rience, to take the direction of the work into their 
 own hands. 
 
 My chief purpose being to show to the private 
 citizen or to the average chairman of a committiee 
 of aldermen, or supervisors, what are the essen- 
 tial requirements of good sewers and what they 
 must demand in order to secure the best conditiona 
 
THE CONSTRUCTION OF SEWERS. 181 
 
 of health, rather than to instruct them how to carry 
 out the technical work of construction, it is not nec- 
 essary to say more in this chapter than is needed to 
 call the attention of such persons to matters which 
 are not always sufficiently regarded by the class of 
 engineers who are employed for local works of sew- 
 erage. 
 
 The most essential condition to be sought in all 
 work of this class is the utmost possible thoroughness. 
 Without wishing in any way to reflect on the char- 
 acter of the management of sewer construction in 
 the country generally, and having no doubt that 
 there are many engineers who manage the details 
 of their work with equal care, I would seriously 
 advise the authorities of any town where the organ- 
 ization of a complete system of sewerage is contem- 
 plated, to visit the works now being carried on in 
 Providence, Rhode Island, under the very thorough 
 management of Mr. J. Herbert Shedd. One may 
 learn here, better than in any other place with which 
 I am familiar, the real meaning of the word " thor- 
 oughness " as applied to sewer construction. 
 
 The city supplies all the material used, selling 
 these at established rates to the contractors, and it 
 then devotes the energies of competent inspectors to 
 securing the nearest approach to perfection that is 
 possible in every branch of the supply department. 
 All cement bought is subject to the condition that, 
 after having been properly mixed with as little 
 water as practicable and exposed half an hour to 
 the air and then immersed twenty-four hours in 
 
182 SANITAEY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 water, it shall stand a traction strain of sixty pounds 
 to the square inch. Every barrel received at the 
 dock is numbered, sampled, and tested, and not one 
 is allowed to be used which breaks with less than 
 this strain. Every barrel not coming fully up to 
 the standard is thrown on the hands of the parties 
 supplying it. Sewer pipes are required to be of the 
 requisite thickness and hardness, and practically true 
 in form ; if pipes are delivered which are defective 
 in any one of these respects, they are rejected. All 
 bricks bought are to have a certain high average of 
 quality and form, and to contain a due proportion 
 of extra hard specimens, and none too soft for the 
 best work. If the lot is defective, when measured 
 by this standard, the manufacturer must seek 
 another market for them. Accepted lots of brick 
 are sorted into different qualities according to form 
 and hardness, the very hardest being used for the 
 bottom of the sewer where the greatest friction is 
 to be resisted, and the less hard ones (none approach 
 softness) for the upper parts of the work. Mr. 
 Shedd frequently uses tubular inverts made of 
 earthen-ware like sewer pipes. A chief objection 
 generally urged against these is that their form is 
 so much affected by warping in manufacture that 
 they do not constitute a good foundation for true 
 brick work, but at the Providence depot only the 
 teally perfect ones are accepted. And it is no doubt 
 very often from what has been rejected there that 
 the usual supply of the market has to be drawn. 
 It is undoubtedly, to a certain extent, to the dis- 
 
THE CONSTRUCTION OF SEWERS. 183 
 
 advantage of other places that the Providence re- 
 jections are so copious, for what is there discarded 
 is not wasted, — only sold to those who are less par- 
 ticular. But it would be decidedly to the advantage 
 of any town undertaking works of this sort to place 
 themselves at once in the category of those who in- 
 sist on having the very best material or none. 
 
 I liave heard contractors who are accustomed to 
 the slap-dash manner of sewer building, that pre- 
 vails over the country generally, complain bitterly 
 that the Providence engineers and inspectors are so 
 rigid concerning every detail of the work that a 
 contract undertaken there is very apt not to be 
 profitable. At the same time there seems to be no 
 lack of contractors, who are willing to do the work 
 of this city in the manner demanded of them, and 
 the result has bt'cn no doubt as nearly perfect as 
 any se\v;ige work in this country. 
 
 While much of the quality of any public work is 
 due to the chief engineer having it in charge, and 
 to tiie regulations that he establishes for securing 
 good material and good workmanship, an even 
 more important dutj' falls upon the inspectors, for 
 it is they who are to watch the quality of every item 
 of the material and the character of every foot of 
 the work. However good the regulations which 
 they are charged with carrying out, these regula- 
 tions will be of but little value unless the carrying 
 out is thorough and conscientious, and is entirely 
 uninfluenced by the seductive efforts of contractors 
 to secure their neglect of duty or obliquity of vision. 
 
184 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSKS AND TOWNS, 
 
 As the weakest link of a chain is the measure of 
 its strength, so is the weakest part of a drain or 
 sewer the measure of its permanent usefuhiess. It 
 does not suffice that the work is on the whole good 
 and reliable, — it must be good and reliable in every 
 part. 
 
 ilany pages might be written concerning the de- 
 tails of the art of sewer making, but I propose to 
 leave the whole of this part of the subject to the 
 technical works in which it has already been so well 
 treated — except to say that there is in this country 
 a quite universal tendency to excessive expenditure 
 in the thickness of the walls of sewers. When the 
 brick and cement are of good quality, and when a 
 proper natural, or artificial foundation is secured, it 
 is not necessary to make the wall thicker than one 
 ninth of the interior diameter of the sewer, or as 
 nearly this as the thickness of the material will 
 allow. A single course of brick (four inches) is 
 ample for the wall of a three foot sewer, but if the 
 sewer is made larger than this, it will be necessary 
 to increase the thickness to eight inches u]d to a 
 diameter of six feet, and to add another course of 
 brick if the sewer is larger than six feet. 
 
 The main sewer in Saratoga, nearly two miles 
 long, and traversing ground of very varying quality, 
 has a uniform diameter of three feet, and is made 
 throughout its whole length (except at one point 
 where unusual pressure may, under certain circum- 
 stances arise), only four inches thick. An inspec- 
 tion made after the completion of the work shows 
 
THE CONSTRUCTION OF SEWERS. 185 
 
 an absolute continuity of wall and regularity of 
 form, save in one short stretch where, from the con- 
 tractor's neglect of properly sheet-piling quicksand, 
 there is a slight deflection, not enough, however, 
 to require the re-laying of the sewer. 
 
 All who are interested in the control of sewage 
 works should adopt it as their leading principle to 
 secure a well considered and suitable plan; to in- 
 trust its execution to a conscientious and competent 
 local engineer ; and to secure inspectors who will 
 make it practically certain that every department 
 shall be thoroughly and faithfully executed, in spite 
 of the skillful efforts of old contractors to secure an 
 ->r.nf)rtnnitv to " scamp " their work. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE DETAILS OE HOUSE DEAINING. 
 
 The various items of the work of draining the 
 house concern both the architect and the engineer. 
 The latter, in so far as it relates to the admission 
 into the public works of sewerage of the liquid ref- 
 use of the house, and the making of the necessary 
 provisions to prevent any injury being done to the 
 public interest by reason of careless or improper 
 connection or the admission of improper substances ; 
 the former from the still more important considera- 
 tions connected with the proper arrangement of the 
 house as a domicile for human beings. 
 
 The architect should concern himself especially 
 with all that relates to disposition of the necessary 
 wastes and offscourings of domestic life. Whether 
 it be a question only of disposing of the kitchen 
 wastes or whether the most complete plumbing ap- 
 pliances are to be introduced, every part of the 
 work should be so planned as to accomplish his pur- 
 pose completely, entirely, and permanently, with 
 due precaution against the entailing upon the occu- 
 pants of the house of the evil results that a badly 
 arranged system will be sure to produce. 
 
 It would be impossible in the short space of thia 
 
THE DETAILS OF HOUSE DRAINING. 187 
 
 chapter to give in detail all that may be needed un- 
 der the great variety of circumstances arising in a 
 varied practice. All that can be hoped, is so to set 
 forth the general principles by which the work 
 should be guided, the specification of what is to be 
 avoided, and some of the more usual processes 
 which are to be recommended, as to enable the per- 
 son having charge of the building to apply his own 
 judgment and discretion in the matter in such a 
 way as to secure the most satisfactory end. Much 
 of what is contained in the first three chapters of 
 this work have a direct bearing upon the details of 
 house drainage and whatever is here said is to be 
 read in the light of the information therein given. 
 
 PLUMBING AEEANGEMENTS, ETC. 
 
 The accompanying diagram shows the simplest 
 form in which the plumbing and draining of a 
 house can be arranged to render it absolutely safe. 
 An important feature of the plan here shown is 
 that of jDroviding a separate reservoir of water for 
 the supply of each water-closet; this, though not 
 unusual, is far from universal, and it is the only 
 efficient means for preventing the tainting of the 
 main water-supply pipe of the house with the gases 
 formed in the basins, and the sucking into the main 
 of the foul air above the trap when the water falls 
 away in the pipes, as from the opening of cocks in 
 the lower part of the house. 
 
 Referring to the diagram (Figure 12), which shows 
 the general arrangement of plumbing, etc., it is to be 
 
See reference to this cut in Chapter XII. The j: 
 arrangement here given is manifestly bad. 
 
 ^f«u-^ 
 
 TlOTlTA 12 
 
THE DETAILS OF HOUSE DRAINING. 189 
 
 said that from a sanitary point of view the most im- 
 portant feature there shown is a complete ventila- 
 tion of the drain leading to the sewer, so that by 
 no possibility can there be a forcing back into thn 
 house of gases formed in the sewer or in the main 
 drain. As already stated, a usual water trap, no 
 matter how deep, does not suffice to secure this. A 
 water trap having a bend of even two feet would 
 resist a pressure of only about one pound to the 
 square inch, while the sudden filling of the sewer, 
 by rising tide or falling rain, to such an extent as 
 to reduce its air space one half, would bring to bear 
 a pressure of fifteen pounds to the square inch ; 
 and whether the filling be sudden or gradual, the 
 degree to which the increased pressure would affect 
 any given outlet would depend on the facilities of- 
 fered elsewhere for the air to find vent. In our 
 ordinary town sewerage works, it is never safe for 
 the householder to depend on other vents than his 
 own connecting drain being available ; he must in 
 self-defense assume that his own drain is the only 
 channel of escape, and make it impossible that air 
 escaping there should find its way into the house. 
 
 Where severe frosts are not to be guarded 
 against, this may be accomplished by discharging 
 the water of the house into a receptable that is 
 open at its surface, and from which a drain passes 
 to the sewer with some form of trap ; into this sur- 
 face opening, for greater cleanliness, a rain-water 
 pipe from the roof should discharge. Under this 
 arrangement, if sewer gas is forced from the drain 
 
190 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 it will escape into the outer air. The chief objec- 
 tion to the plan lies in the fact that suah escape 
 would too often take place where it would be offen- 
 sive, and sometimes too near an important window. 
 A much better plan is to furnish a fresh-air inlet 
 at the lower end of the soil pipe or house drain 
 which will supply a purifying current of air through 
 the whole length of the soil pipe. Some form of 
 covered grease-trap, or flush-tank may be used, with 
 a ventilator not less than two inches in diameter, 
 and by the straightest available course, from this 
 to a point well above the highest dormer windows. 
 All opening should be made for fresh air in the 
 cover of the grease-trap. 
 
 "WATEE-CLOSETS. 
 
 Dr. Simon, in his report of 1874, states the fol- 
 lowing as imperative conditions that should be in- 
 sisted on wherever water-closets are allowed : — 
 
 " 1. That the closets will universally receive au 
 unfailing sufficiency of water properly supplied to 
 them. 
 
 " 2. That the comparatively large volume of sew- 
 erage that the system produces can be in all re- 
 spects satisfactorily disposed of. 
 
 " 3. That on all premises which the system brings 
 into connection with the common sewers, the con- 
 struction and keeping of the closets and other drain- 
 age relations will be subject to skilled direction and 
 control." 
 
 In his explanatory remarks he states : That a suf 
 
THE DETAILS OF HOUSE DRAINING. 191 
 
 ficient supply of water is a supply that will enable 
 each closet to be well flushed whenever used, and 
 that the supply must be not only professedly, but 
 actually constant. The best way to secure this is 
 to supply to each closet from an independent cistern 
 immediately above it. That every privy drain must 
 be properly trapped and ventilated, and properly 
 constructed, — ventilation of the soil pipe above the 
 roof being imperative. That wherever practicable 
 the connection between the house drain and the 
 sewer should be through a trapped, open gully cov- 
 ered with a grating. He considers the ordinary 
 water-closet thoroughly unreliable for those who are 
 unlikely to take proper care of it, or who are too 
 poor to keep it in repair, — no form of indoor privy 
 should be allowed for this class, and even in the best 
 houses water-closets should never be so placed that 
 they cannot have outside windows. 
 
 For classes from whom the ordinary water-closet 
 should be withheld, some suitable form of water- 
 closet specially constructed for them, and constantly 
 superintended by the public authorities, seems to be 
 under the proper circumstances the best convenience 
 yet devised. 
 
 The water-closet should never be supplied direct 
 from the water main, but always from a separate 
 reservoir, so that there shall be no danger of the 
 sucking back of the contents of the pan when the 
 water falls, as it so frequently does, from the supply 
 pipes. 
 
 Dr. Hill, the medical officer of health for Bir- 
 
192 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 mingham, in a paper on sanitary improvements says: 
 " What I wish to bring out prominently is, that 
 water-closets being in direct communication with 
 the sewers, which they imperfectly close when the 
 valve is at rest, and actually open when it is in 
 action, and being placed in the interior of houses, 
 must inevitably be the means of introducing poi- 
 sonous sewer-gas into dwellings, and so act as a 
 source of danger and injury. The question then, 
 arises, how are their ill-effects to be guarded against ? 
 I think best in one of two ways (traps, it is admit- 
 ted, are such in more senses than one, and are use- 
 less) ; either by having them quite detached from 
 the house, or partially s5 by double doors and inter- 
 vening lobby, with good cross ventilation." 
 
 Dr. De Chaumont says, " Under no circumstances 
 ought there to be a closet opening directly into a 
 bedroom, the merely occasional convenience of such 
 an arrangement being more than counterbalanced 
 by its danger and generally objectionable situation. 
 In some houses, however, particularly in older houses 
 in towns, I have' seen this arrangement, not only 
 in single instances, but in all the closets of the 
 house, so that access to one was only obtainable 
 through a bed-room. Almost equally objectionable 
 is the arrangement where the closet opens on to the 
 lobby or landing close to the bedrooms or sitting- 
 rooms, a plan both unhealthy and in every way of- 
 fensive." 
 
 The usual " pan " closet is in several ways ob- 
 jectionable; chiefly as containing in the chamber 
 
THE DETAILS OF HOUSE DRAINING. 
 
 193 
 
 beneath the pan a certain quantity of fouled water 
 above which is an unventilated air space, sometimes, 
 from imperfect construction, leaking its gases into 
 the room, and always sending up a foetid whiif 
 when the pan is tipped. 
 
 Tile Jennings closet, shown herewith (Figure 13), 
 has the peculiarity that 
 
 it contains directly un- 
 der the seat the whole 
 charge of water to be 
 used for the flushing at 
 each operation of the 
 closet. Fjecal matters 
 are immediately im- 
 mersed and so at once 
 somewhat disinfected, 
 and on the lifting of the 
 valve the whole volume 
 is rapidly carried away 
 through the water trap 
 into the soil pipe. The 
 whole apparatus, from 
 the seat to the soil pipe, 
 is a single piece of 
 earthen-ware, and the 
 valve is held so firmly 
 in its place by its own 
 weight and by that of 
 the water bearing upon 
 
 WHT 
 
 Figure 13. 
 
 it, that if proper vent is given to the soil pipe itself 
 80 that the pressure of sewer air cannot be brought 
 
194 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 to bear upon it, and so that its trap cannot be si- 
 phoned out, there is no probability of tlie least es- 
 cape into th^ j;oom. If the soil pipe is not venti- 
 lated, the Jennings closet is the worst of all. In 
 any case it should always be supplied with somo 
 arrangement like Blunt's siphon-overflow cap. (Sep 
 chapter XII.) 
 
 SOHj-PIPE VENTILATORS. 
 
 As is sufficiently explained in other sections of 
 this book, the cardinal remedy for the sa.nitary evils 
 arising from the invasion of houses by the poisonous 
 gases of sewers and drains, lies in the thorough ven- 
 tilation of soil pipes by pipes opening through the 
 roof into the free air. 
 
 Such" 'v'eirtila ting pipes should be made of some 
 permanent material. Earthen-ware is objectionable, 
 lead and cast-iron are good and reasonably durable. 
 Zinc — and consequently the zinc coating of galvan- 
 ized iron — is very subject to decay under the action 
 of the corrosive gases issuing from soil pipes. When 
 galvanized iron pipes are used, they should be 
 thickly coated with paint on their insides. If a 
 free current of air passes constantly through such 
 a pipe, — taken in from an opening in the waste 
 pipe or catch basin outside of the house, and dis- 
 3harged above the roof by a large pipe, — the for- 
 mation of corrosive gases will be much reduced. 
 In northern latitudes the effect of frost must be 
 guarded against. 
 
 It is especially important that soil pipe ventila- 
 tors should be as nearly straight and vertical as pos- 
 
THE DETAILS OF HOUSE DRAINING. 
 
 195 
 
 sible ; a crooked ventilator pipe will not " draw " 
 any more than will a badly built chimney flue, nor 
 even so well, as it lacks the heat of a fire to set up 
 a current. 
 
 GEBASB TRAPS. 
 
 There are various forms of grease trap which 
 serve a good and useful purpose. The best that has 
 come to my no- 
 
 tice is that shown 
 in the accompa- 
 nying diagram. 
 
 It is made of 
 well -cemented 
 brick-work, and 
 need not be more 
 than from four to 
 six feet in diame- 
 ter (according to 
 the liberality 
 with which water 
 is to be used in the 
 house. It must 
 be absolutely wa- 
 ter-tight. It should be placed close to the house, so 
 that there shall be the least practicable length of 
 drain pipe to accumulate grease, — allowing it to 
 flow hot into the trap, where it will float at the sur- 
 face of the liquid, at a point at least a foot above 
 the mouth of the bent outlet pipe. Any solid ref- 
 use will have ample room at the bottom of the trap, 
 
 Figure 14. 
 
196 SANITAEY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 well below the outlet. I have not found it neces- 
 sary to clean out my trap (made in this way) more 
 often than once a j'ear. Indeed, the solid deposit, 
 being organic matter, decomposes and forms ammo- 
 nia, which helps to dissolve the grease and make it 
 soluble, so that both the deposit and the scum are 
 constantly being washed away. It would be well 
 to rmi a rain-water spout into this trap to help 
 cleanse it, and if it is not near a window, its best 
 ventilation would be by a grating in its top-stone. 
 
 THE DISPOSAL OF HOUSE SLOPS. 
 
 Obviously, no form of grease trap or tight cess- 
 pool can serve for the final disposal of house slops. 
 It is only an intermediary step in a process whose 
 further course it is very important to direct. The 
 treatment of this matter has been so successful at 
 my own house, that the system there in use seems 
 worth describing in this connection. 
 
 The house drainage is discharged into a tightly 
 cemented tank four feet deep and four feet in diam- 
 eter, entering near its top, which is arched over 
 and closed by a tightly fitting stone cap, and thor- 
 oughly ventilated. This tank is similar to that 
 described above. Its outlet pipe, starting from a 
 point one foot below the surface of the water and 
 about two feet below the cap-stone, passes out near 
 the surface of the ground and is continued by a 
 cemented vitrified pipe to a point about twenty-five 
 feet farther away. Here it connects with a system 
 of open-jointed. drain tiles, consisting of one main 
 
THE DETAILS OF HOUSE DRAINING. 
 
 197 
 
 fifty feet long, and ten lateral drains six feet 
 apart and each about twenty feet long. These 
 drains underlie a part of the lawn, and are only 
 about ten inches below the surface. During the 
 whole growing season their course is very distinctly 
 marked by the rank growth of grass over and near 
 
 A. Cemented tank. 
 
 B. Outflow drain, tight. 
 
 C. Distributing box. 
 
 D. Open jointed drains, 10 inciies deep. Main line 
 60 feet long, laterals 20 feet long each. Total 
 length of open jointed drain, 260 feet. 
 
 Figure 15. 
 
 to them, the difference of growth in their imme- 
 diate vicinity being so great that were the work 
 to be done over again, I should place the lines 
 but three feet apart. The slope of the ground is 
 very slight, probably not more than fifteen inches 
 between the extreme ends of the system, yet, judg- 
 
198 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 ing by the growth, the distribution is very uniform 
 through all the pipes, — main and laterals. 
 
 The arrangement of these drains is shown in 
 Figure 15, an arrangement suited to the condi- 
 tions of the place, but sufficiently illustrating the 
 general principle. 
 
 I supposed, when I first adopted Mr. Moule's 
 suggestion to make this disposition of the house 
 sewage, that some other arrangement would be nec- 
 essary, for the winter season, but even during the 
 winter of 1874-75, — the coldest for many a long 
 year, — the liquid has been perfectly disposed of, 
 and has apparently found its outlets equally in all 
 parts of the drainage. (See chapter XII.) 
 
 Successful though this experiment has been, I 
 have recentlj'^ adopted a small Field's flush-tank, in 
 the belief that the system would be improved by 
 having the discharge made intermittent, so that the 
 flow of water, being more copious, should saturate 
 the ground for a greater distance, and that, with 
 considerable intervals during which there is no flow, 
 there would be a complete aeration of the ground. It 
 was put in November, 1875. Its effect on the lawn- 
 growth has not been especially marked, but it has 
 thus far acted with the greatest regularity, and is 
 a most satisfactory arrangement. 
 
 The accompanying illustration (Figure 16) shows 
 the construction of Field's patent self-acting flush- 
 tank (here referred to), which is intended to be 
 placed immediately outside of the walls of the 
 house and to receive aU of its liquid wastes. It ig 
 
THE DETAILS OF HuUSE DRAINING. 
 
 199 
 
 made entirely of earthen- ware or cast iron. The 
 liquids pass through the grating of the pan B, and 
 are discharged through a trap that prevents the 
 contained air of the vessel from escaping at the 
 surface. C is a ventilating pipe to carry this con- 
 tained air to the top of the house. ^ is a vessel 
 holding a certain amount of water which has no 
 escape save through the siphon D. When the 
 chamber is entirely filled, the pouring in of a few 
 
 extra quarts of water, which is sure to occur some- 
 time during the day, brings the siphon into action, 
 and it flows copiously until the chamber is empty 
 to the depth below which solid matters are per- 
 mitted to accumulate, to oe occasionally cleared out 
 on removing the pan B. 
 
 The purpose of this apparatus is to prevent tha 
 constant trickling away of the small stream usually 
 
200 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 flowing from the house with too little movement to 
 carry forward obstructing matters, such as are sure 
 sooner or later to clog any ordinary house drain. 
 It also furnishes a sufficiently strong flow to secure 
 a wide distribution of the liquid instead of allow- 
 ing it to soak slowly into a small area of soil. 
 From its intermittent action, also, it fills the 
 ground for a short time, and then as the liquid sub- 
 sides fresh atmospheric air enters the soil and as- 
 sists, by its oxidizing action, in the work of purifi- 
 cation. Whether the irrigation be on the surface 
 or by means of underground pipes, this copious in- 
 termittent discharge is in every way preferable to 
 the steady small flow. 
 
 English engineers who have paid much attention 
 to this subject, seem to have settled on this inter- 
 mittent application of sewage to the soil, with the 
 accessory, in the warmer and more dangerous sea- 
 sons, of the action of the roots of plants, as the best 
 means for defecating all liquid wastes. 
 
 At a recent meeting of the French Horticultural 
 Society, there was a discussion as to the influence of 
 plants on water containing putrefying organic mat- 
 ter ; and evidence was adduced to show that while 
 such water left to itself retains its putrescent char- 
 acter, the same water in which the roots of growing 
 plants are feeding loses entirely the bacteria which 
 accompany putrescence and contains only the larger 
 infusorise which are peculiar to wholesome water. 
 It was sufficient to allow a living root to act for five 
 days for the water to lose all its bad smell and to 
 become purified. 
 
THE DETAILS OF HOUSE DRAINING. 201 
 
 HOUSE VENTILATION. 
 
 Incidentally to the seclusion of sewer air from 
 our houses, we have to consider the subject of gen- 
 eral ventilation, — a subject that has been more be- 
 muddled and befogged by quasi scientific treatment 
 than any other connected with domestic life, unless 
 it be the much vexed and generally misunderstood 
 subject of sewerage itself. 
 
 The best practical statement I have met about ven- 
 tilation was contained in the remark of a mining 
 engineer in Pennsylvania : " Air is like a rope ; you 
 can pull it better than you can push it." All me- 
 chanical appliances for pushing air into a room or 
 a house are disappointing. What we need to do is 
 to pull out the vitiated air already in the room ; 
 the fresh supply will take care of itself if means 
 for its admission are provided. 
 
 It has been usual to withdraw the air through 
 openings near the ceiling, that is, to carry off the 
 warmer and therefore lighter portions, leaving the 
 colder strata at the bottom of the room. This 
 serves to purify the air but it is very wasteful of 
 heat, and causes too great variations of tempera- 
 ture above and below. Much the better plan would 
 usually be to draw this lower air out from a point 
 near the floor, allowing the upper and warmer por- 
 tions to descend and take its place. 
 
 An open fire with a large chimney throat, is the 
 oest ventilator for any room ; the one half or two 
 thirds of the heat carried up the chimnej' is the 
 price paid for immunity from disease ; and large 
 
202 SANITARY DEAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 though this seems from its daily draft on the wood- 
 pile or the coal-bin, it is trifling when compared with 
 doctors' bills and with the loss of strength and effi- 
 ciency that invariably result from living in unven- 
 tilated apartments. 
 
 In ventilation, care should be taken to avoid 
 drafts, not alone from the danger of taking cold as 
 a consequence of sitting in a draft, but even more 
 from the fact that persons inconvenienced by cur- 
 rents of air close the ventilating apertures as the 
 easiest means of getting relief, and so subject them- 
 selves to contaminations of the atmosphere which, 
 in addition to their other bad effects, are far more 
 active in producing colds than even the drafts them- 
 selves. Dr. De Chaumont in his papers on Habita- 
 tions says : — 
 
 " Usually a current at the rate of one and a half 
 to two feet per second, equal to walking through 
 still air at the rate of one to one and a half miles 
 per hour, is hardly perceived ; two and a half to 
 three feet per second is distinctly perceptible (equal 
 to walking one and three quarters to two miles per 
 hour in still air) ; and four to five feet per second 
 (equal to walking two and three quarters to three 
 and a half miles per hour) is a positive draught. 
 Our object, therefore, ought to be in supplying an 
 air space with fresh air, to take care that the 
 current should nowhere exceed two feet per second 
 in the room itself, and should be kept as near aa 
 possible at five feet per second at the point of en- 
 trance. I have already shown that 3,000 cubic feet 
 
THE DETAILS OF HOUSE DRAINING. 203 
 
 per hour are necessary for each, occupant of an air 
 space to preserve good hj'gienic conditions, and it 
 will therefore be easy to calculate the size of the 
 openings required for entrance. If we had an open • 
 ing of one square foot of area, and the air coming 
 in at five feet per second, this would obviously give 
 us five cubic feet of air per second, or, as there are 
 .3,600 seconds in an hour, 5x3,600=18,000 cubic 
 feet of air per hour. But as we ask for only 3,000 
 cubic feet for each person, one sixth of this will be 
 enough, ■'^(ri^ji' =6, so that instead of the opening re- 
 quiring to have a sectional area of one square foot, 
 it will be necessary to have only one sixth of a 
 square foot, or twenty-four square inches. Again, 
 it being quite obvious that if a certain amount of 
 air finds its way in, an equal bulk of air must find 
 its way out, we must have at least as much opening 
 for the exit as for the entrance of air, so that alto- 
 gether the sectional area of ventilation openings re- 
 quire to be one third of a square foot, or forty-eight 
 square inches for each occupant of an air space." 
 
 The shape and arrangement of ventilating tubes 
 is very important. The aim should always be to re- 
 duce friction as much as possible ; which is to be 
 accomplished by giving the smallest possible circum- 
 ference to the area of the air space. Round pipes 
 have less circumference to their sectional area than 
 have oval ones, and square pipes have the same ad- 
 vantage over those of oblong section. 
 
 The following table serves to show the relative 
 iriction in pipes of different forms. 
 
204 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Shape op Sjsohon. 
 
 Circle 
 
 Ellipse, E=i 
 
 Duodecagon 
 
 Heptagon 
 
 Hexagon 
 
 Pentagon 
 
 Square 
 
 Rectangle (sides 4:5). , . 
 Kquilateral triangle . . . 
 Kiglit angled isosceles triangle 
 
 
 1 
 
 II 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Area. 
 
 
 "S-a 
 
 
 
 
 
 SI 
 
 l§§ 
 
 
 H 
 
 o 
 
 100 
 
 35.45 
 
 1.000 
 
 100 
 
 35.67 
 
 1.0U8 
 
 100 
 
 38.86 
 
 1.012 
 
 100 
 
 36.72 
 
 1.036 
 
 100 
 
 37.22 
 
 1.050 
 
 100 
 
 38.12 
 
 1.075 
 
 100 
 
 40.00 
 
 1.128 
 
 100 
 
 45.41 
 
 1.2S1 
 
 100 
 
 45.59 
 
 1.286 
 
 100 
 
 48.28 
 
 1.362 
 
 Original Area of Single Opening. 
 
 1 square foot 
 1 square foot 
 1 square foot 
 1 square foot 
 1 square foot 
 1 square foot 
 1 square foot 
 1 square foot 
 1 square f<J0t 
 1 square foot 
 1 square foot 
 
 
 
 ^ " .■a 
 
 o 
 
 e3 
 
 
 s 
 
 1 
 
 » 
 
 -«1 
 
 S 
 
 2 
 
 0.707 
 
 1.414 
 
 3 
 
 0.574 
 
 1.732 
 
 4 
 
 0.500 
 
 2.000 
 
 6 
 
 0.459 
 
 2.236 
 
 6 
 
 0.408 
 
 2.449 
 
 7 
 
 0..378 
 
 2.646 
 
 8 
 
 0.353 
 
 2.828 
 
 9 
 
 0.333 
 
 3.000 
 
 10 
 
 0.316 
 
 3.162 
 
 11 
 
 0.302 
 
 3.317 
 
 12 
 
 0.289 
 
 3.464 
 
 These tables are taken from the section on Ventilation of Dr. De 
 Ohauraont'a papers on " Hj-giene." 
 
 The relative ventilating capacity of openings is 
 in proportion to the square roots of their areas 
 
THE DETAILS OF HOUSE DRAINING. 205 
 
 One opening of one square foot will deliver twice as 
 much air as will four openings of one fourth square 
 foot each. The foregoing table shows the size that 
 must be given to each of a number of openings to 
 make them equallj^ effective with one opening a 
 foot square. 
 
 Ventilation is much more effective through a sin- 
 gle pipe than through several pipes having an equal 
 aggregate sectional area. 
 
 Every bend in a ventilating tube increases the 
 resistance to the current and the resistance is pro- 
 portionate to the angle of the bend. 
 
 The admission of fresh air to supply the place of 
 that which is withdrawn is an imperative necessity, 
 and in tightly bailt modern houses cracks and cran- 
 nies for this purpose are wanting. It is not unusual 
 in modern houses supplied with furnaces, especially 
 where there is no public sewerage, to find such an 
 arrangement of closet and kitchen driiins as permits 
 the escape of some of their dangerous gases immedi- 
 ately into, or into the vicinity of, the mouth of the 
 cold-air box which supplies the furnace, and the 
 flues which furnish the interior of the house with its 
 heated air. 
 
 In a house warmed by a furnace the supply from 
 the registers is usually sufficient to feed the chim- 
 ney, and if the furnace chamber draws its air from 
 the outer atmosphere, from an unfouled locality, 
 and by all means not from a cellar, the only objec- 
 tion lies in the character of ordinary furnace heat- 
 ing. Concerning this it need be said here only that 
 
206 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 iron heated by hot water is better than iron heated 
 by the direct action of fire, and that, if water-pipes 
 be not used, wrought iron is a much safer material 
 than cast-iron for the transmission of the heat. 
 
 In all houses which are connected with cess-poola 
 or public sewers, especial pains should be taken 
 to supply enough fresh air for the fires through some 
 efficient means of communication with the outer at- 
 mosphere. Otherwise, there is danger that they 
 will feed themselves from badly trapped communi- 
 cations with the drain. 
 
 Sunlight is the handmaiden of ventilation and 
 fresh air. Indeed, ample sunlight and the avoid- 
 ance of a damp soil may be taken as the very fun- 
 damental conditions of healthy living. 
 
 In the lying-in hospital in Dublin the mortality 
 of new-born infants during twenty-five years pre- 
 ceding its ventilation was one in six. In the twenty- 
 five years following the supply of pure air by bettei 
 ventilation, it was one in one hundred and four. 
 
 It seems almost incredible that such striking 
 changes should have taken place so recently, but it 
 is to be remembered that it is only about one hun- 
 dred years since oxygen was discovered, and hardly 
 fifty years since the physiology of respiration was 
 made known ; while the fact of injury from breath- 
 ing foul air is indeed a very recent discovery. 
 
 PKIVATB DRAINS. 
 
 As with almost every department of sewerage 
 work so with private drains ; the engineer in charge 
 
THE DETAILS OF HOUSE DRAINING. 207 
 
 endeavors to combine in his rules for distinctive 
 points all that experience has developed. And as bhe 
 work in Providence is among the most recent in this 
 country, I give herewith the regulations proposed 
 by Mr. Shedd and adopted by the city government. 
 He prefaces them with the following remarks : — 
 
 " No amount of skill, care, and expense in build- 
 ing the public sewers will relieve the property- 
 holder from the necessity of constructing his private 
 drains with all possible care. These drains often 
 cause, in the aggregate, more trouble, on account of 
 imperfect plan and construction, than all the rest of 
 a sewerage system. 
 
 " Although house-drains are laid at the expense 
 of the owners of the premises to be drained, the 
 ' Rules ' require the work to be done under the 
 permission and supervision of the Water Commis- 
 sioners, and under the immediate inspection of their 
 engineer of private drains ; also that it shall be done 
 by a licensed drain-layer, under bond to do faithful 
 work. These restrictions have been proved by ex- 
 perience, in many cities, to be necessary to secure 
 housekeepers from the great annoyance to which 
 they would otherwise be frequently subjected from 
 imperfect arrangement or unfaithful execution." 
 
 " 1. Applications for permits to connect with any 
 sewer which has been constructed, or which is in 
 process of construction, by a committee appointed 
 by the Board of Aldermen, must be made in writ- 
 
208 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 ing to the Water Commissioners by tlie owners of 
 the property to be drained, or by their duly author- 
 ized attorneys, and must be accompanied by a clear 
 description of the premises to be drained, and of the 
 drains required, and also by certain agreements, all 
 as provided in the printed form of application issued 
 by said commissioners. 
 
 " 2. No one but a drain-layer, duly licensed by 
 the water commissioners, will be allowed to make 
 connections with the public sewers named in the 
 above section, nor to lay any drains in connection 
 therewith. 
 
 " 8. At least twenty-four hours' notice must be 
 given at the office of said commissioners before any 
 street or public way can be opened for the purpose 
 of laying a private drain. 
 
 " 4. No drain-pipe can be extended from work 
 previously done and accepted, or new connections of 
 any kind be made with such work, unless previous 
 notice of at least twenty-four hours is given to the 
 engineer in charge of private drains. 
 
 " 5. No work of laying drains can be commenced 
 or continued unless the permit is on the ground in 
 the hands of the drain-layer, or some one employed 
 by him. 
 
 " EULBS FOR LAYING DRAINS. 
 
 "1. In opening any street or public way, all ma- 
 terials for paving or ballasting must be removed 
 with the least possible injury or loss of the same, 
 and, together with the excavated material from the 
 
THE DETAILS OF HOUSE DEAINAGE. 209 
 
 trenches, must be placed where they will cause the 
 least practicable inconvenience to the public. As 
 little as possible of the trench must be dug until the 
 junction-piece into the sewer is found, unless it is 
 first determined to make a new opening into the 
 sewer. 
 
 " 2. Whenever the sides of the trenches will not 
 stand perpendicular, sheeting and braces must be 
 used to prevent caving. 
 
 " 3. No pipes or other materials for the drains 
 can be used till they have been examined and ap- 
 proved by the chief engineer or one of his assist- 
 ants, or by a duly-authorized inspector. 
 
 " 4. The least inclination that can be allowed for 
 water-closet, kitchen and all other drains of not 
 over six inches diameter, liable to receive solid sub- 
 stances, is one half an inch in two feet ; and for 
 cellar or other drains, to receive water only, one 
 quarter of an inch in two feet. All drains to be 
 laid at a grade of not over one half an inch in two 
 feet, between the sewers and the sidewalks. 
 
 " 5. The ends of all pipes not to be immediately 
 connected with water-closets, sinks, down-spouts, or 
 catch-basins, are to be securely guarded against the 
 introduction of sand or earth by brick and cement, 
 or other water-tight and imperishable materials. 
 
 " 6. All pipes that must be left open to drain cel- 
 lars, areas, yards, or gardens, must be connected 
 with suitable catch-basins of brick, the bottoms of 
 which must not be less than two and a half feet be- 
 low the bottom of the outlet pipe, the diameter not 
 
 14 
 
210 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 less than three feet, and the form and construc- 
 tion of which are to be prescribed by the officers 
 named in the third rule. When meat-packing- 
 houses, slaughter-houses, lard-rendering establish- 
 ments, hotels, or eating-houses, are connected with 
 the sewers, the dimensions of the catch-basins will 
 be required to be of a large size, according to the 
 circumstances of the case. When the end of the 
 drain-pipe is connected with a temporary wooden 
 catch-basin for draining foundations during the erec- 
 tion of buildings, the drain-layer will be held re- 
 sponsible that no dirt or sand is carried into the 
 drain or sewer from such temporary catch-basin. 
 
 " 7. No private catch-basin can be built in the 
 public street, but must be placed inside of the line of 
 the lot to be drained, except when the sidewalks 
 are excavated, and used as cellars. 
 
 " 8. No privy-vaults can be connected with the 
 sewers except through an intervening catch-basin ; 
 and the discharge-pipe of the vault must be high 
 enough above its bottom to effectuallj'^ prevent any- 
 thing but the liquid contents of the vault from pass- 
 ing into the drain. 
 
 " 9. The inside of every drain, after it is laid, 
 must be left smooth and perfectly clean throughout 
 its entire length. 
 
 " 10. In case it shall be necessary to connect a 
 drain-pipe with a public sewer where no junction is 
 left in such sewer, the new connection with such 
 sewer can only be made either by one of the em- 
 ployees of the commissioners, or when an officer 
 
THE DETAILS OF HOUSE DRAINAGE. 211 
 
 named in rale third is present to see the whole of 
 the work done. 
 
 " 11. Whenever it is necessary to disturb a drain 
 in actual use, it must in no case be obstructed with- 
 out the special direction of one of the officers named 
 in rule third. No pipe-drain can be laid above the 
 bottom of a wooden drain, whether in actual use or 
 not, unless the pipe is made to rest either on brick 
 or stone, or other suitable support. In no case will 
 drain-pipes be allowed to rest on wood or other per- 
 ishable material. 
 
 " 12. The back-filling over drains, after they are 
 laid, must be puddled, and, together with the re- 
 placing of ballast and paving, must be done within 
 forty-eight hours after the completion of that part 
 of the drain lying within the public way, and done 
 so as to make them at least as good as they were 
 before they were disturbed, and to the satisfaction 
 of the commissioners and their engineer; and the 
 owner will be held reponsible for any subsequent 
 settlement of the ground. All water and gas pipes 
 must be protected from injury or settling to the sat- 
 isfaction of the engineer. 
 
 " 13. Every drain-layer must inclose any opening 
 which he may make in the public streets or ways, 
 with sufficient barriers ; and must maintain red 
 lights at the same at night ; and must take all other 
 necessary precautions to guard the public effectually 
 against all accidents, from the beginning to the end 
 of the work ; and can only lay drains on condition 
 that he shall use every precaution against acci- 
 
212 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 dents to persons, horses, vehicles, or property of any 
 kind. 
 
 " 14. In case a water or gas pipe should come in 
 the way of a drain, the question of passing over or 
 under the water or gas pipe, or of raising or lower- 
 ing it, must be determined by one of the officers 
 named in rule third. In no case can the drain-layer 
 be allowed to decide the question himself. 
 
 " 15. No exhaust from steam-engines can be con- 
 nected with the private or public drains, and no 
 blow-off from steam-boilers can be so connected, 
 without special permission from the commissioners 
 or their engineer. 
 
 " 16. Such information as the commissioners 
 have with regard to the positions' of junctions will 
 be furnished to drain-layers, but at their risk as to 
 the accuracy of the same. 
 
 " 17. When any change of direction is made in 
 the pipe, either in a horizontal or vertical direction, 
 curves must be used. No pipe can be clipped in any 
 case. 
 
 " 18. All persons are required to place an effect- 
 ual trap in the line of drain just before it leaves the 
 premises, and to make an open connection with a 
 down-spout back of the trap ; also to make an open 
 connection with the highest part of the soil pipe 
 within the premises, through a large pipe or flue, to 
 a point above the roof of the building. 
 
 " 19. Every person violating any of the provis- 
 ions of the foregoing rules shall pay a fine of not 
 less than twenty nor more than fifty dollars." 
 
CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 THE DEY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 
 
 The cases are by no means few in which the easi- 
 est solution of the excrement nuisance problem is 
 to be sought through some form of dry conservancy, 
 that is to say, the admixture of either earth, or coal 
 ashes, or other dry household or town refuse, in 
 sufficient qixantities for complete absorption so that 
 the degree of moisture in the material itself may 
 be reduced to a point where a healthy decomposi- 
 tion will be carried on, instead of the foul putrefac- 
 tion to which the production of offensive and dan- 
 gerous gases is chiefly due. 
 
 The statements in this chapter, so far as they are 
 my own, are based upon an amount of experience 
 and observation sufficient to have brought the con- 
 viction that the advantages of the dry system are 
 by no means adequately appreciated either by the 
 public at large, or by those having official direction 
 of such matters. As the most of what is known 
 on the subject is the result of actual experiment, 
 and as the investigations upon which the system 
 must largely rest in seeking public favor, have been 
 chiefly made by officers detailed by the health 
 authorities of England, it has seemed best to in- 
 sert extracts from foreign health reports, sanitary 
 
214 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 journals, etc., giving the accounts of these investi- 
 gations in the language of those who have made 
 them. An attempt to condense these various state- 
 ments, while it might lead to the avoidance of repe- 
 tition, would probably detract from the force of the 
 facts and experience stated. 
 
 The systems coming under this head are three in 
 number. 
 
 1. Moule's Earth-Closet System. 
 
 2. The Goux Earth-Tub System. 
 
 8. The Ash-closet, which is largely used in ?er- 
 tain manufacturing districts in England. 
 
 These will be considered separately with such evi- 
 dence, favorable or unfavorable, as I have been able 
 to obtain. 
 
 moule's eaeth-closbt system. 
 
 The use of the earth in closets, under the meth- 
 ods now so well known, is the invention of the Rev. 
 Henry Moule, Vicar of Fordington, England. It 
 has been subjected to a very active public discus- 
 sion during ten years past, and has had many trials 
 in public and private establishments, and in one 
 or two cases in whole villages. On the whole, its 
 progress has been quite as rapid and secure as could 
 have been prudently hoped for. Its introduction 
 into this country dates back to the year 1868, and 
 although it has not proved a profitable investment 
 for the company who so energetically presented it 
 to public notice, it is constantly and steadily win 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 215 
 
 ning its way as being obviously the best available 
 system for certain circumstances ; while the enco- 
 miiims which it has received from those who have 
 experienced its benefits here, have not been less 
 satisfactory than those which have attended its in- 
 troduction in Great Britain. 
 
 Fortunately I am qualified to write on this sub- 
 ject from large experience extending over the whole 
 period of its use in America, but what I say in its 
 fav^r is to be accepted in the light of the fact that I 
 was among the earliest of its champions, had a pe- 
 cuniary interest in its success, and have still (aside 
 from the hope of profit which I fear vanished long 
 ago) a very earnest desire to see it meet with the 
 general recognition to which it seems entitled. 
 
 For sevefi years past I have, at my own residence, 
 depended entirely upon some form of earth-closet, 
 and in my present house have had in operation for 
 five years, winter and summer, two closets in con- 
 stant daily use, — one on each floor of the house, 
 with such success that I would on no account ex- 
 change them for the water-closet which is so univer- 
 sally used among my neighbors. The manner in 
 which these closets are arranged will be described 
 under the appropriate heading, and it may be well 
 to refer here to the description already given (page 
 196) of the way in which all the liquid wastes of 
 the house are disposed of with the help of a Field's 
 flush-tank and irrigating drains. 
 
 Several pages of what follows on this subject are 
 taken from an earlier work written in 1869. 
 
216 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Before the earth system can be adopted into 
 general use, the slight care and attention that its 
 success requires must be accepted as an addition to 
 the details of domestic and municipal economy. 
 
 The water system with its enormous bills of 
 expense for reservoirs, aqueducts, service-pipes, 
 plumbing work, and sewers, requires constant su- 
 pervision and care. Whether in private establish- 
 ments in the country or in large cities, the details 
 of its management require an amount of supervis- 
 ion and of costly labor which, could they have 
 been set forth before the system was anywhere in- 
 troduced, would have seemed an insuperable objec- 
 tion to its adoption. Now, they are taken as a 
 matter of course, and water-rates and sewer com- 
 missioners' taxes are accepted as a necessity of civ- 
 ilized life, and are paid without demur. 
 
 The earth system promises to do away with the 
 necessity for most of these charges, and to produce 
 a money result which will more or less repay the 
 others. 
 
 At the same time, the perfect carrying out of 
 the earth system of sewage will require a certain 
 amount of care and some expense, which it will be 
 better to consider at the outset. It is not worth 
 while to make a comparison between the require- 
 ments of the two rivals, because the more vital 
 considerations, according to which the verdict is to 
 be given, are so weighty that the question of rela- 
 tive cost is comparatively insignificant. 
 
 There are two extreme cases to be considered, 
 
THE DRT CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 217 
 
 and the various conditions that fill the gap between 
 them will necessarily resemble one or the other ac- 
 cording to their magnitude. In all cases, the prin- 
 ciples are identical. 
 
 1. The earth for use in closets must be dry ; not 
 necessarily dried by artificial heat, but made as dry 
 as it can be bj' exposure to the air and by the ex- 
 clusion of rain. 
 
 2. It must contain enough alumina (clay), or or- 
 ganic matter, or oxide of iron or be sufficiently 
 powdery to give it sufiicient absorbing power. 
 
 3. It must be sifted of its stones and coarser par- 
 ticles. 
 
 4. The mechanical arrangement of the closet 
 must be such that a sufficient quantity of earth will 
 be, with certainty, deposited upon the fteces — 
 enough to cover them, and to absorb the urine of 
 the single evacuation. And the accumulation under 
 the seat must be occasionally raked down or leveled 
 ofE in the vault when an ordinary vault is used. 
 
 5. When the vault or receptacle has become too 
 full, its contents must be removed, and before the 
 supply is exhausted the reservoir must be refilled. 
 
 6. If the earth is to be again used, its organic 
 matter must be destroyed by fermentation, and its 
 moisture must be evaporated. 
 
 7. In towns, some system must be adopted for 
 the supply of earth and removal of deposits — 
 either by the public authorities or by private enter- 
 prise. 
 
 1. As Mr. Moule very tersely states the case, 
 
218 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUbES AND TOWNS. 
 
 " An earth-closet will no more work without dry 
 earth than a water-closet will work without water ; " 
 but the dryness here referred to is not absolute dry- 
 ness, for the earth of the closet will always contain 
 what moisture may be absorbed from the atmos- 
 phere. This, and even a little more than this, I 
 have found to be not at all objectionable. What is 
 required is, according to Professor Joy, that so 
 much of the moisture of the fseces shall be immedi- 
 ately withdrawn from them that there shall be too 
 little left to cause an offensive putrefaction. 
 
 The best manner for drying the earth depends 
 very much upon the quantity required, and the 
 means at command. Two or three cart-loads, which 
 will be sufficient for a year's use of an ordinary 
 family, may be taken from a ploughed field or a 
 road-side gutter during the dry weather of summer. 
 Dumped in an out-of-the-way corner under a 
 wood-shed, or in any other dry place, being under- 
 laid with boards to prevent it from absorbing the 
 moisture of the earth, it will soon become suffi- 
 ciently dry for use, and will remain so throughout 
 the dampest arid foggiest weather of the winter or 
 spring. It might be equally well kept in a dry and 
 well-ventilated cellar. It may be sifted, little by 
 little, as wanted, and it will answer tolerably well 
 if it is merely put through the ordinary coal-sifter, 
 though something finer would be preferable. My 
 sieve has six meshes to the inch ; perhaps four 
 WDuld do as well. When the earth is sifted, it may 
 oe stowed away in boxes or barrels in some easilj 
 
THE DEY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM 219 
 
 accessible place, and there remain until wanted for 
 use. This is sufficient for the requirements of a 
 private house. 
 
 In preparing for the supply of a large town, it 
 would be necessary to procure a land-right, in order 
 that deep excavations can be made. The amount 
 of earth needed will be very large, and it must, of 
 course, be procured in the cheapest way. This will 
 be in nearly all cases, by making a clean sweep as 
 deep as it is economical to work, and making an 
 acre of land produce as much earth as possible. 
 The high price of land in the immediate vicinity of 
 the town may make it desirable to go to a consider- 
 able distance, in order to secure cheap land and 
 cheap transportation combined. The earth being 
 procured, the first drying can be most economically 
 done near the spot from which it was taken, by 
 simply storing it under rain-tight and well-venti- 
 lated sheds. It would, perhaps, be well to make 
 some provision for rapid, artificial drying in the 
 town to provide against emergency and accident. 
 
 2. There is undoubtedly a good deal of differ- 
 ence in the effectiveness. of earths of various com- 
 position ; though, with a considerable range of ex- 
 periment and observation, I am inclined to think 
 that the kinds of earth which are not suited for use 
 in the closet are much fewer than would be gener- 
 ally supposed. Pure sand and gravel are nearly 
 worthless, but I think that any earth that contains 
 enough clay or organic matter for the production of 
 prdlnary crops will answer the purpose. A nearly 
 
220 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 pure clay, however, is objectionable from its ten- 
 dency to absorb moisture from the air. If to be used 
 only once, an equal weight of muck or peat may 
 be, from its greater bulk, more valuable than clay. 
 Suitable clay could probably be re-used many more 
 times, and so would be cheaper for use in towns. 
 W^ithout being able to give a definite scientific rea- 
 son for the opinion, I think that a clay loam, highly 
 charged with oxides of iron (notably reddish clay 
 (cams), would be the best. In my own experience, 
 [ have found anthracite coal ashes to answer a per- 
 fectly good purpose, — especially after one use in 
 the closet has dampened them enough to lay their 
 dust. 
 
 3. The sifting of the earth is, as I have shown, a 
 very simple matter when it is a question merely of 
 the supply of a single household. When large 
 quantities are required, it wovild be the most eco- 
 nomical plan to adopt revolving screens, such as are 
 used for cleaning coal at mines, the construction be- 
 ing similar to that of the bolting screen of a com- 
 mon flour-mill. Such a screen should be, probably, 
 twenty feet long, the first half of its length being 
 furnished with quarter-inch meshes, and the next 
 with half-inch meshes. Stones and very large 
 lumps would be discharged at the end of the 
 screen ; the coarser particles passing through the 
 half-inch mesh might be broken up in a stamping- 
 mill and resifted. If the screening-house were 
 built in a side hill, so that carts could lead directly 
 to the screen, and the prepared earth fall to a story 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 221 
 
 below, much necessity for shoveling would be ob- 
 viated. 
 
 4. Concerning the mechanical arrangement for 
 the closet, I am more and more inclined to the 
 opinion that Mr. Moule's device is the only one 
 that will be effective under all circumstances. Pos- 
 sibly variations in the size of the "chucker" (by 
 which the quantity of earth used is measured), ac- 
 cording to the quality of the earth, may be found 
 to be desirable. Whether this apparatus is used or 
 whether we depend on covering with a hand-scoop, 
 the quantity should be regulated by the quantity 
 of urine to be absorbed, and at each urination 
 earth should be thrown down, to prevent undue 
 moisture. 
 
 In an ordinary broad vault the deposits will nat- 
 urally form a heap under the seat. Tliis must be, 
 now and then, leveled off, and the surface exposed 
 by the leveling should be thinly covered with the 
 drier earth near the sides of the vault. Probably 
 under no ordinary circumstances would it be neces- 
 sary to do this oftener than twice in a month. In 
 the commode and the up-stairs closet, it will never 
 be necessary. With the Broadmoor tank, or larger 
 vault, it will be. 
 
 5. Just as it is requisite to empty a cess-pool, or 
 fill the tank over a water-closet, as occasion re- 
 quires, so it is necessary to supply fresh earth to 
 the earth-closet, and carry away the accumulation. 
 The details of this work are too simple to need at- 
 tention here. 
 
222 SANITARY DEAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 In the case of towns, where the system is in any- 
 thing like general use, the care of the closets should 
 devolve almost exclusively upon associations or in- 
 dividuals (?ngaged in the business of earth supply. 
 Ha-^ ing, as a gardener, undertaken this in Newport 
 for the sake of the manure to be obtained, I am al- 
 ready convinced that in all places where manure 
 has even a moderate value, it will be unnecessary 
 to make a charge for the earth and attendance. 
 The preparation of the earth and the amount of 
 transportation constitute a trifling tax when com- 
 pared with the value of the product. When the 
 business increases, so that the time of a man and 
 a horse and cart will be constantly employed, 
 the details can be somewhat simplified, and the 
 rounds made with more regularity ; the only pre- 
 caution necessary being, to have always an abun- 
 dant supply of earth ready in advance, so that pro- 
 tracted wet weather will not require regular deliv- 
 ery to be postponed in order to make use of the 
 first fair weather for securing earth. 
 
 Wherever the demand is sufficient for the busi- 
 ness to be regularly systematized, the earth may be 
 delivered as ordered, just as coal is now delivered 
 from coal-yards, and it would be proper to make a 
 charge for " carrying in," as in handling coal. If 
 the cart is suitably covered against rain, it is most 
 convenient to carry the earth in bags. These may 
 be emptied into a bin in the cellar, from which com- 
 mode-hods are supplied, or into the hoist-box of 
 the up-stairs closets, or they may be carried to 
 closets on the upper floors of houses. 
 
THE DEY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 223 
 
 The deposits may be removed in baskets, and 
 emptied into the cart on its returning rounds. Bar- 
 rels are too heavy for one man to handle, and are 
 less convenient than bags for filling closet-reser 
 voirs. 
 
 In places where manure has not sufficient value 
 to pay the cost of attendance, the charge necessary 
 to make a profitable business of attending to a con- 
 siderable number of closets would be much less 
 than the water rates and plumbers' bills that are 
 an inseparable part of the water system. If ashes 
 are used, the addition of the closet manure to them 
 will not materially increase the cost of their hand- 
 ling, and it will give them a value which they do 
 not now possess. 
 
 6. In the country where the manure is to be ap- 
 plied directly to the garden, it will be perhaps bet- 
 ter to use the earth but once, as there is an advan- 
 tage in having it as bulky as possible for more even 
 distribution ; but even in this case it should not be 
 applied in its fresh state. It should be first thrown 
 into a bin or into barrels, in which it will retain its 
 moisture long enough for perfect fermentation. In 
 this way its paper will be destroyed, and its faecal 
 matter will be diffused throughout the mass and 
 absorbed by the earth ; while the earth itself will 
 have its own fertilizing constituents developed by 
 the decomposition going on within it. When ready 
 for use, the earth will be nearly indistinguishable 
 from that freshly taken from the field ; but its ma- 
 •lurial power will be materially increased. If the 
 
224 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 manure is to be sold in the market or is to be 
 transported to any distance, it should be repeatedly 
 used, in order that its value may be as much as 
 possible increased. The deposits taken from the 
 closets should be carried to the earth depot, thrown 
 into compact heaps, moistened a little, if necessary, 
 and left to ferment. Af ber a sufficient time, these 
 heaps may be shoveled over, and left to undergo a 
 second fermentation. They may then be spread 
 out to dry, or, better, removed to a drying-room 
 where there is a free circulation of air. After be- 
 coming di'y, the earth may be passed through a 
 screen, and the finer parts stored away for further 
 use; the small amount of coarser matter may be 
 again moistened and fermented. Of this . latter, 
 the quantity will be very small, and it will consist 
 chiefly of dried-up solid fjeces, which it may be 
 found best to pulverize and use directly as manure, 
 or it may be mixed with deposits freshly brought in 
 from the closets. It will help the fermentation of 
 these, and will be entirely absorbed. 
 
 7. What is the best arrangement for towns and 
 villages it is now too early to say ; but in any case 
 the details of the system would be simple and easy 
 of execution. If the value of the manure is enough 
 to make the earth business a source of profit, it 
 may be safely left to private enterprise ; but even 
 in this case the sanitary authorities of the town 
 should provide for the inspection of closets, espe- 
 cially among the poorer classes, and it should be 
 required that all comply with such provisions as the 
 nublic interest makes necessary. 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 225 
 
 If the preservation of the manure is not an ob- 
 ject, the removal of the accumulations may be pro- 
 vided for, as is now done in the case of ashes, etc. 
 The public authorities should, in all cases, assume 
 such control of the matter as to insure the perfect 
 vrorking of the system ; but the manner in vrhich 
 private establishments shall be supplied with earth 
 is a question to be decided by the peculiar circum- 
 stances of each case. Just as no water-closet should 
 be allowed to remain in use without a supply of 
 water or with an obstructed soil pipe, so should no 
 earth-closet be allowed to become ineffective from 
 the neglect of its owner to provide it with earth or 
 to have its accumulations removed. It is now nec- 
 essary, in even the smallest towns, to prevent any 
 outrageous neglect of common privies ; and the ex- 
 tension of the same system of inspection to meet 
 the requirements of the dry-earth sewage would be 
 neither difficult for the authorities nor onerous to 
 householders. 
 
 THE MANITEE QUESTION AS AEEECTING THE 
 EARTH SYSTEM. 
 
 In this connection, the following, which I pub- 
 lished in 1872,^ seems worth reproducing : — 
 
 It is a very difficult matter to fix the value of any 
 animal manure, except by accurate analj'sis of each 
 separate sample. Opinions as to the value of human 
 excrement vary widely according to the standard of 
 comparison taken. It is a singular fact (which does 
 
 1 Earth-Closets and Earth Sewage, p. 49. 
 15 
 
226 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOOSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 not obtain with reference to most other manures) 
 that the valuation of human excrement made by 
 chemists is very much less than that of the practi- 
 cal farmer. For instance, in England, where the 
 value of the mineral constituents of the material 
 seems to be entirely disregarded, it is usual to meas- 
 ure the value solely by the amount of ammonia that 
 may be produced from it ; those parts of. night-soil 
 which are the key to the lasting fertility of the land 
 are not taken into the account, and ammonia alone 
 (which, although a most valuable and efficient aid 
 to the farmer, counts as nothing in giving perma- 
 nent fertility) is considered. 
 
 In this connection, I reproduce a portion of an 
 article of my own written for Judd's " Agricultural 
 Annual "of 1868:1 — 
 
 " The average population of New York city — 
 including its temporary visitors — is probably not 
 less than 1,000,000. This population consumes food 
 equivalent to at least 30,000,000 bushels of corn in 
 a year. Excepting the small proportion that is 
 stored up in the bodies of the growing young, whicli 
 is fully offset by that contained in the bodies of tlie 
 dead, the constituents of the food are returned to 
 the air by the lungs and skin, or are voided as ex- 
 sreraent. That which goes to the air was originally 
 taken from the air by vegetation, and will be so 
 taken again. Here is no waste. The excrement 
 contains all that was furnished by the mineral ele- 
 
 * " Sewers and Earth-Closets, and their Relation to Agriculture." 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 227 
 
 ments of the soil on which the food was produced. 
 This all passes into the sewers, and is washed into 
 the sea. Its loss, to the present generation, is com- 
 plete. 
 
 " In the present half-developed condition of the 
 world, there is no help for this. Tlie first duty in 
 all towns is to remove from the vicinity of liabita- 
 tions all matters which, by their decomposition, 
 would tend to produce disease. The question of 
 health is, of course, of the first importance, and 
 that of economy must follow it ; but it should follow 
 closely, and perfect civilization must await its solu- 
 tion. 
 
 " Thirty million bushels of corn contain, among 
 other minerals, nearly seven thousand tons of phos- 
 phoric acid, and this amount is annually lost in the 
 wasted night-soil of New York city.^ 
 
 " Practically, the human excrement of the whole 
 country is nearly all so disposed of as to be lost to 
 the soil. The present population of the United 
 States is not far from 35,000,000. On the basis of 
 the above calculation, their annual food contains 
 over 200,000 tons of phosphoric acid, being about 
 the amount contained in 900,000 tons of bones, 
 which, at the price of the best flour of bone (for 
 
 1 Other mineral constituents of food — important ones, too — are 
 washed away in even greater quantities through the same channels; but 
 this element is the best for illustration, because its effect in manure is 
 tlie most striking, even so small a dressing as twenty pounds per acre 
 producing a marked effect on all cereal crops. Ammonia, too, which is 
 so important that it is usual in England to estimate the value of manure 
 in exact proportion to its supply of this element, is largely yielded by 
 human excrement. 
 
228 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 manure), would be worth over $50,000,000. It 
 would be a moderate estimate to say that the other 
 constituents of food found in night-soil are of at 
 least equal value with the other constituents of the 
 bone, and to assume $50,000,000 as the money value 
 of the wasted night-soil of the United States. 
 
 " In another view, the importance of this waste 
 cannot be estimated in money. Money values ap- 
 ply, rather, to the products of labor, and to the ex- 
 change of these products. The waste of fertilizing 
 matters reaches farther than the destruction or ex- 
 change of products — it lessens the ability to pro- 
 duce. 
 
 " If mill-streams were failing year by year, and 
 steam were yearly losing force, and the ability of 
 men to labor were yearly growing less, the doom of 
 our prosperity would not be more plainly written 
 than if the slow but certain impoverishment of our 
 soil were sure to continue. 
 
 " Fortunately, it will not continue always. So 
 long as there are virgin soils, this side of the Pacific, 
 which our people can ravage at will, thoughtless 
 earth-robbers will move West and ' till ' them. But 
 the good time is coming, when (as now in China and 
 Japan) men must accept the fact that the soil is not 
 a warehouse to be plundered — only a factory to be 
 worked. Then they will save their raw material, 
 instead of wasting it ; and, aided by nature's won- 
 derful loom, will weave, over and over again, the 
 fabric by which we live and prosper. Men will 
 build up as fast as men destroy, old matters will be 
 
THE DEY CONSEEVANOY SYSTEM. 229 
 
 reproduced in new forms, and, as the decaying for- 
 ests feed the growing wood, so will all consumed 
 food yield food again. 
 
 " The stupendous sewers which have just been 
 completed in London at a cost of $20,000,000, and 
 which challenge admiration as monuments of engi- 
 neering achievement, are a great blessing to that 
 filth-accursed town, and, in the absence of anything 
 better, they might, with advantage, be imitated 
 elsewhere. They have had an excellent effect on 
 the health of the population, by removing a prolific 
 cause of typhoid fever and other fatal diseases. As 
 affording needed relief from malaria, they are of im- 
 mense importance. Still, they are a great (although 
 necessary) evil, inasmuch as they wash into the sea 
 the manurial products of 3,000,000 people, to sup- 
 ply whom with food requires the importation of im- 
 mense quantities of grain and manure. 
 
 " The wheat market of one half the world is reg- 
 ulated by the demand in England. She draws food 
 from the Black Sea and from California ; she uses 
 most of the guano of the Pacific islands ; she even 
 ransacks the battle-fields of Europe for human 
 bones, from which to make fresh bones for her peo- 
 ple ; and, in spite of all this, her food is scarce and 
 high, and bread-riots break out in her towns. 
 
 " An earnest effort is now being made to use the 
 matters discharged through these sewers for the fer- 
 tilizing of the lands toward the eastern coast. For 
 this purpose, it is intended to build a sewer, forty 
 miles long and nine and a half feet in diameter 
 
230 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 which, with the incidental expenses of its construc- 
 tion and management, will cost about $10,000,000. 
 The sewage company have a farm at Barking, on 
 which they have experimented very successfully, 
 one acre of their irrigated meadows having produced 
 nine tons of Italian rye grass in twenty-two days, 
 and fifty tons during the j)ast season up to August 
 15, with a prospect that the yield for the whole 
 season will be, at least, seventy tons from a single 
 acre. 
 
 " The system of sewage irrigation has earnest ad- 
 herents, and equally earnest opposers. It does seem 
 a pity that, for every pound of excrement that is 
 given to the land, three or four hundred pounds of 
 water must go with it ; and it is probable that such 
 highly diluted manure can be used with advantage 
 only on grass crops. It is further asserted that, as 
 the best results can be obtained only by the applica- 
 tion of from 6,000 to 10,000 tons of the liquid per 
 acre, the cost of the process must prevent its gen- 
 eral adoption. However, the scheme is about to be 
 thoroughly tested, and it is to be hoped that its 
 success will be such as to secure a return to the soil 
 of a vast amount of valuable matter which, hitherto, 
 has been worse than thrown away. 
 
 " The many attempts that have been made to ex- 
 tract the fertilizing parts of the sewage from the 
 deluge of water with which they are diluted, have 
 entirely failed of their object. If, as now seems 
 probable, the best and cheapest way to remove 
 waste matters from large towns is by dilution in 
 
THE DRY CONSEKVANCY SYSTEM. 231 
 
 large quantities of water, the efforts of agriculturists 
 must be directed to the best means of making use 
 of the mixture." 
 
 Wherever I have used either the earth from the 
 closet or the contents of my filtering-casks, the ef- 
 fect has been obviously much greater than it vsrould 
 have been from the use of the raw material alone. 
 A portion of the improvement, no doubt, is due to 
 the more even distribution that the increased bulk 
 makes possible ; but I am inclined to attach much 
 greater importance to a suggestion contained in an 
 article prepared by Colonel Weld for the " Agricul- 
 tural Annual " for 1870. He says : — 
 
 " Most soils contain a much larger quantity of 
 substances required by the plant than would be 
 available in several years' cropping. These are 
 gradually rendered soluble and fit for plant-food by 
 weathering year by year. The result of mingling a 
 soil with manure which is undergoing active fer- 
 mentation is to cause decomposition to go on in it 
 more rapidly, and so it is certain that a part of the 
 benefit arising from the use of soil as an absorbent 
 lu stables is that a larger supply of plant-food is 
 prepared from the soil and distributed with the ma- 
 nure." 
 
 Of course this introduces an element of uncer- 
 tainty into the calculation, as it is not likely that 
 any two soils would yield exactly the same fertiliz- 
 'ng value to the action of decomposing manure ; but 
 it is undoubtedly true that any earth not positively 
 
232 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 barren will be very beneficially affected by the active 
 decomposition of f^ces and urine within its mass. 
 
 The same article contains the following lucid 
 statement of the effect of earth on decomposing or- 
 ganic matter : — 
 
 " The earth-closet depends for its working upon 
 the deodorizing and absorbing qualities of dry earth. 
 The earth absorbs moisture because it is dry ; it 
 absorbs odors, both on account of its chemical nat- 
 ure and the mechanical arrangement of its parti- 
 cles. Earth is sometimes considered as antiseptic, 
 because it so thoroughly destroj's some of the prod- 
 ucts of decay, especially evil odors ; but it really 
 promotes decay very energetically. If we lift a 
 piece of cloth, a part of which has been buried by 
 accident for a few days or weeks, we find the part 
 under the earth greatly injured, or entirely rotten, 
 from the contact of earth and moisture. Very dry 
 earth is somewhat antiseptic on account of its dry- 
 ness. 
 
 " The disorganization or decay which earth pro- 
 motes does not affect living organisms of either 
 plants or animals.^ Hence, seeds, roots, bulbs, in- 
 sect life, and the eggs of many birds, reptiles, and 
 insects, are preserved, if buried in earth of natural 
 dryness, so long as life remains. 
 
 " The purifying and deodorizing properties of the 
 Boil are familiar to almost every farmer boy in the 
 
 1 This does not apply, either necessarily or very probably, to the liv- 
 ing germs of infection (if such germs there be), as these seem to luulti 
 Dly only under the influence of putrid decomposition. 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 233 
 
 eountry. A very slight burying prevents the odor 
 of a decaying carcass being noticeable ; a thin cover- 
 ing of earth suffices to suppress the odors of a fresh 
 manure heap ; and the most disgusting of all com- 
 mon smells, that of the skunk, may be entirely re- 
 moved from articles of clothing, or other things con- 
 taminated by it, by burying them in the ground a 
 few weeks (of course, absolute contact of the earth 
 with the garments should be prevented, or they 
 would be rendered useless through decay)." 
 
 There is one consideration coimected with this 
 branch of the subject which is of even greater im- 
 portance than the mere money value of the single 
 application of the manure. Our present system is 
 one of constant waste. We draw from the soil a 
 certain amount of plant-food with every crop that 
 we grow. In so far as the crop is consumed by 
 man, this plant-food is practically wasted. In the 
 next crop that the land produces, fresh elements are 
 required, and these, in their turn, are thrown away. 
 And so we go on, year after year, always drawing 
 out more than we put back, to the extent of almost 
 the entire food of our population. Of course much 
 of this material finds its way, sooner or later, to the 
 Boil ; for even that which is washed into the sea may 
 be reclaimed in sea-weed used as manure, or in fish 
 that is used for food. But as a broad proposition, 
 't may be assumed that practically the food of our 
 [jopulation returns almost nothing to the soil. 
 
 The relief that the earth-closet offers in an agri- 
 Eultural point of view is not to be measured by the 
 
234 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 fiimple fact that it furnishes nutriment to the crop 
 to which the manure is applied ; for still greater 
 importance attaches to the permanent benefit to the 
 soil, resulting from any system, by which all that 
 has been contributed to plants is surely returned. 
 Instead of removing mineral plant-food with every 
 crop, and sending it to the four corners of the earth, 
 these mineral matters are returned in a form suita- 
 ble for immediate use. The crop is fed, not by new 
 contributions from the soil, but by the very mate- 
 rial which has fed jorevious crops. The same ele- 
 ments may be used over and over again ad infini- 
 tum.^ At the same time, the action of the weather 
 upon the soil, the action of the feeding-roots of 
 plants on the surfaces of its particles, and the power 
 of organic matters (both the added manure and the 
 decaying roots of previous crops) to develop latent 
 fertilizing elements of the earth, all tend to add, 
 year by year, to the active fertility of the land. 
 
 DR. VOELCKEK ON THE VALUE OF EAETH-CLOSET 
 MANURE. 
 
 In 1872, Dr. Voelcker, chemist to the Royal Ag- 
 ricultural Society of England, contributed to its 
 Journal (2d Series, vol. viii.) a carefully considered 
 essay on this subject. The following quotations 
 will show the very favorable light in which he re- 
 gards the system generally, and the small value he 
 attaches to its product. 
 
 i Of course, it may or may not be the identical elements it has pre- 
 nously yielded which are returned to a given field, and it is not mate 
 Hal to the argument whether it be these or their equivalent. 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 23fV 
 
 " In the country — in small county towns, and 
 in isolated establishments, such as county prisons, 
 workhouses, and asylums — the disposal of human 
 excretal matters presents no great difficulty ; but 
 their removal from towns is generally attended with 
 considerable expense, no matter what particular sys- 
 tem the authorities may adopt. By degrees the 
 town authorities are learning the disagreeable les- 
 son that materials which are excellent fertilizers 
 when safely incorporated with the soil are a nui- 
 sance in a town, and cause expenses that are all the 
 greater the more completely the plan of removal ac- 
 cords with the requirements of civilization 
 
 Nothing effects so complete and rapid a deodoriza- 
 tion and disinfection of putrid animal matter of 
 every kind, as a well aerated soil. 
 
 " Bousingault has shown that there is a larger pro- 
 portion of oxygen in the air condensed between the 
 particles of a porous soil than in the atmosphere 
 above the land. In the condensed condition in 
 which oxygen exists in a porous soil, it no doubt 
 acts much more powerfully in oxidizing organic 
 matters than the free oxygen of the air 
 
 " There is no oxidizing agent equal to a porous 
 soil, which is always at hand in almost unlimited 
 quantities, and equally effective in destroying an- 
 imal effluvia, and the permanently prejudicial prop- 
 erties of excrementitious matter of every descrip- 
 tion. Few axioms are so true as that which 
 enforces the propriety of returning to the land the 
 fertilizing materials which are removed from it in 
 the produce. In other words the nuisance of a 
 
236 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 town population ought to be utilized on the land for 
 the production of food. 
 
 " Mr. Moule has the merit of having given to the 
 public a simple and ingeniously contrived apparatus, 
 which is capable of doing good service in many 
 places ; more especially in sick rooms, public estab- 
 lishments such as county prisons and unions, and 
 country houses, where a good supply of water cannot 
 be commanded ; and credit is due to him for having 
 pointed out the repeated action, and consequently 
 the fitness for repeated use of the same earth. 
 
 " Where the earth required for absorption can 
 be readily procured in a dried and sifted state, and 
 the land for the utilization of the compost is in close 
 proximitj'-, the earth-closet system recommends it- 
 self as a thoroughly efhcient plan of disposing of 
 human excreta and the utilization of their fertilizing 
 constituents at the smallest expense and in some 
 cases even with economy." 
 
 Composition of a sample of earth-closet manure^ 
 used four times in succession, and dried : — 
 
 Moisture (loss on dnMng^ at 212^ Fahr.) . , 1.49 
 
 *Organic matter and water of combination . . 6.56 
 
 Oxide of iron and alumina 14.57 
 
 Tribasio pliospliateof lime (boue-phospliate) . . 1.46 
 
 Carbonate of lime 9.47 
 
 Magnesia 2.20 
 
 Potash 1.31 
 
 Chloride of sodium 32 
 
 Insoluble silicious matter (clay) . . . .62.12 
 
 100.00 
 
 'Containing nitrogen 39 
 
 Equal to ammonia .47 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 237 
 
 As an illustration of the practical working of the 
 system on a large scale, he gives the following ex- 
 tract of a letter from Captain Armytage, the gov- 
 ernor of the West Riding Prison, Wakefield, where 
 as many as 776 earth-closets were in use, the system 
 having been first introduced in the summer of 1866. 
 
 " We use the ordinary Moule's closet, or a still 
 simpler box, where the earth is applied out of a 
 small scoop by hand, instead of the self-acting ma- 
 chinery of Moule's closets, which, with ordinary 
 care, acts very well. You must be aware what class 
 of men and women we have to deal with in working 
 out experiments ; and I can only say that, after 
 more than three years, I am satisfied that the dry- 
 earth plan is the only sound system that can be 
 worked out, especially among the lower classes and 
 in towns, my principle being to keep all sediments 
 out of the drains. The urine now is collected into 
 tanks, and is sold, or used for manuring the ground, 
 or is thrown upon the earth compost. We find an 
 absence of all smells, that formerly were quite over- 
 powering; and even in the manipulating shed no 
 smell can be discerned, except at the time of turn- 
 ing the compost, and then the smell perceptible in 
 the shed is more that of a Peruvian guano-shed than 
 anything else." 
 
 It appears that : "In the course of the year from 
 fifty to sixty tons of earth-manure are obtained, 
 which is chiefly used on the prison grounds. In 
 1870, about twelve tons were sold at £1 per ton, 
 Hrhen the earth was once used ; £2 when twice used, 
 
238 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 and £B thrice used. It has had remarkable success 
 in growing onions, and has been used with advan- 
 tage for potatoes, vegetables, and garden produce in 
 general. Half a ton per acre of the earth used once 
 in the closets has also been successfully applied to 
 grass land, and one ton per acre produced two tons, 
 three cwt. of hay. In a second experiment, one ton 
 of the earth manure (once used), produced two tons, 
 two cwt. of hay." 
 
 In Voelcker's further chemical investigation of 
 this subject there is given the following analysis 
 made by Dr. Gilbert : — 
 
 
 
 EAKTH. 
 
 
 
 Before use. 
 
 Uflicgonce. 
 
 Using twice. 
 
 Percentage of moisture in air 
 drietl and sifted soil (loss at 210° 
 Fall.) 
 
 Perceniage of nitrogen in air 
 dried and sifted soil 
 
 Percentage of nitrogen in soil 
 dried at 212' Falir 
 
 8.4i0 
 .067 
 .073 
 
 9.970 
 .216 
 .240 
 
 7.710 
 .353 
 .383 
 
 On the strength of which, it is stated that : 
 " earth passed tliree times through the closet, in a 
 perfectly dry state, was worth only 6s. 2\d. more 
 per ton than dry garden mold of the composition 
 of the soil employed in the experiments." 
 
 In support of his opinion that the value of human 
 excrements has always been popularly overestimated. 
 Dr. Voelcker adduces the following : — 
 
 " In 1864, the Prussian government commissioned 
 Messrs. C. v. Salviati, O. Roder, and Dr. Eichhorn 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 239 
 
 to investigate the modes of collection, removal, and 
 utilization, in various continental towns ; and in 
 their report, the Prussian commissioners, who visited 
 various towns in Belgium, France and Germany, 
 showed not only that the householders seldom real- 
 ized anything like a franc per head per annum for 
 their excretal matter, but that, in the majority of 
 towns, they had to pay something for the removal. 
 It is surprising that in the face of the reports of in- 
 dividuals who have investigated the subject on the 
 spot, and in spite of reliable oificial reports, embodjr- 
 ing the results of personal observations, and dealing 
 with plain matters of fact, many people should still 
 give credence to the unwarranted statement that in 
 Belgium excretal matters are sold at £1 per head 
 per annum, and that most continental towns derive 
 a more or less considerable income from the sale and 
 utilization of human excreta. In the endeavor to 
 correct the erroneous and exaggerated notions which 
 not a few persons entertain with regard to the 
 money value of human excrements, I have purposely 
 confined myself to a statement of facts, which everj"- 
 one may verify who will take the trouble to visit 
 continental towns and make inquiry into the man- 
 ner in which human excreta are disposed of, and 
 what is realized by the towns by their utilization. 
 The practical conclusion to which an unbiassed in- 
 quirer into this subject will arrive is that, as far as 
 the inhabitants of towns are concerned, human ex- 
 creta are a nuisance, for the removal of which, in 
 most towns they have to pay something. 
 
240 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 " Speaking generally, solid human excreta, as 
 they leave the body, contain one fourth of dry matter 
 and three fourths of water. The dry matter con- 
 tains about 1^ per cent, of nitrogen, and 1 per cent, 
 of phosphoric acid. 
 
 " If it were possible to dry faeces without loss in 
 fertilizing matters, and without the addition of 
 bulky material, they would, in a dry state, be a very 
 valuable manure, for in that state they would con- 
 tain : — 
 
 •Organic matter 88.52 
 
 Insoluble silicious matter 1.43 
 
 Oxide of iroa 54 
 
 Lime 1.72 
 
 Magnesia 1-55 . 
 
 Phosphoric acid 4.27 
 
 Sulphuric acid 24 
 
 Potash 1.19 
 
 Soda 31 
 
 Chloride of sodium .18 
 
 100.00 
 
 •Containing nitrogen 6.00 
 
 Equal to ammonia 7.28 
 
 " It appears from the preceding figures that, in a 
 perfectly dry condition, two tons of solid human ex- 
 creta are worth almost as much as one ton of Peru- 
 vian guano ; and it seems a great pity that a ma- 
 nure possessing such a fertilizing value should be 
 wasted as at present it is in a great measure. 
 
 " Still more valuable as a manure is human urine, 
 for its principal constituent — urea — contains nearly 
 fifty per cent, of nitrogen ; and uric acid — an active 
 
THE DRY CONSEEVANCY SYSTEM. 241 
 
 constituent of urine — contains about thirty-three 
 per cent, of nitrogen ; and besides these nitrogenous 
 organic matters, human urine contains a good deal 
 
 of phosphoric acid 
 
 " Fresh urine contains, on an average only three 
 per cent, of solid matter, and, according to Professor 
 Way's analysis just quoted, consists of: — 
 
 Water 97.000 
 
 •Organic matter . . ... 2.026 
 
 Insoluble silicious matter 003 
 
 Oxide of iron .002 
 
 Lime 018 
 
 Magnesia .014 
 
 Phosphoric acid OiO 
 
 Sulphuric acid .014 
 
 Potash 055 
 
 Chloride of potassium .162 
 
 Chloride of sodium 566 
 
 100.000 
 
 'Containing nitrogen .58 
 
 Equal to ammonia .71 
 
 " Notwithstanding this large proportion of water, 
 the amount of solid matter in the urine voided in a 
 day is Just about one third greater than the amount 
 of dry matter in the daily solid evacuations. It is 
 not easy to calculate with great precision what is 
 the total amount of fasces and urine which is pro- 
 duced by a mixed population of adults and children 
 of both sexes ; but it may be safely stated that the 
 amount of dry matter in the solid and liquid excreta 
 of a mixed population does not exceed fifty-six 
 pounds per head, per annum, and that probably it is 
 not more than forty-five or forty-six pounds 
 
 " On calculating the amount of ammonia which 
 
242 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSKb AXI) 'I lAVXS. 
 
 will be produced on the decomposition of tlie dry 
 matter of the solid and liquid excrements of each 
 person per annum, we obtain from the 
 
 Ammonia* 
 83 lbs. of dry matter contained in the solid excreta . . 1.60 lbs. 
 And in 34 lbs. of dry matter contained in the liquid excreta 8.12 lbs. 
 
 Or altogether 9.72 lbs. 
 
 " In other words, five sixths of the ammonia ca- 
 pable of being generated on the decomposition of 
 human excreta is furnished by the urine. By a 
 similar calculation I find that, according to the pre- 
 ceding data, each individual would furnish about 
 6j- lbs. of phosphates per annum. For simplicity's 
 sake we may assume that each person of a popula- 
 tion produces in the solid and liquid excreta 56 lbs. 
 of dry matter per annum. These 56 lbs. produce 
 in round numbers 10 lbs. of ammonia, and 5^ lbs. 
 of phosphates. 
 
 " In order to avoid the appearance of a wish to 
 undervalue the intrinsic fertilizing value of human 
 excreta, I would allow 9d. per lb. for ammonia, and 
 2c?. per lb. for phosphates, and further 9d. for the 
 money-value of the remaining constituents, which is 
 rather more than the latter are really worth. 
 
 " The excreta of each person of a population ac- 
 cordingly would be worth per annum 9s. (f 2.16 
 gold), allowing for — 
 
 10 lbs. ammonia at 9d, per lb. 7s. Gd. 
 
 B| lbs. of phosphates at 2d. per lb. . . . 11 
 
 Other matters 7 
 
 Total ralue of human excreta per head per annum . .90 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 243 
 
 " Bearing in mind that five sixths of the total 
 Bvnount of ammonia in the solid and liquid excreta 
 of man are furnished by the urine, and only one 
 sixth by the faeces, and how small is the proportion 
 of the total urine that is passed at the same time, 
 and that our domestic habits prevent the collection 
 and absorption of the whole of the urine, the intrin- 
 sic value of the fertilizing matters which can be 
 practically recovered in Moule's earth-closet, is prob- 
 ably not more than one third of their value, or 
 amounts to only 3s. for each person per annum. In 
 order to recover these three shilling's worth of ma- 
 nuring matters, a large quantity of earth has to be 
 used in Moule's closet. 
 
 " Assuming that the total excreta of a man can 
 be absorbed by the earth without loss, and that 
 they possess an average value of 9s. per annum, each 
 ton of earth used five times in the closet will be 
 worth 22s. 6d. ; but as, practically, about two 
 thirds of the fertilizing matters will be wasted in 
 the urine, which cannot be recovered and absorbed 
 by earth, the value of a ton of earth-closet manure 
 used five times will only be about 7s. 6d." 
 
 This paper has such scientific importance and is 
 justly entitled to so much respect on the part of all 
 who know Dr. Voelcker's most efficient services in 
 the cause of improved agriculture, that no full state- 
 ment of the system can be made without full and 
 faithful reference to his essay. 
 
 The correctness of his estimate it would be dangei 
 
244 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 ous to doubt. If accepted as final it simply states, 
 more in detail, the general proposition that witli the 
 earth system, as with all others, the incentive must 
 be a sanitary rather than a commercial one, and 
 those who still hold to the great agricultural vaUie 
 of earth-closet manure, however much discourage- 
 ment they may receive at the hands of chemistSj 
 will have to fall back upon the many instances of 
 results from its practical use, which seem to be far 
 beyond what its theoretical composition would ac- 
 count for. 
 
 This paper suggests the proposition in agricult- 
 ural chemistry that, just as the nitrogenous prod- 
 ucts of organic decay are consumed by the action of 
 aerated charcoal, so are they consumed by a similar 
 action of aerated earth (or other dry and porous 
 material) and that — in this regard — there may be 
 a loss of organic elements of fertility in tlie process 
 of " summer fallowing," — a loss that is compen- 
 sated for by a certain gain, but a loss nevertheless. 
 
 mottle's apparatus. 
 
 The original apparatus devised by Mr. Moule is 
 manufactured by a successful company in London, 
 who have, as experience has suggested modifications, 
 added a variety of forms and several improvements, 
 which have greatly extended the scope of the sys- 
 tem. 
 
 Precisely what the earth-closet and its accesso- 
 ries, as now contrived, accomplish, is the following : 
 
 A comfortable closet "on any floor of the house, 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 245 
 
 Bupplied with earth, and cleansed of its deposits 
 without the intervention or knowledge of any mem- 
 ber of the household ; 
 
 Figure 17. — The Commode. This is a " self-contained " closet. 
 
 A portable commode in any dressing-room, bed- 
 room, or closet, the care of which is no more disa- 
 ^fTuetuble than is that of an ordinary fireplace ; 
 
 Appliances for the use of immovable invalids 
 
246 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 which entirely remove the distressing accompani- 
 ments of their care ; and 
 
 The complete and effectual removal of all the 
 liquid wastes of sleeping-rooms and kitclien ; and 
 
 
 ^i'ii'" It 
 
 Figure 18. 
 
 The complete suppression of the odors which, 
 despite the comfort and elegance of modern living, 
 Btill hang about our cess-pools and privy-vaults, and 
 attend the removal of their contents. 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 247 
 
 The simpl^t form of Moule's apparatus is the 
 portable commode shown in Figure 17, which is 
 adapted for use in any room or closet, and which 
 with only ordinary care is as inoffensive in odor 
 tnd as convenient and little disagreeable in atten- 
 tion as a common anthracite stove. 
 
 The arrangement of the mechanism of this com- 
 mode is shown in Figure 18. 
 
 A, is a swinging hopper, capable of holding an 
 ordinary coal-hod full of earth ; B is the " chucker " 
 which on being tilted by lifting the handle JT, 
 throws forward the proper quantity of earth into 
 the moveable hod standing under the seat. When 
 the handle is released the chucker drops back into 
 the position shown in the cut, and is filled from the 
 hopper which enters its top, its mouth being at the 
 same time closed hy the shelf /, suspended beneath 
 it. The commode should be supplied with two 
 hods, the one not in use being exposed to the air 
 during the time that it is waiting. When fresh 
 earth is needed for the hopper it is carried to it in 
 this dry hod, which after being emptied, is substi- 
 tuted for the filled one under the seat. 
 
 An apparatus for more regular use, — for a fixed 
 closet where the circumstances allow of the con- 
 struction, — is shown in Figure 19. 
 
 There is a considerable reservoir for earth built 
 up above the level of the top of the hopper, — my 
 own holds from four to six weeks' supply. In lieu 
 of a moveable hod, there is fixed beneath the seat, 
 'ea ^ing through an opening in the floor, a galvan- 
 
Figure 19. — Apparatus with valved funnel. 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 249 
 
 ized iron funnel closed at the bottom witli a move- 
 able valve. This funnel-mouth opens into a twelve 
 inch galvanized iron pipe which passes to the recep- 
 tacle in a cellar or room below. In my own case 
 the closet on the main floor of the house delivers 
 through a short pipe into the top of a tight brick 
 vault three feet square and seven feet high. This 
 vault is closed over with brick work at the top, 
 being plastered close around the pipe so that there 
 shall be no opportunity for an escape of its air into 
 the cellar or into the closet above. In a new con- 
 struction, I should, as a further precaution, provide 
 some means for ventilating this vault, but we have 
 experienced no inconvenience from it in its present 
 condition, and as there is always an abundant sup- 
 ply of earth within it I can imagine no danger from 
 it. 
 
 The closet on the second floor is arranged in pre- 
 cisely the same manner, save that the connecting 
 pipe is long enough to reach through from this floor 
 to the top of a vault in the cellar, — about twelve 
 feet. Each of these cellar vaults has a small man- 
 hole in the brick work (with timber header and 
 sill), which is loosely bricked up and then well 
 coated with mortar on the outside. The vaults have 
 to be emptied about three times in the year, when 
 these loose bricks are knocked out to give access, — 
 the opening being plastered up again as soon as the 
 work is done. 
 
 The only objection that has at any time been found 
 to this arrangement was due to the fact that owing 
 
250 SANITARY DKAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 to its conical form, the funnel, when full, does not 
 empty itself -without help. This objection is en- 
 tirely obviated by making it the duty of one of 
 the users to pull the dumping handle at least once 
 everyday, — the smaller accumulation discharging 
 itself freely. There is the further advantage in this 
 that the deposits are thus always at a depth to be 
 most perfectly reached and covered by the falling 
 earth. 
 
 In my own case, no earth has been brought to the 
 house for three years. During this time we have 
 used over and over again the same material, which 
 consists almost entirely of anthracite ashes. When 
 the vaults are emptied, their contents are simply 
 heaped up in the cellar, where they become suf- 
 ficiently dry, after a month or so, to be used again. 
 Much of this accumulation has passed through the 
 closet, at least ten or twelve times. Under no cir- 
 cumstances has there been any indication that it 
 is anything but ashes, with a slight admixture of 
 garden soil. In my case, the earth-closet system is 
 entirely free from any complication. 
 
 A simple form of earth-privy is shown in Figure 
 20. 
 
 Figure 21 shows an arrangement by which closets 
 on different floors, against the outer wall of a house, 
 may be supplied and emptied from an outside shaft 
 and vault. The earth is hoisted and discharged 
 into the reservoirs from without. The boxes which 
 receive the deposits and their covering of earth are 
 tilted outward into the shafts. 
 
;\v\^vvv\\\vs\vv\\x^vvvkvv;-^ 
 
 Figure 20. — Section of vaulted privy. To be supplied and emptied 
 from tlie rear. 
 
VAULT 
 
 nrnt coNcnrre 
 
 Figure 21. — Plan of closets on two floors, with hoist and dump. 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 253 
 
 The earth-closets at Fort Adams (Newport), 
 erected for the use of the garrison, are constructed 
 as shown in Figure 22. The deposits are received 
 on the concreted floor of the casemate in which the 
 closets are placed. The same plan — with divisions 
 between the seats — is well adapted for the use of 
 schools, asylums, etc. 
 
 Mr. Netten Radcliffe, in 1869, made a careful 
 investigation of the earth-closet system in practical 
 use in various parts of England, in connection with 
 Dr. Buchanan. Their comprehensive and satisfac- 
 tory report was published in connection with the 
 Twelfth Report of Mr. John Simon, medical officer 
 of the Privy Council. 
 
 In 1874, Mr. Netten Radcliffe alone made an ex- 
 amination of the privy system generally, and again 
 inquired into the condition of the earth-system, — 
 communicating the result of his investigations in 
 connection with Mr. Simon's Report of that year. 
 After this wide observation, he says, without quali- 
 fication : "Asa means of abating excrement. nui- 
 sances the dry-earth system is of the utmost value." 
 And again : ',' Of the value of dry earth as a means 
 of abating excrement-nuisance, no question, I pre- 
 sume, now exists ; and its application in detail to 
 this purpose has been facilitated to the utmost by 
 the ingenious mechanical arrangements devised and 
 patented by Mr. Moule and Mr. Girdlestone (the 
 engineer of Moule's Earth-Closet Company). These 
 arrangements, which provide for proper charges of 
 dry earth being thrown upon the deposited excre- 
 
Figure 22. 
 
THE DRY CONSEKVANCY SYSTEM. 255 
 
 ment, admit of ready adoption of the system in 
 houses, schools, and other institutions. 
 
 " Since Dr. Buchanan's inquiry, the system in its 
 integrity has been adopted in many mansions and 
 on numerous estates, as well as in not a few public 
 and private institutions. The wider experience of 
 its use under these circumstances does not differ in 
 result fi'om that which has already been recorded 
 by Dr. Buchanan, and it would serve no useful pur- 
 pose to enter into a detailed examination here of 
 the different instances which came under observa- 
 tion during this inquiry. So far as my observation 
 went, wherever the system had been diligently ap- 
 plied and carried out, and due supervision over its 
 working had been maintained, there its success in 
 the abatement of nuisance from and the disposal 
 of excrement had been assured. Where the system 
 had been adopted without due regard to the amount 
 and kind of labor at disposal and the amount of 
 supervision which would be secured, there it had 
 failed, under like circumstances 
 
 " At Sinningrove, a village on the sea-coast, at 
 the foot of the Cleveland Hills, and adjoining the 
 Lofthouse iron-ore mines, I saw sixty-six earth- 
 closets in operation. The mines are the property 
 of Messrs. Pease, of Darlington, and the earth- 
 closets had been introduced at the suggestion of Mr, 
 France the manager. The closets, of which the 
 mechanism had been constructed by Moule's Earth- 
 Closet Company, were in excellent order, and the 
 earth supplied to them, a clayey soil obtained from 
 
256 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 the foundation of buildings, had been carefully dried 
 in a proper kiln erected for the purpose. A few of 
 the closets had lever-seats, in others the earth was 
 cast from the hopper npon the excrement by a 
 handle acting upon a simply arranged " chucker." 
 A man was detailed to prepare the earth and keep 
 the hoppers supplied ; and an arrangement had been 
 made with neighboring farmers to remove the con- 
 tents of the closets once in every three weeks. No 
 difficulty had been experienced in making this ar- 
 rangement ; indeed, the farmers, it was told me, 
 very gladly undertook the task for the value of the 
 manure, and further, they had agreed to supply 
 earth for the use of the closets when that obtained 
 from new buildings failed. An inspection of the 
 closets showed that the users had not habituated 
 themselves to putting the mechanism in action after 
 use, and that in consequence in some, although the 
 hoppers were full of earth, the excrement was un- 
 covered. This, however, appeared to have arisen 
 rather from an oversight in the management than 
 from any indisposition on the part of the cottagers 
 to use the closets properly. It had been too readily 
 assumed that the population for whom the closets 
 were designed would take to their use without some 
 instructional supervision. The advantages of the 
 closet, as compared with the old-fashioned midden 
 closet were, however, so obvious, even in the state 
 that I saw them, that Mr. Frarce was about to in- 
 troduce two hundred in a new mining village then 
 in process of being built on the hills above Sinnin- 
 grove." 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 257 
 
 He also visited some large collieries which had 
 been supplied with apparatus by the Moule com- 
 pany. These are supplied with surface earth which 
 is dried only under a shed, where it is occasionally 
 turned over. These closets were found to be in a 
 satisfactory condition. 
 
 " The several cottagers to whom I spoke on the 
 subject were, with one exception, enthusiastic in 
 their preference for the earth-closet as compared 
 with the old bidden closet, and more than one 
 spoke of its greater decency, and of the influence of 
 this upon the habits of growing children." 
 
 At Hereford, as in other cases investigated, it 
 seemed sufiicient to gather surface soil in dry 
 weather, store it in suitable places, and use it with- 
 out further artificial drying. 
 
 Mr. Radcliffe concludes : — 
 
 " It must not be too hastily assumed that the 
 very fact of no local authority having adopted, of its 
 own motion, the dry-earth system during the sev- 
 eral years it has been before the public, is decisive 
 against its adaptability to public requirements as to 
 excrement disposal. The truth is, that only now 
 does such a local sanitary organization exist as would 
 admit of its application in those villages and towns 
 where presumably the system is best fitted for opera- 
 tion. Before the Public Health Act, 1872, the sani- 
 tary organization of rural districts and of many small 
 towns was too incomplete to give any reasonable 
 hope of the efficient working of a system, whether 
 the dry earth or any other, which required careful 
 17 
 
258 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES \ND TOWNS. 
 
 and systematic supervision and management. Since 
 the passing of that act, an organization, fitted to 
 these ends, has either been established, or is in prog- 
 ress of establishment, in eyery part of the kingdom. 
 It is, perhaps, even more necessary now than when 
 Dr. Buchanan reported, that sanitary authorities, in 
 examining the sanitary requirements of their dis- 
 tricts, should have under their consideration the 
 dry-earth system, among other systems of dealing 
 with excrement nuisances. ■ 
 
 " I have already mentioned the great value as- 
 signed to the earth-closet manure by certain gentle- 
 men, who are well acquainted with its practical use. 
 This opinion, held also when Dr. Buchanan made 
 his inquiry, has undergone no change, but has been 
 confirmed by the five years' additional experience 
 since that inquiry took place. On the other hand, 
 Drs. Gilbert and Voelcker, studying the question 
 chemically, have shown that the earth-closet ma- 
 nure after it has been charged twice, or even thrice, 
 ■with excrement, is no richer than good garden 
 mold. 
 
 " Mr. Walters, as I have stated, gets £6 a ton for 
 the manure retailed in small quantities, and I may 
 add, that he believes this sum fairly represents the 
 value of the material. Dr. Voelcker estimates the 
 value of the compost after it has been charged five 
 times with excrement, at 7s. 6d. per ton. I cannot 
 pretend to reconcile the differences ; I merely state 
 bhe facts. But it may be observed that the chemi- 
 cal estimate of the value of earth-closet manure, 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 259 
 
 does not disprove the sanitary value of the dry-earth 
 system, but, so far as it may be the true index of 
 vahie, only tends to show that its economical adap- 
 tation must be limited to cottages and small towns, 
 where the cost of providing and drying the earth, 
 and distribution of the manure, will be of the small- 
 est. 
 
 " On this question the Committee ^ on the Treat- 
 ment and Utilization of Sewage, appointed by the 
 British Association for the Advancement of Science, 
 has said, as to houses and villages (again looking at 
 the value as a matter to be estimated by chemical 
 analysis), that the dry-earth system " might be 
 even economical where the earth for preparation and 
 absorption, and the land for utilization, are in close 
 proximity." 
 
 " Without desiring to underrate the commercial 
 aspects of the question, it appears to me, that it is 
 the economical aspect in the sense of obtaining an 
 unquestioned good at the least cost, which has place 
 here. If the value of a method of excrement dis- 
 posal is to be estimated by its profitableness as a 
 pecuniary investment, rather than by its hygienic 
 .success, all measures at present in use in this coun- 
 try would have to be condemned. From the former 
 standpoint, the best, perhaps, that can yet be said 
 of the completest of these is, that it is the least 
 costly. From the sanitary standpoint it is un- 
 fortunate, although quite explicable, that the pro- 
 
 1 Report of 1872, p. 188. Drs. Gilbert and Voelcker were both mem- 
 bers of this committee. 
 
260 SAMTAKY DKAmAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 tnoters of tlie dry-earth system should have rested 
 its advantages so largely upon its presumed results 
 for agricultural purposes. Their experience must, 
 however, be taken as showing that there are certain 
 conditions of use of earth-closet manure which jus- 
 tify their encomiums of it as a manure ; and there 
 is no sufficient reason to believe that a multiplica- 
 tion of like experience would lead to different results. 
 But adopting the chemical estimate of the value of 
 earth-closet manure, it still leaves the question in 
 this not particularly unfavorable position, namely, 
 that the dry-earth system is perhaps the only method 
 of excrement-disposal at present pi-acticed in this 
 kingdom, which wholly, or almost wholly, would 
 probably cover the cost of working, if it were judi- 
 ciously put in operation within suitable districts." 
 
 " I now find myself in a position to state, with 
 some approach to accura,cy, the way in which the 
 earth system may be worked, as well as its approxi- 
 mate cost and produce. I need not here consider 
 the case of public institutions, or very small villages, 
 as the instances quoted sufficiently illustrate the 
 operation of the system there. But for ]ny present 
 purpose I begin with the case of a village popula- 
 tion of 1,000 persons alreadj' provided with' the or- 
 dinary arrangement of outside privies and cess-pools. 
 People making use of closets as receptacles for all 
 stools and urine from every inhabitant, may be taken 
 to use them on an average three times a day each, and 
 to require for each use 1^ lbs. of dry earth. This 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY ■ SYSTEM. 261 
 
 gives 4,500 lbs., or two tons, as the daily qaantity of 
 earth required for the population. The amount 
 that would accumulate in the closet pits, and which 
 would need to be removed about four times a year, 
 ■would be larger than this, by the bulk of the stools, 
 and of such portion of urine as did not evaporate, 
 but without reckoning increase on this score, the 
 quantity of manure produced may be reckoned at 
 the same quantity of two tons a day. 
 
 " I assume that, after owners of property have 
 paid the original cost of providing earth-closets ac- 
 cording to the scheme of the local authority, all sup- 
 ply and maintenance of them should be the func- 
 tion of that authorit3% The cost to owners would 
 vary (1) according to the adaptability of the ex- 
 isting arrangements, and (2) according to the char- 
 acter of the earth arrangements to be required. 
 The latter may either consist, as at Lancaster, in a 
 single daily application of earth to the closets, or 
 much preferably, as at Halton, in an arrangement 
 for the mechanical delivery of earth after each use 
 of the closet. In this latter case, an average out- 
 lay for structural alterations and machinery of some 
 ^3 or £4: might be required in respect of each 
 closet." 
 
 He estimates the capital needed for the original 
 plant, at .£250 ; and the weekly outlay for earth and 
 labor, at £4 15s. The annual cost, including inter- 
 est on plant, will be £260. The product will be 
 730 tons of manure, costing seven shillings per ton. 
 
 " The extension of this scheme, beyond the village 
 
262 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 of 1,000 people, to larger towns, appears to be essen- 
 tially a question of multiplication, with these dif- 
 ferences : on the one hand, an organization on a 
 large scale can commonly be had more cheaply than 
 one on a small scale, and in this way and by its 
 compactness the town has the advantage over the 
 village ; on the other hand, labor is dearer in towns, 
 and towns often have their closets so arranged that it 
 is difficult, without much cost, to adapt them to the 
 earth system, and thus the village has advantage over 
 the town. Further, in towns which must necessarily 
 be supplied with sewers for the purpose of drying 
 the soil, and for removing rain-fall and house slops, 
 the question arises whether it may not be more ad- 
 vantageous to throw all foul matters together into 
 these sewers. I do not propose to discuss the rela- 
 tive merits of a water-closet system and of an earth- 
 closet system ; this must depend upon a variety 
 of considerations proper to each particular place. 
 In a locality where sewage can be cheaply delivered 
 upon suitably situated land, where the amount of 
 sewage dilution is such as fits it for the particular 
 crops that are marketable, where the irrigable land 
 is of such extent and quality as effectually to re- 
 move the manurial constituents of sewage, and to 
 allow of the effluent water passing off in sufficient 
 purity, in short where sewage irrigation can be 
 effected with profit to the people and safety to the 
 health of themselves and their neighbors, I should 
 anticipate a preference for a system of water car- 
 riage for the excrement of the place. But for popu 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 263 
 
 iations where these conditions may not be attainable, 
 or where experience may show greater profit realiz- 
 able from solid manure, I should suppose that the 
 earth system would find advocates in preference to 
 the water system ; and it is impossible to ignore the 
 fact that many large Englisli towns do not regard 
 the water-closet system as suited to all their particu- 
 lar wants, nor irrigation as being a remedy certainly 
 suitable to their particular sewerage difficulties. I 
 refer, of course, to towns which, although possessed 
 of a system of sewers, nevertheless retain their ex- 
 crement in middens or cess-pools, deliberately avoid- 
 ing water-closets as not affording them the certainty 
 of advantage which they need to have before they 
 enter upon expensive new constructions. By the 
 authorities of such towns the earth-system will espe- 
 cially deserve consideration as promising them the 
 means of making harmless their retained excrement 
 by a system readily, perhaps, adaptable to their 
 present privy construction, and not involving in its 
 introduction a new kind of difficulty. 
 
 " The present inquiry has led me to conclusions 
 as to the hygienic advantages of the dry-earth sys- 
 tem similar to those arrived at by Dr. Buchanan 
 in 1869, and I adopt mainly his words in stating 
 them. 
 
 " 1. The earth-closet intelligently managed, fur- 
 nishes a means of disposing of excrement without 
 nuisance, and apparently without detriment to 
 health. 
 
 " 2. In communities, the earth-closet system re- 
 
264 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 quires to be managed by the authority of the place, 
 and in limited communities it will probably pay at 
 least the expenses of its management. 
 
 " 3. In the poorer class of houses, where super- 
 vision of any closet arrangements is indispensable, 
 the adoption of the earth system offers especial ad- 
 vantages. 
 
 "4. The earth system of excrement removal does 
 not supersede the necessity for an independent 
 means of removing slops, rain water, and soil water. 
 
 " 6. As compared with the water-closet, the earth- 
 closet has these advantages : ' It is cheaper in 
 original cost ; it requires less repair ; it is not in- 
 jured by frost; it is not damaged by improper sub- 
 stances being thrown down it ; and it very greatly 
 reduces the quantity of water required by each 
 household.' " 
 
 A large manufacturer in Lancashire thus states 
 his experiences : — 
 
 " Having for some years previously felt much in- 
 terest in sanitary affairs, I decided, in 1870 (in no 
 small degree, by reason of the very favorable notice 
 of it by Dr. Buchanan, in the twelfth report of the 
 medical officer of the Privy Council), to try Moule's 
 earth-closet. I pulled out a good water-closet and 
 substituted an earth-closet. A very short experience 
 caused me to do away with every other form of 
 closet I had, and adopt Moule's throughout. This 
 vas all completed some time ago, and there are now 
 iwenty-six at work ; nine at a cotton factory, three 
 \t my own house, and the rest connected with cofc 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 265 
 
 tages. It has been objected by some to Moule's 
 closet that mechanical contrivances are apt to get 
 out of order. That is true, but from the first up to 
 this time, I have had nothing whatever that has 
 gone wrong. The closets at the factory and one 
 closet at ray house (inside and up-stairs), are fed 
 with clay, the others with sifted coal ashes, so that 
 ten out of the twenty-six are fed with clay, and the 
 produce of these we sell ; the ash manure I use my- 
 self." 
 
 THE GOUX EAKTH-TtJB SYSTEM. 
 
 I have had no personal knowledge of this system, 
 and take the following from English sources. 
 
 The largest trial that has been made with the 
 Goux system is in the town of Halifax, in England, 
 where in May, 1874, Netten Radchffe found 2,573 
 closets so arranged. In his report he describes the 
 system as follows : — 
 
 " A detailed examination of the working of the 
 system in Halifax showed, as a rule, a less degree of 
 offensiveness to the eye than is commonly observed 
 in the simple pail system. 
 
 " The Goux system is a pail system of which the 
 peculiarity consists in a certain preparation of the 
 pails, and in a particular mode of manufacture of 
 the excrement into manure, and utilization of the 
 dry house refuse generally. I am here concerned 
 with so much of the system only as relates to tlie 
 abatement of excrement nuisance in the vicinity of 
 dwellings. The pail used in the Goux system is 
 
266 SANITAEY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 preferably of wood, of oval form, and measures 24 
 by 19 inches, and 16 inches deep. It is prepared 
 for use by being lined at the sides and bottom three 
 or four inches thick, with various refuse matters, 
 used as absorbents. These matters may be (to 
 quote from a trade circular), ' cbaff, chopped or 
 broken straw, damaged or refuse hay, coarse grasses, 
 moor grass, dry street sweepings, dry horse-dung, 
 and litter, sweepings of markets, hay and straw 
 lofts, refuse wool and hair, wool, shoddy, vraic or 
 seaweed, charcoal dust, dry peat, dry ferns, spent 
 dye woods, coal ashes, etc., any, or all of these, or 
 their equivalents, to be mixed in such proportions as 
 may be most convenient, together with a small per- 
 centage of sulphate of iron, or sulphate of lime. At 
 Halifax, tlie materials used for lining the tubs are 
 the waste arising from the manufacture of worsted, 
 cotton and flax, and old manure which has become 
 dry and fallen to powder. To these materials a 
 little sulphate of lime is added. The pails are lined 
 with the assistance of a mold. 
 
 " The lining of the pail is designed to absorb the 
 urine and other liquid which may pass into the pail, 
 and so tend to keep the excrement drier and delay its 
 decomposition ; but the absorption appeared to me 
 to be trivial in pails used by women and children. 
 Widely different degrees of sloppiness existed, obvi- 
 ously dependent upon differences in the families 
 using the pails ; but the extent of sloppiness noticed 
 m Salford, in 1869, was rarely observed in Halifax, 
 greater care being apparently taken in the latter 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 267 
 
 town to avoid the emptying of chamber iitensila 
 into the pails. Probably the more regular locking 
 of the doors of the closets, which is practiced in 
 Halifax, contributes not a little to the exclusion of 
 the contents of chamber utensils from the pails, less 
 trouble being experienced in casting them into the 
 yard drain. At any rate the aspect of the lined 
 pails in use in Halifax generally, was less offensive 
 to the eye than that of the simple pail, and the cast- 
 ing down of a portion of the lining, as I noticed in 
 several instances, sufficed effectually to hide the 
 offense and diminish the odor from the pail. 
 
 " The sanitary advantages gained from the intro- 
 duction of a pail system, such as Goux's, as com- 
 pared with the midden system, in Halifax, cannot 
 well be overrated. The specification for the recon- 
 struction of privies on the Goux system, necessarily 
 provides for the filling up of middensteads ; and 
 the suppression of those receptacles is an initial 
 requisite of sound privy aduiinistration 
 
 " Some needless carelessness occurs in lining the 
 pails, in their removal and cleansing, as well as in 
 the cleansing of the night-soil vans, from want of 
 special supervision of the working of the system by 
 officers of the corporation. I noticed in the course of 
 my inspection, pails imperfectly lined, and some not 
 lined at all ; pails which had overflowed from neg- 
 lect to remove them at the proper time ; littering 
 of ash-place in the removal of the aslies ; some 
 splashing in van and leakage from van into street ; 
 vad unsatisfactory arrangements for cleansing the 
 
268 SANITARY DRAINAGE Oif HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 vans at the wharf whence the pails are dispatched 
 to the manure works. These defects, insignificant 
 as compared with the advantages which those parts 
 of the town derive from the system where it has 
 been introduced, but exciting prejudice against it, 
 entirely arise from the want of such special sn])er- 
 vision as the corporation should exercise over it." 
 
 The Rochdale Corporation made an experiment 
 of several months with the Goux system, and set it 
 aside as being less simple than the small pail sys- 
 tem, which they found satisfactory. 
 
 Dr. Alfred Haviland, Medical Officer of Health 
 to the Rural Sanitary Authorities in the counties of 
 Northampton, Leicester, and Bucks, publishes in the 
 " Sanitary Record " of September 25, 1875, a very 
 strong indorsement of the Goux system, from which 
 the following is quoted : — 
 
 " Having been favorably impressed with the prin- 
 ciple of the Goux system, which I saw in operation 
 at Aldershot in October last, I was anxious to in- 
 vestigate it further, and for this purpose visited 
 Halifax in March last, in company with Dr. Gol- 
 die, the medical officer of health for Leeds. Hali- 
 fax, at the census 1871, contained 13,970 houses and 
 65,510 persons. It is situated between high hills, 
 and its site is so irregular, that many of its main 
 streets and roads are particularly ill-adapted for the 
 draught of heavily laden vehicles, so that scaveng- 
 ing on a large scale is performed under greater dif- 
 ficulties than perhaps in any other town in Eng- 
 land. 
 
THE DRY CONSJiEVANCY SYSTEM. 269 
 
 " We were first taken to the manure ahed, where 
 bhe sewage is taken direct from the houses : a 
 building 145 feet long and 74 feet wide, roofed with 
 wood and felt, with open rafters, it contained 1,500 
 cart loads of manure, from the fresh contents of the 
 tubs to the ripe manure fit for the field. There was 
 no real sewage smell, although ammonia was per- 
 ceptible, not upleasantly, however ; the odor of the 
 atmosphere resembled that of a well-kept cow-shed. 
 
 " In Halifax, the lining of the tubs is shoddy, at 
 Aldershot, stable litter. A lad lined six tubs and 
 prepared them for use in two minutes. 
 
 " The company supply in the borough 3,020 clos- 
 ets with tubs — a fifth more is kept in reserve. 
 About 550 tubs are emptied daily into the shed, 
 twenty-one being a load. Scavenging begins at 7 
 A. M. and ends at 5.30 P. M. Occasional complaints 
 have been made of the smell of the tubs, but these 
 have only occurred when the emptying has been 
 neglected, and the tubs allowed to get too full, as 
 was the case during the severe parts of this year, 
 when the horses could hardly stand on the slippery 
 hills of Halifax, and the scavenging could not pro- 
 ceed at the usual rate. The tubs are emptied once 
 a week. 
 
 " The sewage is emptied directly into the shed ; 
 it heats like stable dung. At the depot the ma- 
 .lure sells at eleven shillings per ton, and two shill- 
 ings extra for carting to the station, which is about 
 a mile off. It is then conveyed in open trucks by 
 railway to its destination. 
 
270 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSKS AND TOWNS. 
 
 " Only one complaint has been made as to the 
 smell arising from these trucks, which are loaded at 
 the ordinary goods station. 
 
 " In the work twenty-one men are employed and 
 eighteen horses, ten belonging to the company and 
 eight hired. As to the health of the men employed, 
 not one had lost a day's work from sickness for the 
 last two years. The Goux system was established 
 in Halifax in January, 1870." 
 
 Neften Radcliffe says in his report of inspection 
 of the system at Salford, — 
 
 " We inspected many pail-closets used by single 
 families, and others used by several families, or by 
 the inmates of a common lodging-house. In every 
 instance where a pail had been in use over two or 
 three days, the capacity of absorption of the liquid 
 dejections, claimed by the patentee for the absorb- 
 ent material, had been exceeded ; and whenever a 
 pail had been four or five days or a week in use, it 
 was filled to the extent of two thirds or more of its 
 cavity, with liquid dejections, in which the solid 
 excrement was floating. The contents, in fact, dif- 
 fered nowise in aspect, except in the cases where a 
 portion of the dyewood lining had broken down and 
 fallen into the liquid, from what we should have ex- 
 pected if a simple unprepared pail had been used. 
 [t was suggested that a part of the sloppiness of the 
 pails probably depended upon the fact of chamber 
 pots having been emptied into them ; but although 
 the regulations for their use permits this to be done, 
 we did not always find on inquiry that even this 
 Bource of wetness had been in operation." 
 
THE DRY CONSERVANCY SYSTEM. 271 
 
 THE DET ASH-CLOSET. 
 
 Although this system is properly a branch of Dry 
 Conservancy, it may (as being usually applied to 
 some form of vault closet) be more appropriately 
 described in the next chapter. 
 
 Note, 2d edition. — Experience and careful analysis have recently 
 shown that in properly prepared earth the entire organic matter of both 
 urine and faeces is completely destroyed by the oxidation which is al- 
 ways active in aerated porous material. The same earth may be used 
 over and over again, for an indeliDite time, if it is allowed to lie under 
 cover for a month or six weeks after each use. This vastly simptities 
 the question of earth-supply. 
 
 This matter is fully discussed in my Sanitary Condition of City oW 
 Country Dwelling-Hoitses. New Yorls: D. Tan Nostrand. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 VAXTLTS AND PRIVIES. 
 
 Ant perfect sanitary system would probably re- 
 quire the entire abolition of all cess-pools and vaults 
 deep in the ground, and of all receptacles of every 
 sort where the matters to be treated are allowed 
 to accumulate in considerable quantities. There is 
 no doubt that could we have our wish, it would be 
 best in every case to make an advantageous applica- 
 tion of the water, the pneumatic, or the dry con- 
 servancy system. 
 
 But the cases are very numerous where public 
 opinion is far from being sufficiently educated in 
 sanitary matters, where the powers of the sanitary 
 authorities of the town, or village, are far too lim- 
 ited and where too much general indifference ex- 
 ists, for anything like a radical reform to be under- 
 taken with the hope of success. In such cases all 
 that can be attempted is to reach such a modifica- 
 tion of the methods now in use as shall render them 
 at least much less offensive and dangerous than 
 they now are. 
 
 This subject has had great attention from local 
 sanitary authorities in many towns and districts of 
 
VAULTS AND PRIVIES. 273 
 
 England, and the investigations concerning it have 
 been most painstaking and valuable. 
 
 It seems evident that there are but three roads 
 of escape from the annoyances now existing, short of 
 a more thorough system, whose adoption is, in so 
 many cases impracticable. These are : The pail 
 system, with frequent removal ; the tight vault, to 
 be emptied as occasion requires, with movable pneu- 
 matic apparatus ; and the ash-pit system, with fre- 
 quent removal. 
 
 If the Goux system is to be considered worthy of 
 public confidence and general adoption in any town 
 (which seems doubtful), its management should be 
 subject to the directions and restrictions given be 
 low with reference to the pail system. 
 
 THE PAIL SYSTEM. 
 
 This, which is also called the Rochdale system, 
 consists in the use, beneath the seat, of a tub (usually 
 the half of a petroleum barrel) to receive dejecta 
 unmixed with any absorbent, — the tub or pail to 
 be removed at frequent intervals. During the re- 
 moval a tight cover is used, and the pails are carried 
 in a covered wagon to a depot where the excrement 
 is mixed with ashes and sold as manure. In all 
 Bystems where a removable receptacle is used in 
 town closets the round form is better than the 
 square, as being more easily kept clean, and the 
 size should be not only such as to be easily handled 
 by one man, but such as not to admit of remaining 
 
 18 
 
274 SANITAEY DRAINAGE OP HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 too long witliout cleansing. These receptacles should 
 not simply be emptied into a scavenger's cart, but 
 should be taken to the depot to be cleansed and well 
 aired, their places in the closet being supplied with 
 fresh vessels. 
 
 The Sanitary Committee of the Rochdale Corpo- 
 ration sajr, with reference to the small pail system, 
 that " the essential condition of the trial, fre- 
 quency of removal, had been secured ; that the sys- 
 tem of removal had been thoroughly approved by all 
 who had had experience of it ; and that it had not 
 failed under most varied conditions, having proved 
 equally efScacious in the highly-rented house with 
 its own closet, in the lodging-house where great 
 numbers were accommodated, and in the factory and 
 workshop. In the subsequent manufacture of the 
 dejections and ashes into a salable manure, the 
 committee concluded that the Goux system was less 
 advantageous than the use of tabs without absorb- 
 ent linings." 
 
 The pail system has been less successful in Leeds 
 than in Rochdale, but evidently only for want of 
 proper attention and sufficiently frequent removal, 
 which indicates the leading objection to any such 
 system as this under any but the most careful man- 
 agement. Well managed, any of the removal sys- 
 tems will be satisfactory, while none will bear neg- 
 lect among the poor class of a population much 
 better than will the ordinary water-closet system. 
 The pail closet is gaining favor so rapidly in Bir- 
 ingham, in the estimation of property holders, that 
 
VAULTS AND PRIVIES. 275 
 
 the means thus far provided for its extension are 
 taxed to the utmost. 
 
 PNEUMATIC EMPTYING. 
 
 There is much to be said in favor of tightly ce- 
 mented vaults to be emptied by portable pneumatic 
 apparatus ; and this emptying process, as applied to 
 common vaults, is achieving a success which — vrhen 
 we consider the still-prevailing horrors of hand- 
 emptying — is well deserved. 
 
 But this system is open to the grave objections, 
 that in practice the vault would often be anything 
 but tight, and would in such cases have all the de- 
 fects of the common privy ; and that even when tight, 
 its purpose would be to retain in the vicinity of the 
 dwellings, and in a state of putrefaction wliich must 
 always endanger health, matters which it should be 
 our greatest aim to remove at once or to retain (aa 
 with tlie earth system) in an innoxious condition. 
 These objections are so grave that they should suffice 
 to condemn the whole process, save as a make-shift 
 for use so long as common priyy vaults are tolerated 
 at all. 
 
 THE ASH-CLOSET. 
 
 The ash-closet which has come into use (and into 
 great favor) in several large towns in England, is 
 usually intended to be emptied at frequent intervals. 
 Its best development seems to be in the town of 
 Hull. 
 
 The daily removal recommended by Doctors Rad- 
 clifEe and Buchanan in 1869 has, however, not been 
 
276 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 carried out, weekly removal being thought to be 
 all that was practicable. These gentlemen say : — 
 
 " In the present imperfect state of our knowledge 
 of the conditions under which faecal diseases spread, 
 we do not feel ourselves entitled to say at what 
 time, after being passed, dejections are or may 
 (under various external circumstances) become dan- 
 gerous to health. We cannot say this either in re- 
 gard of healthy excrement, or of that passed from 
 persons affected with disease, specific or other, but 
 we tliink it may probably be taken as sufficiently 
 true for practical purposes that there is little chance 
 of mischief from the storage of excrement for a day, 
 even though along with healthy excrement that of 
 persons affected, for example, by enteric fever 
 should, without proper disinfection, chance occasion- 
 ally to be included. We propose, then, to regard 
 complete removal of all excrement within a day as 
 practically constituting safety in the case where ex- 
 crement is unmixed, or is only mixed with ashes." ^ 
 
 Dr. RadclifEe advises in his later report : " In 
 all forms of fixed closets the foremost condition, — 
 the one to which all other' considerations should 
 yield, is ^q frequency of removal of deposited excre- 
 ments." 
 
 For the information of town authorities who may 
 contemplate adopting a system of frequent removal, 
 it may be interesting to repeat the following from 
 Mr. Radcliffe's report of the regulations in force in 
 the town of Hull, England. i 
 
 1 Meaning, doubtless, ash-bin refuse. 
 
VAULTS AND PEIVIES. 277 
 
 " For the purposes of ' night soil collection ' the 
 borough is divided into forty-eight districts, each 
 containing from three hundred to seven hundred 
 liouses, the total number of houses enumerated for 
 the purposes of this collection in 1873 being 80,977. 
 The collection is carried out by the sanitary author- 
 ity through the agency of contractors. Asa rule, 
 each district is let out to a separate contractor, and 
 no contractor is allowed to undertake more than 
 two districts. The smaller districts are so arranged 
 that the collection may be carried out by any one 
 who has the command of a horse and cart, and who 
 can have the assistance of a boy or two. With a 
 view of obviating undue combination among the 
 contractors, and diminishing the evil effect of strikes 
 among the men, the contracts are so timed in the 
 letting that only eight or nine can fall vacant to- 
 gether. The contractor, in addition to receiving 
 the material he collects, and which he sells for such 
 profit as he can obtain, is paid by the sanitary au- 
 thority from 2s. to 3s. yearly for each house in his 
 district. The sanitary authority provides places of 
 deposit (four in number) where the contractor can 
 store the collected material until disposed of ; and 
 he is subject to penalty if he should deposit such ma- 
 terial elsewhere without permission of the inspector 
 of nuisances, in writing. The contractor is required 
 by the terms of his contract to collect and remove 
 «t least once a week, all night soil, offal, dry and 
 liquid filth, dust, paper, and other refuse of every 
 description, from all premises, middensteads, ash-pits, 
 
278 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 dust boxes, cellars, or other places used for such 
 refuse, attached to all houses, shops, warehouses, 
 yards, and other premises -within his district, with 
 the exception of trade refuse exceeding in quantity- 
 three cubic feet in any one week, and all contents 
 of cess-pools, blood, manure, and filth from slaugh- 
 ter houses, ashes from furnaces, and refuse from 
 manufacturing processes. The work of collection 
 and removal is to be executed on week days, from 
 the beginning of March to the end of October, be- 
 tween the hours of 5 and 8.30 A. M. and from the 
 beginning of November to the end of Febriiary, be- 
 tween the hours of 6 and 9.30 A. M., and all carts 
 employed in the work are to be clear of the streets 
 and public thoroughfares, on their way to the de- 
 pots, before 9 A. M., within the former period, and 
 before 10 A. M., within the latter period. Further, 
 the contractor is required to use water-tight and 
 properly covered carts." 
 
 The arrangement of the Hull privy is extremely 
 simple as indicated in the accompanying illustration. 
 
 " The space under the seat forms the entire re- 
 ceptacle for all the ashes, refuse, and excrement of 
 the house, and is built of bricks in cement, with 
 a bottom of brick or flag, sloping from the level of 
 the payed floor in front to a little below the ground 
 level at the back, and forming only a very shallow 
 pit. Into this space, through the hole in the privy 
 seat, all dry refuse is thrown. The front of the 
 midden space is formed by the front board of the 
 closet, which is made moveable, to give the scav- 
 
VAULTS AND PRIVIES. 
 
 279 
 
 enger access to the pit. There is no drain to it, as 
 rain is excluded and 
 slops are in practice 
 thrown down the drains. 
 The ashes are usually- 
 sufficient in quantity to 
 soak up all moisture 
 passing into the pit, and 
 the contents are almost 
 invariably dry, and are 
 removed by a spade 
 without difficulty." 
 
 Simple as this con- 
 struction is, its adoption 
 in our northern towns 
 would require some pro- 
 vision should be made 
 which should prevent its 
 receptacle being cracked 
 by heaving from frost, but if properly constructed, 
 and if frequently cleansed under efficient supervis- 
 ion, it would certainly be a very gi'eat improvement 
 on the system- at present in general use. 
 
 The instances in Hull, in which the arrangement 
 was found to be unsatisfactory, seem to have been 
 due to one or other of the following conditions : — 
 
 " 1. Deteriorated, or original imperfect construc- 
 tion of the walls of the privy pit, leading to retention 
 of portions, and perhaps to some soakage of decom- 
 posing filth. 
 
 " 2. Careless casting of slops into the privy pit, 
 
 Figure 23. — Section of privy. 
 
280 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 facilitating decomposition of the contents, and soak- 
 age of the wood- work. 
 
 " 3. Want of adaptation of the scavenging to the 
 needs of particular localities and their inhabitants. 
 In the localities occupied by the most impoverished 
 and degraded of the population the privies were 
 overflowing with filth, and most offensive. This 
 arose mainly from the insufficiency of the scaveng- 
 ing. Designed to meet the requirements of a sin- 
 gle family only, the Hull privy cannot be used by 
 several families without being productive of nui- 
 sance, except on condition of a more frequent re- 
 moval of its contents than once a week. A daily 
 removal is necessary under these circumstances ; and 
 as to orderliness of the privy, in those cases where 
 a single family cannot be made responsible for it, 
 this will not as a rule be secured unless the sanitary 
 authority itself undertakes the duty of maintaining 
 it." 
 
 Netten Radcliffe made a careful examination of 
 the Dry- Ash system in Manchester, where 6,000 such 
 privies were already in use, and thus reports : — 
 
 " In the series of inspections I made with refer- 
 ence to the working of this new system, I had occa- 
 sion first to observe the contrast as to nuisance be- 
 tween the dry-ash closet and the old midden closet. 
 In several streets where the process of reconstruction 
 had been only partially completed, it was possible to 
 compare the old and new privy arrangements in 
 contiguous premises. It was the contrast between 
 Dpen, big, uncleanable cavities, containing a greatei 
 
VAULTS AND PRIVIES. 281 
 
 or less amount of decomposing faecal matter, and 
 emitting a horrible, penetrating odor, and small 
 receptacles emitting hardly any appreciable smell, 
 even with the nose above the privy seat, and 
 admitting of thorough cleansing. Most significant 
 testimony was given to the benefit of the change bj' 
 some householders. Many houses in Manchester 
 are built in parallel rows, a back passage rnn- 
 ning between the rows, and each house having a 
 small yaxd in the rear in which the privy is placed. 
 Since the reconstruction of the privies, ' it has been 
 possible to open the back windows of the houses.' 
 The change, moreover, has affected beneficially the 
 value of cottage property, and tenants are quite 
 willing to give ^d. more rent weekly since the re- 
 construction of the privies, for the gain in decency 
 and comfort. Soakage of excremental matter into 
 the soil, and its passage into and accumulation in 
 drains is, of course, obviated by the reconstruction, 
 and the smaller space occupied by the new closet is 
 not an unimportant matter. The removal of the 
 excrement pail is, with the most ordinary care, free 
 froni offensiveness, and if commonly conducted as I 
 saw the operation, it may well be executed during 
 the day-time, and the abomination of night scaveng- 
 ing done away with. The use of the cinder sifters 
 has been adopted by householders with a readiness 
 which proves how accurate the corporation was in 
 ilepending upon their cooperation in the working 
 of the scheme. The high price of coal during the 
 last two years has contributed to this good result, 
 
282 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 from the value of the cinders in economizing its use. 
 It is found, also, that a class of the population, com- 
 monly believed to be unmanageable in regard to any 
 niceties of arrangement for excrement disposal, have 
 rapidly appreciated the advantages of the new 
 closet, and taken to the use of the cinder-sifter. In 
 other words, it has been found that habits of de- 
 cency and order in the particular matters referred 
 to have been largely developed with the opportuni- 
 ties for such decency and order. Among the lowest 
 class, occupying sub-let houses, and having privies 
 used by families in common, it will, however, proba- 
 bly be found necessary to adopt some special super- 
 vision, and to remove the excrement and dry house 
 refuse daily." 
 
 Where these closets are in use the instructions of 
 the sanitary authorities require the inspector of nui- 
 sances to report as nuisances all closets in which the 
 due covering with ashes or earth is neglected. 
 
 TUMBLER AND TROUGH CLOSETS. 
 
 These are closets for the use of large numbers of 
 persons (as in factories), where there is no other 
 objection to the water-system than the liability of 
 the usual apparatus to get out of repair. 
 
 They each have a trough under the seat, through 
 which water is either kept running, or in which it 
 stands to a certain depth, to be let off from time 
 to time. The " tumbler " is similar to that de- 
 scribed (page 167, Figure 7) under the head o» 
 " Flushing Sewers." 
 
VAULTS AND PRIVIES. 283 
 
 The measurements of the tumbler for a closet 
 may be: — 
 
 Length of tumbler, at top . . .3 feet. 
 Length of tumbler at bottom • . 1 foot 10 inches. 
 "Width of tumbler at bottom . . .1 foot 7J inches. 
 Depth of tumbler at back ... 1 foot J inch. 
 Trunnions are 6i inches from top, and 1 foot 1| inches from ba:k. 
 
 In Leeds, the use of the tumbler-closet has not 
 been extended during the past three years, it being 
 considered wasteful of water, and difficult to keep 
 in order. 
 
 TKOTJGH CLOSET. 
 
 In Liverpool, where the trough-closet, flushed with 
 water, is in qiiite extended use, Dr. Trench stated 
 that, in 1868, when an epidemic of enteric fever was 
 prevailing, " The only localities which seemed ex- 
 empt from it were the places occupied by the poor, 
 in which we had removed all the privies and made 
 trough closets." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 lieenue's pneumatic system oe sewerage. 
 
 The important problem of town sewerage seems 
 to be seeking its solution by the aid of all the nat- 
 ural elements. Water and earth have had their 
 trials and have been more or less successful, and 
 now an ingenious Dutch engineer has called air into 
 requisition, and promises to solve all the difficulties 
 which have been but partially overcome by previous 
 systems. 
 
 Captain Charles T. Liernur, of Holland, a mili- 
 tary and civil engineer of much experience (long a 
 railroad engineer in America), has devised a system 
 for which he claims great results, and which, theo- 
 retically at least, seems to possess advantages far be- 
 yond those of any other that has been applied to 
 densely populated town areas. This system has, as 
 yet, been too incompletely tested, and some of its 
 important supplementary details have been too little 
 experimented with, for one to say definitely that it 
 is an assured success which is entirely to drive from 
 the field the water sewerage now in such general 
 use ; but its claims are set forth with such positive 
 assurances of merit, and its various parts seem to 
 have been so well considered, that it is worthy of 
 
liernur's pneumatic system of sewerage. 285 
 
 more than passing notice as merely a curious me- 
 chanical contrivance. 
 
 As every important invention in connection with 
 the removal of the faecal matter of towns should be 
 approached in a hopeful spirit, and encouraged by 
 the fullest opportunity for its development, it will 
 be best first to state what are, and what are to be, 
 the mechanical details of Liernur's process, and 
 what its adherents believe that it will accomplish. 
 
 The initial principle of the system lies in the suc- 
 tion to a central public reservoir of the accumulation 
 of fsecal material deposited in receptacles at sepa- 
 rate houses, these being connected with this reservoir 
 by air-tight pipes. The reservoir being exhausted 
 of its air, the accumulations are drawn toward it by 
 pneumatic pressure. No matter how large may be 
 the area occupied by the sewered houses, each dis- 
 trict has its central reservoir, and these reservoirs 
 are in turn and in like manner themselves dis- 
 charged into a main vacuum chamber at convenient 
 point, being connected with this by a similar sys- 
 tem of pneumatic pipes. The deposits at each house 
 are first removed to central receptacles in their 
 districts, and the whole mass is by a second or even 
 by a third operation drawn to the main depot, 
 where it is to be disposed of according to the re- 
 quirements of the conditions of health, and most 
 conveniently for agricultural use. 
 
 The invention has grown gradually from small 
 beginnings, and it has been in one or two instances 
 applied over large areas with very satisfactory re- 
 
286 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Bults. As the system in a town of even the largest 
 size is merely an aggregation of smaller systems, to 
 describe one of these latter will suffice for an under- 
 standing of its principles. 
 
 We will assume, then, a level town area of from 
 one hundred to one hundred and fifty houses of 
 medium size. In the centre of this area, in the 
 middle of a street, and far enough below the surface 
 to be secured against frost, there is sunk an air-tight 
 iron reservoir having two openings at its siirface, to 
 either of which an air-pump connection, or the con- 
 necting pipe of an exhausted receiver may be at- 
 tached. The air-pump attachment, used to create 
 a vacuum, opens into the top of the reservoir, while 
 the attachment of the exhausted receiver, being in- 
 tended to suck out the liquid contents, is connected 
 with a pipe reaching nearly to the bottom. 
 
 When the air-pump is applied for the exhaustion 
 of the air of the reservoir, it creates a partial vacuum, 
 which extends through the whole series of pneu- 
 matic pipes connected with it, and the pressure of 
 the air entering at the remote open ends of the 
 pipes drives forward toward the vacuum-centre all of 
 their liquid accumulations. 
 
 After the reservoir has become filled, the pipe 
 reaching to its bottom is attached to the previously 
 exhausted receiver, into which the liquid is drawn. 
 Main pipes, under ground, running through the 
 streets, or through the spaces between the backs of 
 houses, and with branches to or under the houses 
 themselves, allow the accumulations of the house 
 
liernuk's pneumatic system of sewerage. 287 
 
 closets to flow to the reservoir whenever a vacuum is 
 established and is, by the opening of stop-cocks, 
 brought to bear upon them. The closets of each 
 house, which may be placed one over the other on 
 the different stories, are connected with the branch 
 pipe described, having a vertical or nearly vertical 
 fall to the point of junction. When the cocks are 
 opened, so that these branch pipes are brought into 
 direct communication with the vacuum, every house 
 pipe, being open at its upper end, becomes a source 
 of pressure, and the air in seeking to fill the vacuum 
 carries before it whatever matters may be accumu- 
 lated within it. In the earliest introduction of the 
 system, each house branch was supplied with a cock, 
 so that after the reservoir had been exhausted of air, 
 the opening of each of these, for a moment, caused 
 the contents of its pipe to be thrown rapidly forward 
 toward the street reservoir ; but as there was no 
 means of knowing the exact time needed for the 
 emptying of the contents of each pipe, either there 
 was necessarily incomplete work, or more air might 
 be admitted than the work required. Later, there 
 was substituted for these stop-cocks an arrangement 
 of self-acting air-traps which entirely overcame the 
 difficulty. These traps give equal barometric resist- 
 ances, and by their aid the accumulations of each 
 house, be they great or small, far or near, are dis- 
 charged with absolute uniformity and regularity by 
 the opening of a single cock in the main pipe with 
 which the house branches are connected. These 
 automatic traps, depending for their action on this 
 
288 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 equal barometric resistance, are not merely effective 
 for the purpose for which they were intended : they 
 are also interesting as a most ingenious and curious 
 invention. Their action may be easily explained. 
 The accompanj'ing diagram (Figure 24) shows two 
 
 tumblers containing wa- 
 ter. One is nearly iilled 
 and the other has but 
 an inch of water at its 
 bottom ; the difference 
 in height between the 
 two levels of the water 
 we will assume to be two 
 inches. The baromet- 
 ric resistance (against 
 suction) is greater, by 
 the pressure due to a 
 column of two inches of 
 water, in the one than 
 it is in the other. Into 
 each of these two tum- 
 blers a glass tube is in- 
 serted, and the ends of 
 both tubes are taken 
 into the mouth at the 
 same time. We will 
 
 Figure 24. 
 
 assume that the vertical height between the sur- 
 face of the water in one of the tumblers and the 
 mouth is four inches, and between the surface of 
 the water in the other tumbler and the mouth ia 
 six inches ; consequently in one case there is a col* 
 
liernur's pneumatic system of sewerage. 289 
 
 umn of four inches of water to be lifted, and in the 
 other a column of six inches. Now if one sucka 
 very gently on both tubes, that is, if both are slowly 
 exhausted by the same mouth, water will flow only 
 from the tumbler which is the fuller, or from which 
 the shorter column is to be lifted, until the level 
 of its water is reduced to the level of that in the 
 other tumbler ; then, the height to be overcome be- 
 ing equal, there will be an equal flow from each 
 tumbler until both are exhausted. No matter how 
 much water there may be in one vessel nor how 
 little in the other ; if the same slow draft is made 
 on both at the same time, the flow will always be 
 entirely from the one standing at the higher level, 
 and after the equilibrium is established there must 
 be an absolute equality of level preserved until both 
 are exhausted. The same effect will be observed if 
 we experiment with a dozen tumblers, all having 
 their contents at different elevations ; that one in 
 which the liquid stands at the highest level will be 
 discharged first ; when this reaches the level of the 
 second, these two will be discharged together ; 
 when these descend to the level of the third, the 
 three will deliver equally ; and so on until the whole 
 series, offering an equal resistance to an equal force, 
 deliver their contents at the same rate.^ 
 
 1 The flow through the tubes must be so slow that the element of 
 friction shall not interfere with its success. Practically, it is difficult 
 to make the draught by the mouth sufficiently slow and steady for suc- 
 cess with the small tubes required. With an air pump or compressed 
 rubber ball it is easier to regulate the force, and the tubes may b« 
 larger. 
 
 19 
 
290 SANITAEY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Captain Liernur has applied this principle of bar- 
 nmetric resistances to his pneumatic tubes by giving 
 to each (for convenience, before it leaves the prem- 
 ises by which it is supplied) a break, or abrupt 
 change in elevation, of say exactly one foot. It is 
 necessary that there should be always a distinct fall, 
 or inclination toward the direction of the flow of the 
 pipe, so that its liquid contents may move forward 
 without halting at any point to deposit silt, which 
 might in time obstruct them. Practically, it is 
 said to be best to give an inclination of one foot 
 in a length of fifty feet. This for a minimum ; the 
 maximum may be whatever circumstances require. 
 In a leTel district all the pipes of the sj'stem may 
 have this minimum inclination, but where the town 
 is built on irregular surfaces one pipe may lie at this 
 slight pitch, and the very next one may, without 
 detriment, have an inclination of forty-five degrees 
 or more. All tend toward the same central point, 
 and may have more or less fall in that direction. 
 But each pipe has its flow interrupted by the trap 
 or vertical step referred to. Figure 25' shows two 
 
 such pipes, 
 leading from 
 two different 
 houses and de- 
 livering to the 
 same street 
 main: a is a 
 Figure 25. pjpg ^j^j^ g, very 
 
 steep inclination, and 6 is a pipe at the minimum 
 
liernur's pneumatic system of sewerage. 291 
 
 inclination. The dotted lines I I show the height 
 to which the liquid must rise in the pipes toward a 
 and h before it can begin to flow over the high 
 points h. If the production of either house is more 
 than enough to fill the depression in the pipe below 
 the dotted lines, any addition to the quantity will 
 simply cause a discharge by gravitation over the 
 angle h, and the liquid will flow on by its own force 
 toward the reservoir. This flow will of course con- 
 tinue so long as there is an addition to the volume 
 at the higher end, but the amount of liquid stand- 
 ing below the level of the dotted lines must always 
 remain there until some artificial force is applied to 
 move it. Now suppose the suction of a vacuum to 
 be applied at the main pipe c. The pressure of the 
 air is brought to bear on the surfaces of the liquid 
 at the points k, forcing the whole mass forward over 
 the high points h. The flow begins at the same in- 
 stant in both pipes, but as there is a larger volume 
 in the pipe having the more gradual (and longer) 
 slope, and as the vertical descent of the two surfaces 
 must be exactly the same, the amount flowing out 
 of the pipe h will be greater than that flowing out 
 of the pipe a, until k has descended to the lowest 
 point d, when in both pipes there are equal columns 
 to be overcome (from h to cT), each twelve inches 
 highy and, as the pressure is equal, these are drawn 
 )ver simultaneously. This principle is applied in 
 practice even to one hundred and fifty pipes sub- 
 jected to the force of the same vacuum, so that those 
 of a whole district are exhausted at the same mo- 
 ment. 
 
292 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 In addition to the difference of inclination, there 
 is also a great difference in the quantity of material 
 to be treated, and these different quantities are 
 equally well managed by the same system. In 
 Figure 26, c is the main pipe connected with the 
 
 vacuum chamber. 
 i. ^.^ We will suppose 
 
 a to be the outlet 
 pipe of a large 
 Figure 26. jio^el, and h that 
 
 of a small cottage in which only two persons are 
 living. The pipe a receives an amount of liquid 
 which will fill the space below the lines ? Z in an 
 hour. During the remaining twenty-three hours of 
 the day its sewage matter flows on directly toward 
 the central reservoir ; but the accumulation in the 
 pipe 6 is only sufficient during twenty-four hours to 
 fill the vertical part of the pipe between A and d. 
 Of course this matter will lie level in the angle, and 
 will rise but a part of the distance between d and A. 
 When the vacuum is applied, the atmospheric 
 pressure at h bears down upon the small supply and 
 tends to raise it toward A, but at the same time an 
 equal pressure in the pipe a is forcing forward the 
 contents of that pipe and pouring them over the 
 height. The contents of h cannot reach the point Ti 
 until the quantity in the pipe a is reduced to the 
 same amount, that is, until the whole pipe between 
 d and a and d and h is emptied ; then there will 
 stand in the two pipes two columns, each twelve 
 inches high, ready to pass over at the same mo- 
 ment. 
 
liernur's pneumatic system of sewerage. 293 
 
 This device has enabled Liernur to do away with 
 every faucet or stop-cock in his whole system of 
 pipes, except a single one in the main. By opening 
 this the force of the vacuum is brought to bear 
 equally and instantly upon the house pipes of the 
 whole system, with a quick pneumatic shock whose 
 suddenly applied force is deemed important. It is 
 thus made certain that there can at no point be a 
 useless escape of air, until every one of the pipes 
 has been exhausted of its contents ; of course, at the 
 angle, a small quantity will fall back after the air 
 begins to flow over. 
 
 The arrangement of house closets is very simple : 
 they are, wherever practicable, for economy's sake 
 placed vertically one over the other on the different 
 floors, in order that they may 
 reach the outflow through the 
 same down-pipe.' The closet, as 
 originally made, is a simple fun- 
 nel of iron or earthen-ware with 
 a bend trap at the bottom, as 
 shown in Figure 27, a pan of en- 
 ameled iron or whitened earthen- 
 ware being inserted at the top for 
 better appearance. From the 
 highest point of the main pipe, 
 sutside of the trap, there rises a 
 ventilating pipe, v, reaching above 
 the top of the house, and this pipe has a branch for 
 the ventilation of the funnel, which it enters near 
 \ts top, at a point behind the pan. The action of 
 
 Figure 27. 
 
294 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 this branch is to afford an outlet for gases forming 
 in the funnel and to cause a down draught when 
 the lid is opened, so that there may never be an 
 escape of foul air into the room. It is recom- 
 mended, when practicable, to place these closets 
 next to the outer wall of the house and to supply 
 each with an open window, or in some manner to 
 give a thorough ventilation. The pipes descending 
 from the closets, the service pipes of the different 
 houses, and the mains in the streets (in eacli dis- 
 trict) are all five-inch cast-iron pipes, secured at the 
 joints in the same manner as gas pipes. 
 
 So far as the emptying of the closets is concerned, 
 it is thought that the system, as described, is en- 
 tirely complete and satisfactory. The next problem 
 was to apply it to the solid matters of the kitchen 
 waste pipe. The amount of water flowing from the 
 kitchen, from bath-tubs, etc., is much greater than 
 it would be economical to treat by the pneumatic 
 process, and a separate outflow is provided for them 
 to the same system of sewers that is used for the re- 
 moval of storm and subsoil waters. Figure 28 shows 
 
 the arrangement 
 of the kitchen, 
 drain apparatus : 
 a is a reservoir, 
 say one foot 
 square, furnished 
 four inches below 
 ^^E"^«'*- its top with a 
 
 grate or screen fine enough to prevent the escape 
 
LIEENUR S PNEUMATIC SYSTEM OF SEWERAGE. 295 
 
 of any coavse matters which might obstruct the 
 street sewer, or which it is worth while to preserve 
 as manure. The bottom of the reservoir is curved, 
 and is connected with a pneumatic sewer pipe ; the 
 outlet c takes, immediately, the rise of twelve inches 
 needed to preserve the barometric resistance. The 
 house drain d discharges its contents into the reser- 
 voir below the screen ; it has a bend trap deep 
 enough to give a decided resistance to atmospheric 
 pressure. The flow from the house passes into the 
 reservoir a, and its excess of water rises through the 
 screen and flows off at b. During the day, more or 
 less solid matter is accumulated below the screen, 
 and when the pneumatic pressure is brought to bear, 
 by opening the main pipe near the vacuum cham- 
 ber, it is, simultaneously with the closet pipes, 
 emptied of its contents, and at the same time what- 
 ever matters have adhered to the bottom of the 
 screen are forcibly blown away by the pressure of 
 air descending through it. In this way, while the 
 chief volume of water or other liquid matters is got 
 rid of at once through the sewers, the raoi-e valuable 
 solid material, which would create inconvenience in 
 the sewers, and which has a manurial value, is 
 added to the products of the closets for treatment 
 with them during the subsequent processes of the 
 system. 
 
 A locomobile engine having somewhat the ap- 
 pearance of a steam fire-engine, carrying a steam- 
 engine and air-pump, and followed by a tender in 
 the form of an iron tank, to which its air-pump may 
 
296 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 be attached, is used during the construction of the 
 work, before the different street reservoirs are con- 
 nected with a main central pumping station. The 
 air-pump is attached to the opening at the top of 
 the street reservoir, from which it exhausts tlie air, 
 making about a three-quarter vacuum. The cocks 
 in the mains being opened, the house-wasli of the 
 district flows into the reservoir, which is then 
 closed, and the air-pump exhausts the tank of 
 the tender. Then this is closed and its supply 
 pipe is connected with the pipe reaching to the 
 bottom of the reservoir, when, the valves being 
 opened and the air being admitted to the top of the 
 street reservoir, the contents of the latter are sucked 
 into the tank, which may be driven away to the 
 point of discharge. 
 
 This locomobile serves to demonstrate the practi- 
 cability of the system, and is an indispensable ac- 
 companiment of the earlier steps of construction. 
 But its purpose is only a temporary one, and as fast 
 as may be the street reservoirs are connected with 
 the central station, by pipes which it is often nec- 
 essary to make larger than five inches owing to the 
 quantity of liquid to be discharged through them. 
 Each central station may answer for a district of 
 say fifty thousand or sixty thousand inhabitants. 
 
 At this station a fixed engine and largo receiving 
 tanks serve for the numerous street reservoirs the 
 «ame purpose that these (with the locomobile) orig- 
 inally served for the houses of their separate dis- 
 tricts. The tanks at this station have sufficient 
 
liernur's pkeumatio system of sewerage. 297 
 
 capacity to receive the contents of the whole set of 
 street reservoirs with which they are connected, and 
 the engine has a sufficient power to maintain the 
 required vacuum in these and in the main pipes. 
 By precisely the process heretofore explained, the 
 contents of the reservoirs are drawn to these tanks, 
 and are made ready for their subsequent treatment. 
 
 The receiving tanks at the central station, which 
 may be one or more in number, are large enough to 
 etoro the contents of all the street reservoirs of the 
 district. They are located in the basement, and 
 each has an indicator by which the engineer can see 
 when it is filled. We will now assume that all of 
 the street reservoirs have been emptied, and that 
 the tanks in the basement are filled. These tanks 
 communicate by suction tubes with a similar tank 
 elevated above the main floor of the building, which 
 has also an indicator showing the level of its con- 
 tents. This upper tank is exhausted of its air by 
 the air-pump, and the communication between it 
 and the bottom of one of the tanlis in the basement 
 being open, it fills itself with the liquid, which is 
 now ready to be treated by the poiidrette apparatus. 
 For this purpose it is allowed to flow into a vertical 
 tank, in the bottom of which there are coils of pipe 
 connected with the exhaust pipe of the steam-engine. 
 
 The steam, on its escape from the exhaust valve, 
 passes through a coil in a superheating chamber 
 where the products of combustion on their way to 
 ihe chimney, flowing around the coil, give the steam 
 Bu additional heat. This reheated steam passing 
 
298 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 througli the coils in the evaporating tank produces 
 a furious ebulition and a rapid evaporation of the 
 water of its contents. The condensation at the 
 next stage of the process of the vapors thus formed, 
 tends to produce a partial vacuum above the boiling 
 liquid, so that this rapid evaporation may even take 
 place at a temperature below that of boiling water. 
 The condenser into which these vapors pass is a 
 copper drum, the temperature of which they raise 
 probably to two hundred degrees Fahrenheit. This 
 drum revolves slowly, its lower part passing through 
 the semi-desiccated, pappy liquid drawn from the 
 evaporator first described. As it makes its slow 
 revolution it carries up a film of the pap, which the 
 heat within renders perfectly dry, so that near the 
 end of the rotation it may be scraped off by a sta- 
 tionary knife, and fall into a receiver below in a 
 desiccated state, ready to be packed in bags or bar- 
 rels for agricultural use. 
 
 This desiccated poudrette contains all or nearly 
 all of the organic refuse of the household, not only 
 the contents of the closets, but the particles of un- 
 used food, grease, and other solid constituents of the 
 kitchen waste. The chief difference in condition 
 between it and guano, or the manufactured pou- 
 drette of commerce, is that the matters it con- 
 tains have had no opportunity to pass into a state 
 of decomposition. Ordinarily, within thirty-six 
 hours from the time of their production in the house 
 they have all been transported to the central station 
 without exposure to the air, desiccated, and packet] 
 
liefnur's pneumatic system of sewerage. 299 
 
 away. As during the evaporating process a small 
 quantity of sulphuric acid is added to the liquid, any 
 ammonia produced by incipient fermentation is ren- 
 dered uon-volatile. 
 
 Concerning the value of this Liernur poudrette I 
 have no other evidence than the following account 
 of Professor Voelcker's analysis given in Mr. Adam 
 Scott's description of the system, in the " Sanitary 
 Record " of November 21, 1874. 
 
 An analysis by Professor Voelcker, chemist of 
 the Royal Agricultural Society, dated August 15, 
 1874, of a sample submitted to him by Sir Philip 
 Rose, Bart., showed it to contain : — 
 
 Moisture ■ • 8.64 
 
 Organic matter 1 62.96 
 
 Oxide of iron and alumina 3.29 
 
 Phosplioric acid 1.76 
 
 Lime 0.86 
 
 Clilorine 6.22 
 
 Sulphuric acid 6.02 
 
 All^aline salts 8.20 
 
 Silica 2.05 
 
 100.00 
 
 So far as I have been able to learn there has been 
 no sufficient practical test made of the value of this 
 poudrette, but when we consider the substances 
 from which it is produced, it seems impossible that 
 it should not have a great value, and Liernur and 
 his advocates bring ample theoretical evidence in 
 support of its claims. If it is true that the waste of 
 the constituents of food which characterizes the do- 
 
 1 Containing nitrogen 9.35, equal to ammonia 11.35. 
 
300 SANITARY DEAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 mestic habits of all our towns is leading to the ulti- 
 mate impoverishment of our fields, we can hardly 
 regard with too much interest any process that 
 promises to restore so nearly the entire amount of 
 their products consumed and squandered in our 
 households. 
 
 Mr. Scott, in the article referred to, thus describes 
 the practical working of the system : — 
 
 " The air-pump engine is set in motion, and main- 
 tains during the day a three-quarter vacuum in cer- 
 tain central reservoirs, placed below the floor of the 
 building, and at the same time in the central pipes. 
 Workmen perambulate the town, visiting each tank 
 once a day. To drain the houses commanded by 
 one tank, they alternately open the connecting cock 
 of the central pipe and the stop-cock of any main 
 pipe ; the first to obtain a vacuum in the tank, the 
 second to utilize this by emptying the closet-pipes 
 connected with that particular main. After all the 
 mains of the tanks in question have been operated 
 upon, and their contents collected in the tank, the 
 workman turns the discharging cock to send the 
 whole mass to the central bulling for immediate 
 conversion into poudrette. He then proceeds to 
 the next tank, there to repeat the operation." 
 
 One of the minor objections anticipated by ita 
 inventor to the general introduction of tliis system 
 is to be found in the fact that an influential class in 
 every community where the water system has been 
 introduced may object to any less fastidious substi- 
 tute for the water-closet. To meet this objection 
 
lieenur's pneumatic system of sewerage. 301 
 
 there has been devised an apparatus, in which 
 water is used, which seems completely to compass 
 the requirements, but the practical need for its use is 
 too slight for it to be considered as an essential part 
 of the system. And indeed it is better that at 
 every step of the process there should be as little 
 extraneous water as practicable thrown into the 
 pipes. The natural product of liquid matters in 
 every household is sufficient to insure the proper 
 pneumatic action, and all additions beyond this 
 create an increased demand for fuel for the final 
 dessication. 
 
 It is thought by the advocates of the pneumatic 
 sewerage that all other systems thus far tried, in 
 addition to their danger to the public health, are 
 necessarily and always very expensive, there being 
 no offset in the way of profit that can possibly les- 
 sen the taxable charges required for their construc- 
 tion and operation. It is believed also that these 
 taxable charges are an excuse for the raising of 
 rents, and consequentlj'^ for the crowding of the 
 working classes into smaller and less commodious 
 and less healthful quarters than they might have 
 were the town free from the necessity for making 
 this excessive yearly outlay. 
 
 It is no doubt too early in the history of pneu- 
 matic sewerage for figures based on actual experi- 
 ence to be adduced in support of its economy, but 
 the published estimates, which so far as one can 
 judge are based entirely on similar uses of steam, 
 cost of laying pipes, etc., and which are apparently 
 
802 SANITAEY DEAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 reliable and correct, show that so far from being a 
 source of expense, the faecal matters of the town 
 may constitute a reliable source of income. Such 
 estimates have too often to be modified, in the light 
 of subsequent experience in actual practice, to be 
 relied upon with great confidence, but there seems 
 to be a sufficient margin to cover any unforeseen con- 
 tingencies and still to leave an important amount 
 to be credited against the costs of working. 
 
 It is stated that the cost of the work in Amster- 
 dam, including royalties, engineering, plant, ma- 
 chinery, and the necessary changes in houses, was 
 not quite ^2 10s. per inhabitant. To be on the 
 safe side, Mr. Scott estimates that the cost in an 
 English town would be £4 per inhabitant, and he 
 applies his calculation to a town area of 250 acres, 
 with a population (75 per acre) of 18,750, placing 
 the total cost of the works at £75,000. So far as 
 the Liernur system alone is concerned, without re- 
 fering.to the storm-water sewerage, the cost would 
 be, 'pro rata, the same for a small town as for a 
 large one, provided the population is of the same 
 density. 
 
 " Using the figures and proportions given by 
 Captain Liernur, the following would be the esti- 
 mate of working expenses per day : — 
 
 Coal, — Power of air-pump engine required, 80 indicated horse- 
 poiver. Consumes, at 5 lbs. per horse-power per hour, in 
 twelve hours, 4,800 lbs. coal. Of the caloric due to this there 
 is converted into work eight per cent., or caloric due to 384 
 lbs., leaving the calorics of 4,800 — 384=4,416 lbs. on hand for 
 evaporating purposes. There is, however, to evaporate 54 
 
lieknur's pneumatic system of sewerage. 303 
 
 ounces per day for 18,750 persons, making 63,281 lbs. water, 
 requiring witii drying apparatus a double effet, 63,281-!-12= 
 5,273 lbs. of coal, for which there is left the above 4,41fi. 
 There is hence wanted 5,273—4,416=857 lbs. additionally to 
 the 4,800 lbs. of the air-pump engine, making in all 4,800+857 
 =5,657, or say 2J tons of coal per day, which, at 25s. per ton £ a. d. 
 
 gives 326 
 
 Oil 4 
 
 One machinist and eleven laborers 2 
 
 Administration, repairs, and sundries 13 6 
 
 6 
 
 Making per yeai«, £6x365 2,190 
 
 To this would have to be added, — 
 
 For interest on capital of £75,000 borrowed from local 
 board, including redemption, at lour per cent, per an- 
 num ... £3,000 
 
 For renewal fund of machinery, at eight per cent, on 
 
 £3,000 240 
 
 3,240 
 
 Total expenses 5,430 
 
 " The income would be, however, the poudrette 
 manure of 18,750 persons, which, at 10s. per head, 
 gives annually the sum of £9,875, leaving, after de- 
 ducting above expenses, nearly £4,000 annually as 
 clear profit, after paying every charge." 
 
 This calculation is based on an estimate of ninety 
 per cent, of water and ten per cent, of solid matter 
 in the liquid as it is received at the central station. 
 By an application of the same data to liquid con- 
 taining ninety-five per cent, of water, the cost of 
 evaporation with coal at twenty-five shillings per 
 ton would be £1,081 in addition, which would re- 
 duce the net profit from £3,940 to £2,869. It is to 
 be observed that with us his data would have to be 
 
304 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 materially changed, the cost of coal and labor being 
 much greater, interest being at least six per cent, 
 instead of four per cent., and the agricultural value 
 of the product being certainly no larger. 
 
 What has been thus far given covers my knowl- 
 edge of the Liernur system as derived from the 
 various publications concerning it. It seemed wor- 
 thy of further investigation, and I devoted some 
 time to its study during a recent visit to Europe. 
 
 At Captain Liernur's office, in Frankfort-on-the- 
 Main, I was shown the working drawings of every 
 part of the system, and had all its details clearly 
 explained by its very intelligent inventor, who to a 
 thorough familiarity with modern sanitary engineer- 
 ing adds the most unbounded and enthusiastic be- 
 lief in the merits of his own invention. I learned 
 that steps are now being taken for an important 
 trial in the city of St. Petersburg, at the hands of a 
 company, who, upon its success being demonstrated, 
 hope for a concession for the sewerage of the whole 
 town. The conditions there existing are the same 
 as in other places where actual trials have been 
 made, save that the intense cold and the consequent 
 necessity for placing the apparatus deep below the 
 surface of the ground must increase the cost of con- 
 struction, and, so far as house-pipes are concerned, 
 may present many difficulties to be overcome. The 
 use of the system at military barracks in Austria 
 and Hungary was described as having been success 
 ful and profitable, but I was directed, for an ocular 
 demonstration of pueumatic sewerage in actual 
 
liernur's pneumatic system of sewerage. 305 
 
 operation, to visit Amsterdana and Leyden, in Hol- 
 land, where the earliest trials were made, and Dor- 
 trecht, where the whole invention in its entirety is 
 being adopted. 
 
 At Dortrecht, Liernur's partner, Mr. De Bruyn 
 Kops, is constructing works for a large part of the 
 town, to be subsequently extended over the whole. 
 The central station was nearly finished, and con- 
 tained a thirty-five horse-power steam-engine, and 
 an air-pump suited to its capacity ; basement tanks 
 capable of holding two days' product of the whole 
 town ; an elevated tank through which to transfer 
 the liquid to the poudrette apparatus ; and tliis ap- 
 paratus itself, which was complete and had been in 
 use. The superheating effect of the escaping prod- 
 ucts of combustion had been found insufficient, and 
 a separate furnace with a small fire had been pro- 
 vided to raise the heat of the steam to the required 
 point. The attempt to manufacture poudrette had 
 not been entirely successful, that is, the product was 
 rather moist and pasty than dry, and some modifi- 
 cations were being made in the machinery which 
 rendered it impossible for the station to be at work 
 during my A^sit. Pending these repairs the street 
 reservoirs were being emptied by the locomobile, 
 but as I was to see this in operation in Amsterdam, 
 it was not thought worth while to bring it out. From 
 the station we visited the poorest quarter of the 
 town, in which the pipes had been laid, passing 
 through a district that still depended for its cleans- 
 ing upon a sluggish canal, — a canal of the most 
 
306 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 offensive description, its surface constantly bubbling 
 with the gases of the decomposing filth it contained. 
 Similar canals had been filled up in front of the 
 houses connected with the pneumatic sj'stem, and 
 this of itself should be a sufiicient improvement to 
 satisfy the Dortrecht authorities with their outlay. 
 We visited closets in houses and in vards, and so 
 far as I could judge from the manner of those who 
 exhibited them, these V7ere perfectly satisfactory in 
 their operation. Equally unobjectionable closets in 
 the houses of people of a corresponding class I have 
 never before seen, and my general impression of the 
 condition of the work in this town was that it may 
 be in a fair way to prove all that its inventor claims 
 for it, except possibly in the manufacture and value 
 of the poudrette. 
 
 The next day we went to Amsterdam, where 
 (and at Leyden) the first experiments with the 
 system were made. It is now in universal use in 
 nine considerable sections of the town, and is being 
 gradually extended. The poudrette apparatus is 
 not in use there ; indeed, the only set thus far put 
 up is the one now being experimented with at Dor- 
 trecht. At all the stations in Amsterdam the liquid 
 is run into barrels and transported to the countrj' 
 by canal-boats, being sold, thus far, for a nominal 
 sum, very much less than would be its value here. 
 
 At the first station which we visited the engine 
 was out of order, and we could see nothing ; but at 
 the second station it was demonstrated in my pres- 
 ence that the working of the air-pump and its effect 
 
liernue's pneumatic system of sewerage. 307 
 
 on the street reservoirs of its district are entirely 
 satisfactory. The liquid was transferred from house 
 pipes to several street reservoirs, from these to the 
 basement tanks at the station, and from these to 
 the elevated tank from which the barrels are sup- 
 plied, with certainty and regularity. In one case it 
 was necessary to carry a main pipe, by a siphon, 
 under a canal, and the transferring of the liquid 
 through this was entirely successful. Indeed, if the 
 object were only to transport in a quiet, inoffensive, 
 and entirely hidden manner the products of private 
 houses to a depot whence they can be inoffensively 
 shipped to the country, my investigation seemed to 
 prove clearly that entire success had been attained. 
 
 I hoped before leaving Holland to be able to see 
 the Dortrecht poudrette works in successful opera- 
 tion ; but a further trial, although it showed a great 
 improvement, left something Still to be desired, and 
 the apparatus was not in satisfactory working at the 
 time of my leaving the country. 
 
 In Amsterdam we visited a great number of 
 houses of all classes, — a large children's hospital, 
 private houses of the best class, tenement houses 
 occupied by working people, an old ladies' home, 
 and in one case a nest of sailor boarding-houses, 
 which were said to be the worst in the whole town. 
 This examination was of course made under the 
 guidance of one who was interested in the success of 
 the system, and it is possible that, had I been con- 
 ducted by one opposed to it (and there are such), I 
 might have been shown instances of failure. As it 
 
308 SANITAEY DEAINAGK OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 was, I can only say that under all the circumstances 
 and conditions, both where the greatest attention 
 was given to cleanliness and where the greatest 
 neglect seemed to prevail, I found the condition of 
 afiairs in all cases good, and among the lower classes 
 infinitely better than would be found in similar es- 
 tablishments in London or in New York, where the 
 water system and the common vault prevail, though 
 to the eye a well-kept water-closet is preferable. 
 
 Subsequently I took occasion to talk with several 
 gentlemen of intelligence in Holland about the suc- 
 cess and the prospects of the system. Of these, 
 none were opposed to it, and some favored it very 
 strongly. Mr. Van der Poll, the Dikegraaf of the 
 Haarlem Lake Polder, who is an engineer of high 
 standing and of sound judgment, gave it as his opin- 
 ion that it must inevitably come into universal use 
 in all the towns of Holland, although he was not 
 prepared to say that it is better than water sewer- 
 age for places where a good and suitably located 
 outfall can be had. Another friend was glad to get 
 my opinion, for the reason that so much passion had 
 been shown in all discussions of the subject in Am- 
 sterdam that it was impossible for disinterested per- 
 sons to weigh the evidence for or against it. It was 
 stated that there had been very serious opposition, 
 and that the early introduction and working had 
 been embarrassed by the fiercest opposition of the 
 chief oSicial who was directed with its execution, but 
 that in spite of this, and of all the drawbacks at- 
 tendant upon the education of the people in a new 
 
likrnue's pneumatic system of se-weeage. 309 
 
 process, and all the mistakes inseparable from the 
 practical development of a new invention, it had 
 steadily made its way in popular favor, and had es- 
 pecially won the approval of the city ofiBcials, under 
 whose direction it is now carried on. (An official 
 told me this.) In one instance a large speculator 
 in real estate, one who buys blocks of ground and 
 builds houses for sale, had been originally a very 
 strong opponent, protesting most earnestly against 
 the introduction of the system in districts in which 
 be was interested. He is said now to petition for 
 its introduction in each new district in which he 
 buys property. 
 
 These statements are made with the reiterated 
 qualification that my investigation was made under 
 the guidance of one who is pecuniarily interested in 
 the invention, and who had it in his power to mis- 
 lead me, but who, I am glad to say, impressed me 
 as a frank and fair-minded gentleman, who made no 
 attempt to conceal defects, or to bias my judgment. 
 Since my return I have learned that Dr. Folsom, 
 Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Health, 
 found his inspection of the working of the system in 
 Amsterdam very unsatisfactory. 
 
 The question that naturally suggests itself is 
 whether Liernur's pneumatics are to solve the whole 
 sewerage problem. It would no doubt be safe to 
 answer this, at once, in the negative, but it should 
 be a negative with many qualifications. The whole 
 problem is now so entirely unsolved, and is so em- 
 barrassed with intricacies and difficulties at every 
 
310 SANITARY DEAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 turn ; it is of such vital consequence when regarded 
 from the point of view of the public health ; and it 
 appeals so directly to the strongest interest of every 
 householder, that no one interested in the subject 
 can fail to give very careful attention to any sug- 
 gestion of relief which promises so much as Lier- 
 nur's does promise, and which is in all its details so 
 complete and so well-balanced, and is apparently so 
 successful in each department of its mechanical 
 action. 
 
 On the other hand, we have been so long relying 
 on the system of water carriage, and we have so 
 long ascribed to it every advantage, only to find it 
 riddled and honey-combed with faults, as time has 
 brought us better acquainted with it ; and a large 
 class has placed such implicit confidence in the dry- 
 earth system, only to find it almost impossible of 
 introduction in an average communit}', that no one 
 who has been long interested in the general question 
 can be expected to glow with enthusiasm over any 
 new process that may be brought to notice. Lier- 
 nur has struck out a new path, but it is a new path 
 in an old field, in which we have learned to look out 
 for pitfalls and ambushes at every step. We may 
 well hope (and I unreservedly believe) that there is 
 much in his invention that is of intrinsic value, and 
 that it will perhaps accomplish all that we have so 
 long sought. At the same time its success is cer- 
 tainly tiot to be achieved through a blind enthusi- 
 asm, ready to accept it as the final cure of the great 
 and universal disease in our domestic economies 
 acainst which it proposes to contend. 
 
liernur's pneumatic system of sewerage. 311 
 
 While, therefore, it is to-day unquestionably the 
 most interesting new fact in sanitary engineering, 
 and is worthy of the most careful experiment and 
 even the most expensive investigation at the hands 
 of local governments, the investigation and the ex- 
 periment should be made with a clear understanding 
 that the time given to them and the money spent 
 upon them may bring but little return. The diffi- 
 culties we are contending with are so grave, and the 
 dangers to life and health and usefulness are so 
 threatening, that we may well afford to tax our- 
 selves as largely as may be necessary in order to de- 
 monstrate whether this new process, for which so 
 much is claimed and which has so many firm adher- 
 ents among those who have been living under its 
 daily operation for some years, is or is not to open 
 the door for our escape. Much that has hitherto 
 been written about it has been of that enthusiastic 
 and confident character that made its success appear 
 at first blush a foregone conclusion. It seems to be 
 better that, however great our individual confidence 
 may be, — and I repeat that my own is very great, 
 — we should undertake this trial resolutely and 
 determinedly, but should at the same time be quite 
 prepared for entire or partial failure. 
 
 The more ardent advocates of the system lay 
 great stress upon its economical features, and seem 
 to depend very much upon the prospect of profit for 
 the reenforcement of their arguments. Let us rather 
 ijake the wiser course of throwing the questions of 
 profit and economy entirely into the background, 
 
812 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 where they belong. This is a subject that reaches 
 much farther than any pecuniary interest, and it is 
 one whose pecuniary interest centres much more in 
 the lengthened life and full, healthful efSciency of 
 our populations than in any question of the cost of 
 constructing works, or of proceeds from the sale of 
 manure. If it is found that with our price of ma- 
 chinery, labor, fuel, interest, and manure we can 
 sell the product of Liernur's poudrette apparatus or 
 the liquid drawn from Liernur's vacuum tanks at a 
 price that will give a profit, or even will help ma- 
 terially to defray the expense of the system, it will 
 be so much gained ; but our people are quite pre- 
 pared to take such a view of the sanitary question as 
 makes all this far less than secondary. If the ele- 
 ments of fertility can be saved for return to our 
 fields, and so continue and increase our prosperity, 
 the benefit resulting will be immeasurable ; but this 
 benefit is, to the common understanding, too vague 
 and theoretical to have much influence on the minds 
 of the average denizens of towns. 
 
 Any prudent community, interested in the refor- 
 mation of its present health-destroying process, will 
 naturally and properly set aside all considerations 
 of this character, and make their investigations of 
 Liernur's pneumatic sewerage, or of any other sys- 
 tem that may promise them relief, with an almost 
 sole view to the completeness of its sanitary advan- 
 ages, and to its practicability from a mechanical 
 and commercial point of view. 
 
 All that it is safe to say about the system now, ia 
 
lieenur's pneumatic system of sewerage. 313 
 
 its relation to our own condition, is that it is, as re- 
 garded in the light of what we know about the 
 water system and the dry-earth system, sufficiently 
 promising to justify the most energetic investigation. 
 So far as I know, its opponents have adduced noth- 
 ing against it that may not be remedied by practica- 
 ble mechanical improvements, and its advocates, 
 who are many, speak of its advantages with a confi- 
 dence that, often at least, has grown from favorable 
 experience of its practical working. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 THE DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE. 
 
 The problem of sewage disposal is always seri- 
 ous, and it becomes more and more so, as popula- 
 tion increases, and as sewered towns multiply. 
 How to get rid of the offscourings of any commu- 
 nity in such a way that there shall be no return 
 of offensive and dangerous odors ; that there shall 
 be no accumulation of foul matters inconveniently 
 near ; and that there shall be no tainting of the 
 source of the water supply of other towns, is a ques- 
 tion which taxes, and often overtaxes the ingenu- 
 ity of the engineer, and the paying capacity of the 
 finance department. 
 
 The limits of this book would not suffice for an 
 adequate description of the varied experience of 
 English towns in this matter. After years of 
 trial, and millions of expenditure, the authorities 
 on the subject are widely at variance as to what 
 may best be done, and the more prudent of those 
 who have given thought to the matter seem as far 
 as ever from accepting any result yet accomplished 
 as satisfactory. 
 
 Many schemes are urged by enthusiastic advo- 
 cates, as offering sovereign remedies for the evil. 
 A.11 of these attach more or less weight to the value 
 
THE DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE. 315 
 
 of the material under consideration for fertilizing 
 purposes, and those are not few who have hoped 
 to derive from the use of sewer water large profits 
 in return, from the adoption of their various devices. 
 I can only say here, that none of these schemes 
 have so far achieved the success claimed for them, 
 as to gain the confidence of the engineering world 
 at large. The facts remain that the material in 
 question is extremely troublesome ; that it must be 
 got rid of in some way at all hazards ; that it must 
 not be allowed to injure the health of those pro- 
 ducing it, or of other communities, and, worst of all, 
 that its manurial value seems to be less than is 
 needed for its profitable use (unless in a few special 
 cases) under the plans thus far devised. Without 
 going at all into the question of the disposal of the 
 sewage of large towns, farther than it has already 
 been considered in earlier chapters, I propose merely 
 to call attention to one or two devices which seem to 
 aiford relief in the case of small villages, and espe- 
 cially of large or small private establishments. 
 
 IRRIGATION. 
 
 As a general principle it may be stated that in 
 sewage irrigation the amount of land appropriated 
 should not be less than one acre to one hundred 
 and Mtj of population, and should lie not more than 
 a mile from the town. The same land should not 
 receive sewage two days in succession, and each 
 area should have occasional periods of rest for a 
 whole growing season. 
 
316 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 If the land is of a very retentive character, even 
 if well uuderdrained, it would be better to allow one 
 acre to one hundred of population. 
 
 This applies to the ordinary irrigation of agricult- 
 ural fields, by surface flow, but Mr. J. Bailey Den- 
 ton, who is an old, and very accomplished drainage 
 engineer, adopted a new system in treating the sew- 
 age of Merthyr-Tydvil, in Wales, which has there 
 had a success that seems fully to justify its repeti- 
 tion wherever a suitable soil, and a sufficiently mild 
 climate admit of it. In this case the purpose was 
 not especially to turn the sewage to profit, but to 
 purify it of its organic matters, so that it could be 
 run into a stream without polluting its waters. Mr. 
 Denton calls this system " Intermittent Downward 
 Filtration." A gravelly soil is thoroughly under- 
 drained at a depth of six feet, and is divided into 
 two separate plots to which the sewage is applied 
 alternately. After a certain amount has passed 
 through one field the supply is turned on to the sec- 
 ond, and the first is allowed to become thoroughly 
 aerated, and so cleansed by the oxidation of the or- 
 ganic matters that it has taken up, as to be ready 
 igain to serve its purpose as a filter. 
 
 The latest report from these irrigating fields, 
 which have now been several years in use, comes 
 from Dr. Dyke, the health officer of Merthyr-Tydvil, 
 whose last annual report bears testimony in favor of 
 the system of intermittent downward filtration. 
 Speaking of a plat of twenty acres laid out to re- 
 ceive sewage on Mr. Bailey Denton's plan, Mr. 
 
THE DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE. 817 
 
 Dyke declares that the system is cleanly, odorless, 
 and perfect in all its details. As a part of his duty, 
 he has from time to time examined the water flow- 
 ing from the outlet, and has satisfied himself that 
 there has been no perceptible increase in the amount 
 of its organic matter. In July, 1872, it was proved 
 by the investigation made by Dr. Frankland to con- 
 tain only one part of organic matter in 200,000 parts 
 of water ; and in 1874 it was found still just as free 
 from impurity, showing that no saturation of the 
 soil with filth took place, the growth of vegetables 
 on the surface, and the aeration effected by drainage 
 doing the work of purification effectually. In an- 
 other part of the report, which treats of the classes 
 of disorders met with in the district. Dr. Dyke re- 
 calls certain prophecies! made when the sewage- 
 farm system was introduced, that the vegetables 
 grown under its means would act prejudicially on 
 the public health. So far from this being the case 
 at Merthyr, there are hundreds of young children 
 brought up on the milk of stall kept cows, fed par- 
 tially on grass grown on sewage-irrigated meadows ; 
 yet the mortality among them from diarrhoea and 
 similar complaints is exceptionally low, and all 
 medical men in the district agree that this type of 
 disease among persons of all ages has diminished of 
 ^ate years, for the plain reason, no doubt, that 
 whilst sewage-irrigated vegetables have been intro- 
 duced, a good water-supply and a thorough system 
 af drainage have been introduced with them.^ 
 
 1 Sanitary Becord, October 30, 1875. 
 
318 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 ARTIFICIAL PUEIFICATION. 
 
 The following account of the experience at Cov- 
 entry (England), illustrates very well one of the 
 more successful cleansing processes. 
 
 The corporation of Coventry, having been ordered 
 by the Court of Chancery to discontinue the pollution 
 of the river Sherburne, contracted with The General 
 Sewage Company for the treatment of their sewage. 
 The works were completed in April, 1874, since 
 which time they have been constantly working in 
 the most satisfactory manner. An average of two 
 million gallons are treated daily. " The sewage, 
 strained and freed from its grosser contents, passes 
 through a block of buildings where it receives con- 
 tinuously a charge of sulphate of alumina in solu- 
 tion, and is thoroughly mixed therewith. These 
 buildings are well provided with steam-engines, 
 boilers, and mixers, as well as ample machinery of 
 a first-class character, adapted not only for the 
 admixture of the chemicals with the sewage, but 
 also for the manufacture of the chemicals employed. 
 The effluent water is in a sufficient state of purity 
 to enter most rivers or the sea. It is, however, in 
 this condition, subjected to a process of filtration, 
 and for that purpose is conveyed to a filter-bed 
 properly drained and prepared. It has been found 
 that a comparatively small quantity of land (four 
 acres and a half) would suffice to filter the effluent 
 water from the sewage of Coventry. Nine acres 
 have, howe-ver, been prepared, for the purpose of 
 
THE DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE. 319 
 
 always having another filter-bed ready when the one 
 last in use requires rest or repair. The effluent 
 water, as it passes into the river Sherburne from the 
 three large mains of the filter, at the rate of about 
 80,000 gallons per hour, is clear and bright, and not 
 only so, but of a high standard of purity, as is shown 
 by the analysis of it made by Dr. Voelcker, who 
 says : ' The water has no perceptible smell, ami is 
 almost free from color ; it contains but little or- 
 ganic (albuminoid) ammonia, and not much more 
 than half a grain of saline ammonia per gallon. 
 And, further, that the nitrogenous organic constitu- 
 ents of raw sewage appear to have become oxidized 
 and changed into nitrates to a very large extent.' 
 The sewage of Coventry, at noon, has been found 
 to contain as much as 5.85 parts of ammonia in 
 100,000 parts." 
 
 The sludge or solid precipitated matter amounting 
 to about twenty tons per day is dried and sold for 
 manure. The process requires chemicals to the 
 value of £2 12s. lOd. (say about fl3), for the puri- 
 fication of one million gallons. The whole sewage 
 pperation at Coventry cost per annum about 5d. or 
 Qd. per head of population. 
 
 THE DENTON AND FIELD STORAGE TANK. 
 
 In order to secure an intermittent flow for the 
 general application of his downward filtration sys- 
 tem, Mr. Bailey Denton has, in connection with Mr. 
 Field, applied the principle of the Flush Tank to 
 the use in agricultural irrigation of the sewage of 
 
320 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 small communities, — where the constant stream is 
 too slight to secure the flooding of a sufficient area 
 for an economical use of the sewage, and for inter- 
 mittent application to successive fields. 
 
 At the hamlet of Eastwick near Leatherhead, in 
 Surry, this system has been in operation for the past 
 three or four years and as this is the oldest experi- 
 ment with a new and apparently very valuable de- 
 vice, it seems worth while to reproduce the descrip- 
 tion of it from Dr. Simon's report of 1874 (Netten 
 Radcliffe's paper). 
 
 " Eastwick is a hamlet of fifteen houses, including 
 the mansion of the proprietor and the farm home- 
 stead ; and it has a population of about one hundred 
 and forty-five. In devising a system of excrement 
 and slop disposal for the place, any general plan of 
 water sewerage had to be set aside, the water de- 
 rived from wells being variable in quantity, and at 
 no time too abundant for ordinary domestic use, ir- 
 respective of water-closets. The common privy was 
 retained for the cottages, but the privy-pit was con- 
 verted into a water-tight receptacle beneath the 
 floor of the closet, and the cottagers were instructed 
 to throw into it above the excrement, the refuse 
 ashes, and to remove the contents of the pit monthly 
 for use in their gardens. Four water-closets exist 
 and five earth-closets for the use of the mansion and 
 its precincts ; and one water closet and three earth- 
 closets for the use of the farm homestead. To pro- 
 vide for the liquid house refuse of the hamlet, and 
 for the drainage of the farm buildings, the scheme 
 
THE DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE. 321 
 
 of sewerage was carried out by Mr. Bailey Denton, 
 which is shown in the accompanying plan, and which 
 has an outlet in a meter tank, of which the plan 
 and section are given in the following Figures." 
 
 " The tank is in two compartments to admit of 
 cleansing without entire disuse. It has a capacity 
 of five hundred gallons, and it fills and discharges 
 in ordinary dry weather three times in two days. 
 The several discharges are directed successively in 
 different portions of a plot of ground prepared for 
 the purpose, and which measuring three roods three 
 perches, serves ordinarily for the effective and profit- 
 able utilization of the whole liquid refuse of the 
 several cottages, the mansion, and the farmstead. 
 The drainage of the latter includes the flow from 
 cattle sheds and stables, in which from fifteen to 
 twenty animals are always present, and about thirty 
 head of horned cattle, and thirty horses at intervals. 
 The drainage of a large piggery also passes to the 
 tanks. 
 
 " Luxuriant crops have been grown upon the irri- 
 gated land, last year's crop consisting of the thou- 
 sand-headed cabbage. Of this crop, Mr. Hutchin- 
 son, the steward of the estate, says : ' Besides 
 thriving so well upon the sewage, it is an excellent 
 food for milk cows, being less strong in taste' than 
 the drumhead and not having any but a good effect 
 upon the milk. The thousand -head can also be 
 used as human food. I estimate the value of the 
 cropri obtained at £25 per annum, or at the rate of 
 £32 10s. per acre ; and the outlay in attendance 
 21 
 
Figure 29. — Denton and Field's Sewage Meter, Plan. 
 
■■ I »)'Ul'f' Iljll 
 
Figure 31. 
 
THE DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE. 325 
 
 apon the land and the regulator (" meter ") I put 
 down at £7 16s.' 
 
 " Mr. Bailey Denton, to whom I am also indebted 
 for the plan, has courteously sent me the following 
 statement of the cost of the works above described, 
 including the 'meter ' and the preparation of the 
 land, and he remarks upon this statement that, 
 ' the yearly return, after deducting the cost of attend- 
 ance upon the sewaged land and regulator cannot 
 be less than £17 per annum, so that already a re- 
 turn of about five per cent, on the outlay is gained, 
 while there is every prospect of increasing that re- 
 turn as the quantity of sewage dealt with becomes 
 greater and its treatment becomes better under- 
 stood. 
 
 Eastwick Sewerage. 
 
 £ e. d. 
 
 To payment for labor ' 179 4 
 
 pipes 103 7 2 
 
 stone, lime, cement, and sand . 12 14 10 
 iron and lead work . . 20 5 1 
 carriage of materials . .19 1 
 
 Traveling and incidental expenses . . . 3 12 
 
 320 11 4 
 
 " In regard to abatement of slop nuisance, and I 
 may add also largely of farm nuisance, among a 
 rural community, the arrangements at Eastwick are 
 the most complete and satisfactory I have yet seen. 
 Notwithstanding the contiguitj" of the irrigated land 
 to the mansion, no nuisance is experienced from it, 
 whereas previous to the present arrangements, when 
 the slops of the mansion and cottages found theii 
 
326 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 way into neighboring ditches and decomposed there, 
 considerable nuisance had existed. With some 
 structural alterations in the privies (the principles 
 of which are stated in their proper place in this re- 
 port), and such needed supervision as will now be 
 obtained from the sanitary authority appointed un- 
 der the Public Health Act, 1872, the arrangements 
 at Eastwick may be regarded as a pattern to be fol- 
 lowed by villages and small towns similarly circum- 
 stanced. 
 
 " From what has already been said it may be 
 inferred that the ' Automatic Sewage Meter ' ad- 
 mits of wide application in removing the difficulties 
 which often beset the disposal of the sewage of com- 
 munities larger than Eastwick. It simplifies the 
 whole question of dealing with the sewage of small 
 towns, villages, isolated institutions, and mansions, 
 while securing the most efficient application of the 
 sewage to land, both for purification and utilization, 
 with the least expenditure of labor." 
 
 J. A. Davenport, in his paper on Village Sanita- 
 tion and Rural Drainage and Habitations, saj's with 
 reference to the disposal of slop water through open 
 drain pipes laid near the surface : — 
 
 " I have in my district a block of eight or ten 
 houses (belonging to Mr. Owen Lant of Nantwick) 
 that have been drained on this system for two years 
 past, and all is working well up to the present time, 
 with no signs of choking. Most of this class of work 
 is roughly done, and under conditions rendering a 
 good result a matter of some doubt, still so far it ia 
 
THE DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE. 327 
 
 as satisfactory as might be expected. A considera- 
 ble number of houses in this district are drained 
 upon this system, but I mention Mr. Lant's houses 
 as being the first that were dealt with and which 
 have therefore stood the longest test. The difficul- 
 ties in persuading and arranging as to this particu- 
 lar system have been great, for ordinary people do 
 not quite comprehend it. Many heads have been 
 shaken over it, and some of the attempts at carry- 
 ing il out would be amusing to relate. The only 
 principle that I have considered it safe to act upon 
 is to deal with all foul liquids by the soil ; get them 
 properly on to it or through it as quickly as possi- 
 ble, and in suggesting any rural drainage I have 
 always kept this end in view. The system sketched 
 out, or some little variation of it, which will fre- 
 quently be necess;iry, looking at the varying condi- 
 tions under which such work has to be carried out, 
 will, I venture to think, generally in the country be 
 found to furnish a fair solution of the difficulty. I 
 I have sub-irrigating drains in gardens in my dis- 
 trict, where the soil is heavy, and they are at pres- 
 ent working well. Probably for villages, etc., no 
 better method of dealing with their sewage could 
 be adopted than that provided by the automatic 
 sewage meter tank. It has been mentioned before, 
 that the irregular flow of sewage on to land (at 
 times a mere dribble, and at other times flowing 
 more copiously) has been a difficulty in its successful 
 application. The ' Automatic Sewage Tank' meets 
 this difficulty. By this means the flow of sewage 
 
328 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 from the tank may be regulated, it being not at all 
 dependent upon the flow into it." 
 
 Mr. Davenport thus describes the Eastwick ex- 
 periment : — 
 
 " From London to Leatherhead by rail, — a de- 
 lightful walk thence brings one to the little village 
 of Eastwick, the drainage of which is dealt with on 
 this system ; the tank here holds five hundred gal- 
 lons, discharging itself in dry weatlier three times in 
 two days, and receives the slops, etc., from thirteen 
 houses, including farm and mansion, representing a 
 population of about one hundred and forty-five. 
 The sewage is utilized upon a trifle more than three 
 fourths of an acre of land. The cost of the works, 
 some d£320 may look, in the first instance large, 
 but it is calculated that a return of .£17 or something 
 like five per cent, upon the capital, is obtained upon 
 the sewaged land. I was much pleased with my 
 visit here. There was an absence of nuisance about 
 houses, good drainage, and certainly the best method 
 of ultimately disposing of village sewage that I had 
 seen. Before adopting any system of dealing with 
 small quantities of sewage, I would advise any one 
 interested to go and see for themselves the drainage 
 arrangements at the little village of Eastwick." 
 
 My own experiment with this sj'stem of irrigation 
 by subsoil pipes, which has for the past six or seven 
 years been eminently satisfactory, was instigated 
 by the following which was extracted from an early 
 Sidvertising circular of Moule's Patent Earth-Closet 
 Company in London. 
 
THE DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE. 329 
 
 " HOUSE SLOPS, ETC. 
 
 " Where there is a garden, the house-slops and 
 sink-water may, in most cases, be made of great 
 value, and removed from the house without the 
 least annoyance. The only requirement is that 
 there shall be a gradual incline from the house to 
 tl^e garden. Let all the slops fall into a trapped 
 sink, the drain from which to the garden should 
 be of glazed socket pipes, well jointed, and empty- 
 ing itself into a small tank, eighteen inches deep, 
 about one foot wide, and of such length as may be 
 necessary. The surplus rain-water from the roof 
 may also enter this. Out of this tank, lay three 
 inch common drain-pipes, eight feet apart, and 
 twelve inches below the surface. Lay mortar at top 
 and bottom of the joint, leaving the sides open. If 
 these pipes are extended to a considerable length, 
 small tanks, about one foot square and eighteen 
 inches deep, must be sunk at about every twenty or 
 forty feet, to allow for subsidence. These can easily 
 be emptied as often as required ; and the deposit 
 may be either mixed with dry earth or be dug in at 
 once as a manure. The liquid oozes into the culti- 
 vated soil; and the result is something fabulous. 
 This simple plan will effectually deal with the 
 slops ; there is no smell, no possibility of any foul 
 gas to poison the atmosphere, and with this, and the 
 produce of the earth-closet, any ground may be 
 productive and profitable. 
 
 " The two following facts will illustrate the value 
 of this system of dealing with house-slops, etc. 
 
330 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 " On a wall fifty-five feet in length and sixteen 
 feet high a vine grows. A three-inch pipe runs 
 parallel with this at a distance of six feet from it for 
 the entire length ; the slops flow through this pipe 
 as above described. On this vine, year after year, 
 had been grown four hundred well-ripened bunches 
 of grapes, some of the bunches weighing three 
 quarters of a pound. During a period of four years, 
 for a certain purpose, the supply was cut off. To 
 the surprise of the gardener, scarcely any grapes 
 during those years appeared ; but afterwards the 
 supply was restored, and the consequence was an 
 abundant crop ; the wood grew fully sixteen feet, of 
 good size and well ripened. 
 
 " The other case was as follows : — 
 
 " Pipes were laid below two square yards of earth, 
 twelve inches beneath the surface, which were fed 
 with the slops through an upright pipe, about one 
 large watering-potful daily. In the month of 
 November, three roots of Tartarian oats were planted 
 in this piece of ground. The stalks attained one 
 inch and a quarter in circumference ; the leaves 
 measured an inch across. 
 
 " Several of the ears were twenty-^ix inches long, 
 and when the crop was gathered eight hundred 
 grains were rubbed out of one ear. The whole 
 weight of corn from those plants was three quarters 
 of a pound. Twelve of these grains were put into 
 the same piece of ground the following year : from 
 these was grown one pound and three quarters of 
 seed. In fact, in a garden of twenty perches, by 
 
THE DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE. 331 
 
 the use of both solid and liquid manure from one 
 house, three crops were grown in the year, the value 
 of which at market price would be twenty pounds. 
 
 " In a garden in which this plan has been adopted 
 for eight or ten years, the pipes were recently taken 
 up in order to see how far they might have been 
 filled with the mud of subsidence. After so long 
 use, very little subsidence was found, and none to 
 obstruct the working of the system, excepting where, 
 in one or two places, the bad laying of the pipes 
 caused some obstruction. There was notliing which 
 might not at any time be remedied in half an hour. 
 
 " It will be easily seen that this mode of remov- 
 ing sink- water and slops can be applied to towns or 
 districts of towns. Whilst the application of liquid 
 sewage, in the ordinary sense of that expression, to 
 the purposes of irrigation will be generally impossi- 
 ble, either from the want of proper land or proper 
 fall, or the extravagant cost of pumping, or the 
 difficulty of irrigating during frost or during har- 
 vest, this small portion of the refuse-matter of 
 towns, rendered more easy of distribution by the 
 admixture of rain-water, can be pumped to any 
 height, even to land above the town, at all seasons 
 and under all circumstances. During the hard frost 
 of 1867, the sub-irrigation in the garden above men- 
 tioned has continued without the slightest interrup- 
 tion." 
 
 For how large a community the Denton and 
 Field Storage Tank might be made useful we have 
 as yet no experience to determine. All that can be 
 
332 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 said for it at the present time is, that so far as pri- 
 vate houses, factories, hotels, asylums, and small 
 communities are concerned, it offers a means for 
 the complete solution of the slop question in a 
 manner that will give at least some return for the 
 outlaj', for in every case where this underground 
 irrigation is used, there is quite sure to be a greater 
 or less increase of fertility. 
 
 Note, 2d edition. — Attention is called to the account given in my 
 Villatje Improvements and Farm Villages (Boston: Houghton, Osgood 
 & Co.), of the later application of the system of sub-surface irrigation, 
 especially as applied to the sewerage of the village of Lenox, Mass. 
 
 This system is now a demonstrated success, so much so that the Mas- 
 sachusetts Board of Health, in a circular issued in April, 1879, speaks of 
 it as "the best" means of disposal where there are no public sewers, 
 and where water-closets are used. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE DKAINXNG OE A VILLAGE.^ 
 
 I "WAS called, in the early part of 1878, to ex- 
 amine the village of Cumberland Mills, Maine, 
 where there had been an undue amount of disease, 
 indicating a possible defect of drainage. The vil- 
 lage is chiefly owned by Messrs. S. D. Warren and 
 Company, of Boston, and its population is mainly 
 employed in their large paper mill. They had taken 
 every measure that had occurred to them to provide 
 in the best m^anner for the comfort and welfare of 
 their people, and had expended in drains, sewers, 
 and other sanitary appliances a very large sum; 
 they had, in short, conscientiously done their very 
 best, under the lights available to them, to make 
 their village a model of healthfulness and conven- 
 ience. 
 
 I found on every hand ample evidence of elaborate 
 and costly work, of a character appropriate to the 
 different classes of buildings. The agent's house 
 had the usual conveniences and the usual defects of 
 a first-class house in the city ; the boarding-houses 
 were abundantly supplied with water-works, and 
 
 1 Reprinted by permission of Messrs. Harper and Brothers from tlieir 
 Kew Monthly Magazine. 
 
334 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 the smaller houses had kitchen sinks with running 
 water, cellar drains, etc. ; some of the larger houses 
 were heated with furnaces. The workmanship was 
 generally good, and indicated that it had been guided 
 by a good engineering skill, though quite without 
 sanitary knowledge. 
 
 To one accustomed to the inspection of drainage 
 works, the gravest faults of arrangement were every- 
 where patent. Each house had a long drain lead- 
 ing from its cellar to a common sewer of too large 
 size, or to the surface of lower ground in its vicin- 
 ity. Where water-closets were used, they had been 
 erected with reference to convenience, but without 
 reference to a proper disposal of their wastes. Most 
 of the smaller houses had common privies adjacent to 
 them, and in the majority of cases the drainage of 
 the kitchen sink delivered, often through an insuf- 
 ficiently closed channel, into the mouth of the un- 
 trapped drain of the cellar. In some instances there 
 were indications that these drains had become ob- 
 structed, and the discharge of the kitchen sink had 
 overrun the cellar bottom. In other cases the foul 
 air of the drain, or of the sewer into which it dis- 
 charged, flowed back into the cellar and permeated 
 the house. In the few instances where furnaces 
 were used, they took their supply of cold air not 
 from outside the house, but from the front hall, the 
 same air being cooked over and over again — cer- 
 tainly with the effect of economizing fuel. The 
 soil pipes of the water-closets were unventilated, 
 and the insalubrity seemed to be pretty nearly in 
 
THE DRAINING OF A VILLAGE. 
 
 335 
 
 proportion to the effort which had been made to 
 overcome it. 
 
 I was entirely unhampered in my instructions, 
 and was encouraged to do all that the most nerfect 
 
836 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 sanitary condition required. The village lies on 
 rolling ground considerably higher than the pond 
 made by the damming of the Presumpscot River. 
 This pond has a rapid and constant movement. 
 The arrangement of the new system is shown in 
 Figure 32. For drainage, the houses are grouped 
 mainly into three sets, each with its independent 
 sewer discharging into the river. A is the office 
 building, where the work was very simple, and has 
 not been changed. B is the agent's house, of which 
 the drainage was entirely re-arranged, with a ven- 
 tilation of its main drain and soil pipe. It is to the 
 drainage of the operatives' houses that I desire to 
 call especial attention. 
 
 The heavier lines indicate the main sewers, of 
 six-inch vitrified pipe, running from the flush tanks 
 (F T) to the river. These are laid with securely 
 cemented joints, and with Y branches to receive 
 the house drains, which are shown by the lighter 
 lines. These house drains are of four-inch vitrified 
 pipe, with cemented joints. Each one of them 
 reaches nearly to the foundation wall of the house, 
 and is connected under the cellar floor with the 
 water-closet, which is in nearly every case located 
 in the cellar. The outlet of each of the main sew- 
 ers is arranged as shown in Figure 33, its extension 
 through the bank wall of the pond and for some 
 distance into the water being of iron pipe supported 
 and protected by loose stone-work. At the top 
 of the bank there is erected from a T branch of the 
 sewer a four-inch iron pipe extending above the sur- 
 
THE DRAINING OF A VILLAGE. 
 
 337 
 
 face of the ground, and open at its month for the 
 admission of air. There is no trap between this 
 point and 
 the founda- 
 tion walls of 
 the houses, 
 each house •"= — = 
 drain being - — - 
 connected -— 
 outside the 
 walls with a 
 
 three-inch Fig^''^ 33. — Outlet of sewer, with ventilation inlet. 
 
 ventilation pipe reaching above the roof, shown in 
 Figure 35. This arrangement secures a free circu- 
 lation of air through the entire length of sewer and 
 house drains. 
 
 At the upper end of each main sewer there is 
 placed a Field's Flush Tank, constructed as shown 
 
 in Figure 
 34. This is a 
 brick cham- 
 ber built in 
 the ground, 
 receiving in 
 one case the 
 drainage of 
 a four-tene- 
 ment house, 
 '■} and in the 
 two others 
 the drainage 
 
 Figure 34. — Field's Flush Tank. 
 
338 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 of the upper two houses of the series — roof water 
 and all. The drainage enters the tank through the 
 pipe C. A is the surface of the water when the 
 tank is full, and B when it is emptied. The ca- 
 pacity of the tank between the lines A and B is 
 about five barrels. In front of the entrance there 
 is a wire screen to prevent the passage of coarse 
 material. This is held in place by wooden wedges, 
 and may easily be removed for cleansing. The de- 
 pression below the line B is for the accumulation of 
 solid matters which may not become decomposed. 
 A portion of the tank is carried up to the surface of 
 the ground, with a movable cover for a man-hole. 
 E is Field's Automatic Annular Siphon, by which 
 the tank is emptied as soon as its contents rise high 
 enough to flow over the top of its inner (and longer) 
 limb. The short limb is a dome inclosing the inner 
 limb, with a water-way all around its bottom, reach- 
 ing to the line B. The drainage of the remaining 
 bouses of each system flows directly to the main 
 drain, where it may deposit more or less of its 
 coarser matters. The drainage of the upper houses 
 flows into the flush tank, where it is held until the 
 top of the siphon is reached. The whole amount 
 (five barrels) is then discharged with great rapidity 
 into the main sewer (.D), washing it clean from end 
 to end. During storms the roof water increases 
 this action, but the flow of sewage alone is sufficient 
 to remove all accumulations from the sewer. 
 
 The arrangement within the houses is shown in 
 Figure 35, where -4 is a tumbler tank, delivering 
 
THE DRAINING OF A VILLAGE. 
 
 339 
 
 about two quarts of water at each discharge •, B is 
 the kitchen sink ; C is a check-valve trap, prevent- 
 ing the re- 
 turn of air 
 from the wa- 
 ter-closet to 
 the sink ; and 
 D, the water- 
 closet, in the 
 cellai-. The 
 closets are of 
 enameled 
 Cast iron, with 
 iron traps, and 
 iron connec- 
 tions with the 
 house drains, 
 the whole be- 
 ing securely 
 set in cement, 
 which forms 
 the entire 
 floor of the 
 closet apart- 
 ment. The 
 whole cellar 
 b o 1 1 o m i s 
 
 coated in like ■^'S"''® ^^- — House, kitchen, and cellar, with sinli, 
 water-closet, flushing arrangement, and check- 
 manner With 
 
 valve. 
 
 cement. The 
 
 closet has a wooden seat, but no riser. 
 
 The whole 
 
340 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 space around the pot is open to the air and light, 
 and to the broom and floor cloth. 
 
 Figure 36 shows the construction of the tumbler 
 tank, which is a small galvanized iron tank inclosed 
 in a wooden box, of which the cover may be looked, 
 and within which is a small faucet connected with 
 the public water supply, and under the control of 
 the public inspector only. Within the box, and 
 supported on knife-edge trunnions, is a galvanized 
 iron tumbler or tilting basin, with a capacity of 
 about two quarts. Its normal position is shown by 
 the solid lines (^), its rear end resting on a buffer 
 of India rubber. The faucet is set to fill it at fixed 
 intervals, usually from five to ten minutes. When 
 
 nearly full, the 
 weight of the wa- 
 ter in the project- 
 ing lip causes it 
 to tilt forward and 
 assume the posi- 
 tion indicated by 
 the dotted lines 
 {B}, its front side 
 
 Figure 36. — Details of the tumbler tank. striking an India 
 
 rubber buffer, and its contents pouring rapidly out, 
 to flow off through the outlet pipe, as shown by 
 ihe arrow. When empty, its rear end is the 
 heaviest, and it drops back into position, ready to 
 receive another charge of water. O is the lock 
 and staple by which the cover is secured. Figure 
 87 shows a cross section of the patent check-valve, 
 
THE DRAINING OF A VILLAGE. 
 
 341 
 
 by "which the air of the cellar or closet is prevented 
 from returning to the kitchen. 
 
 The frequenoj' of the flushing discharge is a per- 
 fect security against 
 frost ; the kitchen waste- | 
 pipe is kept clean, and 
 the trapping water of 
 the closet is renewed 
 every five or ten min- 
 utes, day and night, all 
 faeces and kitchen waste 
 being carried into the 
 drain and quite on the 
 river before its decom- 
 position can even begin. Figure 37T— Cross section of clieck- 
 This frequent renewal valve. 
 
 of the water in the closet trap would be a consider- 
 able protection against foul air in the drain even 
 were this not ventilated. In effect there is perfect 
 ventilation only a few feet distant from the closet. 
 The whole arrangement is entirely pure and satis- 
 factory, and it secures the removal of all offensive 
 waste matters in a most complete and unobjection- 
 able manner. The same arrangements in principle 
 are applied to the two large boarding-houses, one 
 for men and one for women, and with equally good 
 results. 
 
 Other minor improvements have been made, such 
 tiS the under-draining of a low tract, as shown by 
 dotted lines near the southeast corner of the map ; 
 the removal of stables, of all pig-pens, and of all 
 
342 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 privies. Where cellars are subject to soil moist- 
 ure they have been drained below the concrete, and 
 with ample protection against the return of drain 
 air through the old drains leading to the old sewer, 
 or to the hill-sides. These drains have absolutely 
 no connection with the foul-water system, which 
 delivers below the surface of the water in the river, 
 which is frequently and thoroughly flushed, and 
 which is abundantly ventilated close up to the wall 
 of every house. 
 
 Not as a matter of drainage, but as being very 
 necessary to health, the cold air supply to furnaces, 
 where these exist, has been cut off from the front 
 hall registers and brought into communication with 
 the outer air. 
 
 The houses shown on the map which are not con- 
 nected with the sewers are mainly either not the 
 property of Messrs. S. D. Warren and Company, or 
 are to be torn down or removed. 
 
 The method of sewerage above indicated, and, so 
 far as working-people are concerned, the method of 
 house drainage, are almost universally applicable to 
 country villages generally, and even to very large 
 villages. Indeed, with a very moderate inci-ease of 
 size in the main sewers, where a hundred or more 
 houses are to be drained, it is the best system avail- 
 ble for many villages which have city charters. It 
 would often be necessary, but by no means always, 
 to secure some better means of sewage disposal than 
 its discharge into a river or brook. One very im- 
 portant fact in this connection is apt to be over- 
 
THE DRAINING OF A VILLAGE. 343 
 
 looked, which is, that while the outflow of large 
 and sluggish sewers is poisonous to fish, and in every 
 way unfitted for admission to rivers, fresh fsecal 
 matter and fresh kitchen waste are food for fishes, 
 which are its natural and proper scavengers. The 
 whole household drainage of a town should be car- 
 ried immediately into a river by cleanly flushed 
 sewers. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 EECENT MODIFICATIONS IN SANITAET DEAINAGE. 
 
 It is only about four years since the first edition 
 of this book was published. So far as possible, I 
 therein stated fairly the condition of the art at that 
 time. Viewed in the light of present knowledge on 
 the subject, parts of that first edition are already, 
 in many respects, quite out of date. Knowledge has 
 increased, experience has multiplied, and invention 
 has been most fertile. The illustrations there given 
 of the proper arrangement of house drainage (Fig- 
 ure 12, page 188) represented a soil pipe and drain 
 running in an unbroken course from the sewer in 
 the street, under the basement floor, and up through 
 the roof of the house. Connected with it were sev- 
 eral water-closets, a sink, and the overflow-pipes of 
 the tank in the attic and of the service cisterns of 
 the closets. In all cases the different vessels were 
 separated from the soil pipe only by water-sealed 
 traps, and only the same protection was afforded in 
 the case of the main tank. The system thus repre- 
 sented is defective in several particulars. 
 
 (a.) The water of the tank is liable to dangerous 
 contamination through the overflow-pipe which leads 
 
RECENT MODIFICAi-IONS IN SANITAEY DRAINAGE. 345 
 
 into the soil pipe, with only the insufficient protec- 
 tion of a water-seal, — especially insufficient as it 
 has no certain means of renewal, and may by evap- 
 oration give direct access to the air of the soil 
 pipe. 
 
 (b.y The overflow-pipes of the service cisterns 
 may in like manner become channels for the intro- 
 duction of drain air to the apartments. 
 
 (c.) The unprotected traps of the sink and the 
 water-closets are inadequate for the work they are 
 intended to perform, and all of them are suscepti- 
 ble, under certain conditions, of becoming empty 
 hj evaporation or by siphoning. 
 
 ((^.) Although the soil pipe is continued through 
 th.e roof, full-bore, and is open at the top, it has no 
 provision for the admission of fresh air at its foot, 
 which is now regarded as a matter of imperative 
 necessity. 
 
 (e.) The carrying of a foul-water drain under tlie 
 basement floor is to be avoided wherever possible. 
 
 These defects are sufficient, in the opinion of those 
 instructed in such, matters, to condemn this whole 
 arrangement, which only four years ago was re- 
 garded as the best yet devised. ^ 
 
 All this indicates that the art under consideration 
 is undergoing rapid development, and that it is by 
 no means to be assumed that we have yet arrived 
 at ultimate perfection in the matter. 
 
 Were I called upon to-day to specify the essen- 
 
 ^ This illustration was taken from tlie latest accepted Englisli aiitliority 
 on such subjects. 
 
346 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 tial features of perfect house drainage, I should in- 
 clude the following items : — 
 
 The establishment of a complete circulation in 
 the main line of soil pipe and drain, allowing a free 
 movement of atmospheric air through the whole 
 system from end to end, together with as free a cir- 
 culation through minor pipes as could conveniently 
 be secured. 
 
 The absolute separation of the overflow of every 
 tank or cistern delivering water for the general 
 supply of the house from any soil pipe or drain con- 
 taining a foul atmosphere. 
 
 The supplementing of every water-trap with a 
 suitable mechanical valve, to prevent the water of 
 the trap from coming in contact with the air of the 
 drain. 
 
 The reduction of the size of all waste-pipes, and 
 especially of all traps, to the smallest diameter ade- 
 quate to their work. 
 
 The abolition of all brick or earthenware drains 
 within the walls of the house, using in their stead 
 the best quality of iron pipe, with securely caulked 
 lead joints. 
 
 The exposure of pipes " in sight " wherever this 
 can be done. The substitution, so far as practi- 
 cable, of wrought-iron pipes for lead pipes, in the 
 case of all minor wastes. 
 
 The coating of all iron pipes, both cast and 
 wrought, inside and out, with " American " en- 
 amel, a glossy black coating which withstands in 
 the most complete manner the chemical action and 
 
RECENT MODIFICATIONS IN SANITARY DRAINAGE. 347 
 
 changes of temperature to which it is subjected in 
 such use. 
 
 The iron pipes should be extended so far beyond 
 the foundation of the house as to obviate the open- 
 ing of joints by settlement, so common where 
 earthenware drains are subjected to a slight move- 
 ment of the foundation, or of the new fitting about 
 it. 
 
 The object to be sought is the provision of a per- 
 manent drainage channel for the removal of all 
 wastes, offering little asperity for the adhesion of 
 foul matter, swept from end to end by fresh air, ab- 
 Bolutely separated by mechanical obstructions from 
 the interior atmosphere of the house, and literally 
 a section of out-of-doors brought for convenience 
 within the walls of the house, open to receive the 
 contents of the various waste-pipes leading to it, but 
 securely closed against the return of its air. I be- 
 lieve that the next step in advance will be the es- 
 tablishment of means by which the whole length of 
 this drainage channel may be thoroughly flushed 
 with clean water at least once in twenty-four 
 hours. 
 
 As a prominent detail of house-drainage work, 
 the long-accepted water-closet is being made the ob- 
 ject of important modifications. The stereotyped 
 article, the " pan " closet, has little to recommend 
 it bej'ond the fact of its general adoption. It is 
 faulty in principle, in arrangement, and in construc- 
 tion. While it is cleanly to look at, and lends it- 
 self readily to ornamental joinery, it has defects 
 
348 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 which should drive it out of existence. Deep down 
 in its dark and hidden recesses, where only the ken 
 of the plumber ever reaches, a large and sluggish trap 
 — they call it a " cess-pool " in Scotland — is gen- 
 erally holding the filthiest filth in a state of offen- 
 sive putrefaction. The iron chamber above this is 
 lined with the foulest smear and slime, constantly 
 producing foetid and dangerous gases. The earthen- 
 ware bowl which surmounts this is set in putty, 
 which yields to corrosion and to the jar of frequent 
 use, until it leaks foul air, often in perceptible quan- 
 tity. The panful of sealing water soon becomes 
 saturated with foul gases, which exhale thence into 
 the house. The whole apparatus is incoffined in 
 tight-fitting carpentry, which shuts in the leakings 
 and the spatterings and their vapors from the free 
 access of air, boxing up in the interior of the house, 
 and generally in free communication with the spaces 
 between the walls and under the floors, an atmos- 
 phere heavy with the products of organic decompo- 
 sition, and faintly suggestive to (the unwonted nos- 
 tril) of the mus decumanus defunctus. 
 
 Some of these defects were recognized and pointed 
 out in my earlier papers. I then believed that the 
 difficulties of the case had been solved in great meas- 
 ure by the Jennings closet. It now seems that 
 this closet and the whole class to which it belonsrs 
 are seriously defective ; and, in the absence of any- 
 thing better, I am disposed to go back to the simple 
 " hopper " closet (Figure 38), such as is used in 
 the cheapest work, and to depend on frequent and 
 
RECENT MODIFICATIONS IN SANITARY DRAINAGE. 349 
 
 copious flushing to keep it clean. This closet has 
 
 the great advantage that its only trap 
 
 is in sight at the bottom of its pot. T JT i 
 
 There is no inner "chamber of hor- \ / 
 
 rors " concealed b}' a cleanly exterior. \ / 
 
 I have recently used a number of these '\^/'°°°\. 
 
 closets supplied with various sorts of ^^^P 
 
 apparatus for periodical flushing, and 
 
 I find that wherever a half -gallon flush The hopper 
 
 can be given every ten or fifteen min- closet. 
 
 utes they are kept perfectly clean. I have no dotibt 
 
 that flushing every half hour would keep them free 
 
 from all sanitary objection. This would require a 
 
 supply of about twenty-five gallons ^er diem. 
 
 Recent invention has been turned in the direc- 
 tion of the provision of mechanical appliances for 
 separating the trapping water from the air of the 
 soil pipe or drain. There are several devices which 
 accomplish this purpose, — one of them (Figure 37) 
 my own, and more than one of them constituting a 
 vei'y great improvement upon, and indeed an absolute 
 step in advance of, anything in use five years ago. 
 
 Another most important matter of recent develop- 
 ment is the through and through ventiLition of soil 
 pipes. Formerly the soil pipes invariably stopped at 
 the highest closet of the house. When the danger 
 of pressure came to be understood, it was considered 
 imperative in all work of the best class to carry a 
 vent-pipe out through the top of the house. As this 
 pipe, from the smallness of its size and from the ir- 
 regularities of its course, had but limited capacity of 
 
350 SANITAEY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 discharge, the necessity was quite generally recog- 
 nized for carrying up the soil pipe itself, full-bore, 
 through and above the roof. This was the point 
 reached at the time of my earlier writing. It soon 
 became evident that even this extension of the large 
 pipe afforded no real ventilation. A deep mine shaft 
 cannot be ventilated by simply uncovering its top. 
 No complete frequent change of air can be effected 
 in a soil pipe by merely opening its upper end. Air 
 must be introduced at the bottom to take the place 
 of that which is discharged at the top. It is now 
 considered imperative in all good work to open the 
 soil pipe at both ends, or at least to furnish the 
 lower part of the pipe with a sufficient fresh-air 
 inlet to effect a thorough ventilation of the whole 
 channel. 
 
 We have heard so much of " sewer gas " that 
 we were in danger of ascribing the production of 
 this foul air only to the sewer and cess-pool. In- 
 deed, the majority of sanitarians to this day seem 
 to believe that if they can effect a thorough dis- 
 connection between the sewer or drain and the 
 waste-pipes of the house they have gained a suffi- 
 cient protection against sewer gas. The fact is 
 that that combination of the gaseous products of 
 organic decomposition which is known by the gen- 
 eric name of sewer gas is very largely produced by 
 the contents of the house-pipes themselves. Not 
 only in the traps, where the coarser matters ac- 
 cumulate, but all along the walls of the smeared 
 pipes, where filth has attached itself in its passage, 
 
EECENT MODIFICATIONS IN SANITAEY DRAINAGE. 351 
 
 there is a constant decomposition going on whicli is 
 producing its constant results. The character of 
 this decomposition and the character of the pro- 
 duced gases are greatly influenced by the degree to 
 which access is given to atmospheric air. The more 
 complete the ventilation, the greater the dilution 
 of the gases formed and the moi-e complete their re- 
 moval, and also the more innocuous their character. 
 Under the most favorable circumstances, the con- 
 tained air of a soil pipe must be offensive, and is 
 likely to become dangerous ; so that, however 
 thorough the ventilation, we must still adopt every 
 safeguard against its admission into the house. The 
 facility with which foul gases penetrate water and 
 escape from it makes the water-seal trap, which is 
 now our almost universal reliance, an extremely in- 
 efficient protection. There can be no real safety 
 short of the adoption of some appliance which shall 
 keep every outlet securely closed against the pos- 
 sible return of drain air. 
 
 Mr. Elliot C. Clarke, the principal assistant en- 
 gineer in charge of the Improved Sewerage Work 
 of Boston, in a paper entitled " Common Defects in 
 House Drains," contributed to the Tenth Annual 
 Report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, 
 says on the subject of sewer gas : " The writer has 
 no wish to be an alarmist. The risk from sewer gas 
 is probably not so great as many suppose; it is a 
 slight risk, but a slight risk of a terrible danger. If 
 a man thinks there is no need of insuring his house 
 because his father lived in it for fifty years without 
 
352 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 a conflagration, he has a right to his opinion." Pro- 
 fessor Fleeining Jenkin, in his " Healthy Houses," 
 says, " Simple sewer gas is little worse than a bad 
 smell. Tainted sewer gas may be so poisonous that 
 a very little introduced into a bedroom — so little 
 as to be quite imperceptible to the nose — shall cer- 
 tainly give typhoid fever to a person sleeping there. 
 The germ is a spark, the effects of which may be 
 unlimited. We do not content ourselves with ex- 
 cluding the great majority of sparks from a powder 
 magazine ; we do our best that not one may enter." 
 While the water seal is very defective in itself, it 
 is a very important adjunct to any mechanical means 
 of separation that may be adopted, and all necessary 
 precautions should be taken to prevent its removal 
 by " siphoning," — the sucking out of the water by 
 the partial vacuum caused by the flow of water in 
 the main pipe, to which its outlet leads. To pre- 
 vent this siphoning action often taxes the ingenuity 
 of the engineer more than any part of house-drain- 
 ing work ; and until special devices are made to 
 meet the exigency this must remain the most difli- 
 cult and intricate part of the house drainer's task. 
 
 Any one whose attention is given to sanitary work 
 must be more and more struck with that peculiar- 
 ity of human nature which assures us of the excep- 
 tional excellence of our own belongings. I have 
 rarely been called to examine the drainage of a 
 house without being told that I was sent for merely 
 as a matter of extra precaution. I have never com- 
 
RECENT MODIFICATIONS IN SANITARY DRAINAGE. 353 
 
 pleted any examination without discovering serious 
 sanitary defects, — not merely such errors of ar- 
 rangement as were universal until a short time ago, 
 but actu;i], palpable bad condition, which the owner 
 and his plumber at once acknowledged as of a grave 
 cliaiacter. Leaks in drains under the cellar floor, 
 01- in or near the foundation; lead waste-pipes eaten 
 through by rats, and spilling their flow under the 
 house ; lead soil pipes perforated by corrosion ; im- 
 perfect joints leaking drain air within the parti- 
 tions ; the accumulation of dirty sloppings under the 
 bench of the water-closet ; and even untrapped con- 
 nection between some room and the soil pipe, or the 
 direct pollution of the air over the tank through its 
 overflow-pipe, — these are most common faults, and 
 some one of them I have found to exist wherever I 
 have looked for them in a " first-class " house, where 
 it was naturally supposed that the most perfect 
 conditions prevailed. 
 
 In no department of sanitary work has progress 
 been more marked than in the improvement fore- 
 shadowed on page 196 et infra, concerning the dis- 
 posal of the liquid wastes of country houses by the 
 process of sub-surface irrigation. Like all radical 
 improvements, it has had its share of prejudice to 
 overcome, and it by no means found the profes- 
 sional public ready to accept it as the demonstrated 
 success which English experience had shown it to 
 be. It is now quite safe to say that, among all 
 engineers and architects who have given attention 
 to the matter, it is acknowledged to afford the best 
 
 23 
 
354 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 solution yet attained of this most difficult problem. 
 I know very many cases of its adoption, often with- 
 out professional guidance, and carried out in a rule- 
 of-thumb sort of way, and I have heard of none 
 that is not satisfactory. It does away with that 
 king of nuisances, the cess-pool, and disposes of all 
 manner of liquid waste insensibly, completely, and 
 safely. The credit for this improvement is due pri- 
 marily to the Rev. Henry Moule, the inventor of 
 the earth-closet, and hardly less to Mr. Rogers Field, 
 C. E., who relieved it of its chief embarrassment by 
 adapting to it his automatic flush tank. This sys- 
 tem has recently received the unqualified indorse- 
 ment of that highest American sanitary authority, 
 the Massachusetts State Board of Health, which in a 
 "Circular issued in April, 1879, says : " Chamber slops, 
 and slop water generally, should never be thrown 
 on the ground near houses. They may be ... . used 
 by distribution under the surface of the soil in the 
 manner described on page 334 of the Seventh An- 
 nual Report of the State Board of Health, and now 
 introduced in the town of Lenox, Massachusetts. . . . 
 If water-closets are used, and there are no sewers, 
 the best disposal of the sewage is by the flush tank 
 and irrigation under the surface of the soil, as de- 
 scribed on page 135 of the Eighth Annual Report 
 of the State Board of Health." 
 
 This system has been for two years in full oper- 
 ation for the entire sewage of the village of Lenox, 
 where it has proved itself an absolute and unques- 
 tionable success. The question which seems to arise 
 
sss 
 
 RECENT MODIFICATIONS IN SANITARY DRAINAGE. 355 
 
 in every Northern mind when this method is sug- 
 gested relates to the possible effect of severe frosts. 
 It seems now to be clearly demonstrated that this 
 consideration may be left entirely out of the ac- 
 count, no instance having been cited of the least ob- 
 struction from this source. This point will be more 
 fully treated farther on. 
 
 The progress made in the matter of town drainage 
 has not been less than that in the twin department 
 of house drainage ; but the advance has been thus 
 far — at least so far as this country is concerned — 
 more a matter of theory than of practical applica- 
 tion, and it relates more to villages and to what may 
 be called village-cities than to larger places, like 
 New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. 
 
 Sewerage was long confined to large towns, and it 
 reached its development under the direction of en- 
 gineers trained to foresee all possible contingencies, 
 and to pitch their work on a scale adequate to cope 
 with them. Having usually ample means at their 
 command, and with the inclination to work after 
 great models, their works have generally been costly 
 and vastly comprehensive. So far as the drainage 
 of the great cities is concerned, there is much to be 
 said, too, on the other side, and it has been ably 
 said. My present purpose relates chiefly to the 
 fcewerage of villages and country towns having a 
 considerable proportion of uncovered and unpaved 
 area. There are hundreds of towns in this country 
 sadly in need of draining, which cannot afford the 
 gigantic and costly work of introducing such a ays- 
 
356 SANITAEY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 tern of sewers as it is uusal to find in a great city. 
 Quite generally, when the question of their drainage 
 arises, a city sewerage engineer is consulted, and a 
 plan is prepared which remains unexecuted because 
 of its excessive cost. By far the larger part of this 
 cost is due to the fact that the proposed system con- 
 templates the drainage of such sub-cellars as are 
 rarely found in country towns, involving a depth 
 that would probably never be needed, and the re- 
 moval of the storm water, which, after the area shall 
 have become covered and paved, might flow off by 
 the public sewers. It would be better, in the case 
 of all rural towns, to disregard the question of storm 
 water entirely. This may be more safely and much 
 more cheaply removed over the surface. The only 
 reason for admitting it to the sewers would be to 
 prevent injury to property. Under the circum- 
 stances we are considering, the danger of this is not 
 sufficient to justify the expense ; nor is it sufficient, 
 were there no question of expense, to justify the 
 sanitary and economical disadvantages of providing 
 for it by a system of large sewers. It is better to 
 keep above ground, and to discharge by the natural 
 means of outflow, all water which may be so dis- 
 posed of without offense or danger to health, — that 
 is, all or nearly all rainfall. The extent to which 
 the first flow over a paved road-way may properly 
 be admitted to the sewers is a question to be decided 
 according to the circumstances of each case. It is 
 generally wiser to keep such road-ways clean by 
 sweeping than to use the rain-fall as a scavenger. 
 
RECENT MODIFICATIONS IN SANITARY DRAINAGE. 357 
 
 What towns of the class under consideration need 
 — and they need it very imperatively — is a per- 
 fect means for the removal of the foul wastes of 
 households, factories, etc., and for the draining of 
 the sub-soil, if this is springy or wet. They should 
 only be called upon to spend the money necessary 
 to secure these ends. If they can learn to limit 
 their demands to this absolute requirement, their 
 sanitary improvement need no longer be the bug- 
 bear that it now is. 
 
 The advantages of small-pipe sewers have been 
 sufficiently stated, except, perhaps, with reference 
 to the single matter of ventilation. It is much 
 easier and more simple to secure the needed change 
 of the atmosphere of a small chamber than of a 
 large one, and the usual means, which are but par- 
 tially effective in the case of a large brick sewer, 
 are ample for the complete ventilation of a small 
 pipe. Hitherto the objection has held, in the case 
 of pipe sewers of less than ten inches in diameter, 
 that when they become obstructed it is a difficult 
 and costly matter to clear them. But for this objec- 
 tion, there was no reason why six-inch sewers might 
 not be used for all villages or parts of towns having 
 a population of not more than one thousand ; for a 
 six-inch pipe laid even with a very slight inclina- 
 tion has ample capacity for the discharge of all the 
 household waste of such a population. 
 
 We have now reached the point where there is 
 no reason whatever to apprehend the obstruction 
 of such a sewer by anything that can get into it 
 
358 SANITARY DRAINAGE OF HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 through proper and properly arranged branch drains. 
 Rogers Field's Flush Tank, as arranged for the pe- 
 riodic flushing of such sewers, may be confidently 
 relied on to keep them swept clean of everything 
 that may enter them. The accompanying diagram 
 (Figure 39) shows the construction of the annular 
 siphon, which is the essential feat- 
 ure of this tank. A siphon of this 
 form, four inches in diameter, comes 
 into action with certainty under a 
 stream of one tenth of a gallon per 
 minute ; so that a tank having a 
 capacity of one hundred and fifty 
 gallons, placed at the head of each 
 branch sewer and fed by a stream 
 which will fill it once in twenty-four 
 hours, will give it a thorough daily 
 flushing, and keep it clear of all ob- 
 Figure 39.— Sogers structions. No matter how limited 
 Field's Annular Si- the public water supply may be, this 
 ^°°' small amount can always be spared 
 
 for the work. Where there is no public supply 
 and no available 
 extrinsic source 
 of flushing water, 
 the sewage itself 
 from a few of the 
 upper h ouses 
 
 along each lateral Figure 40. — Rogers Field's Flush Tank ioi 
 , ,1 Sewers. 
 
 sewer, together 
 
 with their roof water, may be collected in the tank 
 
 and used for the flush. 
 
RECENT MODIFICATIONS IN SANITARY DRAINAGE. 359 
 
 This simple device has proved itself, both here 
 and in England, to be entirely reliable and effective. 
 It may safely be assumed that it has secured a re- 
 duction of the cost of the drainage of small towns 
 to one half of what was formerly necessary. 
 
 It has been held hitherto to be one of the advan- 
 tages of sewerage that the imperfect joints or im- 
 perfect material of the sewers afford an outlet for 
 superabundant soil water, and secure a valuable 
 sub-soil drainage. It is coming to be understood 
 that the same channels which admit soil water to 
 the drain will admit drain water to the soil, robbing 
 th^ sewers of the vehicle needed for the transpor- 
 tation of their m.ore solid contents, and causing a 
 dangerous pollution of the ground, of cellars, and 
 of drinking-water wells. The foul-water sewers 
 should be as absolutely tight as the best material 
 and the best workinanship can make them, and the 
 drainage of the ground should be effected by the 
 use of agricultural drain-tiles, constituting an en- 
 tirely separate system, which, while they may for 
 economy's sake generally occupy the same trenches 
 with the sewers, should be carefully arranged to 
 prevent sewage matters from entering them. 
 
 The question of sewage disjoosal is the great un- 
 answered question of the day. We are familiar 
 with the objections to the methods usual here. 
 European countries, which have been forced by the 
 density of their population to give especial attention 
 to this subject, have as yet hardly got beyond the 
 point of proving that there is no royal road to sue- 
 
360 SANITARY DRAINAGE IN HOUSES AND TOWNS. 
 
 cess, and that -whatever theory may say on the 
 subject, sewage not only has no value to the com- 
 munity producing it, but it cannot be got rid of 
 except at considerable cost. 
 
 The only metbod thus far developed which is 
 entitled to consideration here, aside from discharge 
 into the sea or into a running stream, is purification 
 by application to the soil, with or without the agri- 
 cultural consideration. Whether by surface irriga- 
 tion, by the use of sub-surface absorption drains, or 
 by intermittent downward filtration, this method of 
 its disposition, properly applied, is absolutely com- 
 plete and satisfactory. The opinion has quite natu- 
 rally prevailed that the severity of our winter 
 climate debarred us from availing ourselves of it. 
 The experience of the severe winter of 1878-9 has 
 fully justified the opinion of those who have main- 
 tained that this objection is not a real one. In 
 England the sewage-irrigation farms have taken 
 charge of the effluent without interruption through- 
 out a season of almost unexampled severity. At 
 Berlin a like immunity has continued throughout 
 the winter ; and even at Dantzic, near the mouth 
 of the Vistula, in a climate nearly as severe as that 
 of St. Petersburg, and where provision was made 
 for a direct discharge into the river during the win- 
 ter season, the disposal by irrigation is said, to the 
 surprise of all, to continue uninterrupted in the 
 coldest weather. 
 
 At the Nursery and Child's Hospital on Staten 
 Island, winter overtook us before our absorption 
 
KECENT MODIFICATIONS IN SANITARY DEAINAGE. 361 
 
 drains could be laid. The" flush tank, which holds 
 one day's sewage, was made to discharge over a low 
 spot near the absorption gi-ound. Even in the cold- 
 est weather the entire outflow settled away into the 
 earth before the next flood was delivered. Evidently 
 the warmth of the sewage is in all cases suflScient 
 for it to thaw its way into the ground. This is, 
 without doubt, the explanation of the continued 
 working of the shallow drains under my own lawn 
 during nine consecutive winters, although at least 
 once the ground was frozen to a depth of two and a 
 half feet below them. 
 
lE-DEX. 
 
 ish-cloBets, 214, 271, 275, 280. 
 &sbes for earth-closets, 250. 
 
 Batavia {N. Y.), removal of malarious 
 condition, 109. 
 
 Bath-tubs, 103. 
 
 Blunfs overflow for Jennii^'s closet, 
 79. 
 
 Boards of Health of England. Gen- 
 eral conclusions as to sanitary drain- 
 age, 118. 
 
 Boards of Health should decide what 
 may be admitted to the sewer, 117. 
 
 Beards of Health should regulate the 
 sites of houses, 12, 57. 
 
 Boston, its drainage, 64. 
 
 Brick sewers, objections to, 146. 
 
 Brierly, typhoid at, 40. 
 
 Broad Street pump, 68. 
 
 Brooklyn, amount of sewage, 129. 
 
 Capacity of sewers, 134, 136, 138. 
 
 Causation of disease (Dr. Simon], 35. 
 
 Cellar drainage, 74. 
 
 Cellars, 73, 83, 84. 
 
 Cellars, flooding of, 128. 
 
 Cement pipes for sewers, 145. 
 
 Cerebro-spinal meningitis, 53, 96, 101. 
 
 Cess-pool, 79, 80, 89, 107. 
 
 Charcoal ventilators, 159. 
 
 Chimneys and flues for sewer ventila- 
 tion, 156. 
 
 Chimneys, house-drain ventilators in, 
 93. 
 
 Choking of sewers, 133. 
 
 Cholera, bad drainage, 63. 
 
 Cholera, mortality from, 20. 
 
 Cleansing sewers, 165. 
 
 Closets, water, 78, 79, 190, 193. 
 
 Construction of sewers^ 180. 
 
 Consumption from moisture, 44. 
 
 Contagions and miasms, 57. 
 
 Contanlination of soil, 82. 
 
 Contamination of wells, 81. 
 
 Country house-drainage, 79. 
 
 Crossbill, typhoid at, 40. 
 
 Croydon, cost and value of sewer- 
 age, 115. 
 
 tSroydon, typhoid and sewer ventila- 
 tion, 109, 112, 151, 157. 
 
 I Dampness, 48, 73. 
 I Dams for flushing sewers, 167. 
 I Death-rate in London at different p» 
 rioda, 21. 
 
 Death-rates in England, 18. 
 
 Decomposing matter in cellars, 88, 
 84. 
 
 Denton and Field's sewage tank, 319. 
 
 Deodorizing, 91. 
 
 Deposits in sewers, 144. 
 
 Derby, Dr., without filth typhoid la 
 not bom, 56, 
 
 Details of house drainage, 186. 
 
 Diarrhoea, 96. 
 
 Diphtheria, 53, 54, 55, 96, 101. 
 
 Diphtheria, and sewer gas, 44. 
 
 Discharge of sewage at different houses 
 
 Diseases from sewer gas, 96. 
 
 Disease, stamping out sources of, 88. 
 
 Disinfectants, not reliable, 67. 
 
 Disinfectants, objectionable, 165. 
 
 Disinfection, 90,91. ^ 
 
 Disposal of house slops, 196, 329 
 
 Disposal of sewage, 314. 
 
 Drainage, as affecting fever and ague 
 
 45, 48, 50. 
 Drainage entails responsibility, 79. 
 Drainage, from kitchen sinks, 75. 
 Drainage of houses, 186. 
 Drainage of towns, 105. 
 Drains and sewers, sizes of, 135. 
 Drains, dangers of, 91. 
 Drains, private, 106, 177, 206, 208. 
 Drains, ventilation of, 91, 95. 
 Drinking-water, 80, 81, 82, 83. 
 Drinking-water, infected, 26, 27, 66, 
 
 67,68. 
 Dry conservancy system, 213. 
 Dry earth, 90-93. 
 Dry-earth system, 68, 213. 
 Dysentery, 53. 
 
 Earth-closet apparatus, 244. 
 Earth-closet, ashes may be used in. 
 
 250. 
 Earth-closet, hygienic advantages, 263 
 Earth-closet, manure from, ^, 234 
 
 258. 
 Earth-closet, management of, 217. 
 
364 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Eartli-closet, Netteu Radciiffe's report, 
 253. 
 
 Earth-closet, necessary control, ^5, 
 260. 
 
 Eartli-closet system, 214. 
 
 Earth for closets, how obtained, 219. 
 
 Earth, kinds to be used in closets, 217, 
 219. 
 
 Earth priTiea, how arranged, 260. 
 
 Earth system for towns, how man- 
 aged, 224. 
 
 Earth, the same may be repeatedly itsed 
 in closets, 218. 
 
 Eastwick, sewerage of, 325. 
 
 Effete matters dangerous, 79. 
 
 Egg-shaped sewers^ 147. 
 
 English theory of typhoid infection, 
 24. 
 
 Epidemics from bad sewerage, 118. 
 
 Excrement as a vehicle of typhoid con- 
 tagion, 152 
 
 Factories and other industrial estab- 
 lishments should pay for their own 
 extra sewer requirements, 116. 
 
 Fall of sewers, 142. 
 
 Fergus, Dr., 96. 
 
 Fever and ague, Staten Island, 45. 
 
 Field's flush-tank, 198. 
 
 Filtering through soil, 81. 
 
 Filth, hiding it under ground, 88. 
 
 Flint, Dr., on typhoid, 37. 
 
 Flow in sewers, how retarded, 134 
 
 Flushing, 106, 127, 165. 
 
 Flush-tank, Field's. 198. 
 
 Forms of sewers, 146. 
 
 Foul drainage of houses, 75. 
 
 Foundations, 73. 
 
 Friction in sewers, 142. 
 
 Goux system, 214, 265 
 Grease traps, 77, 195. 
 Gutters cheaper than sewers, 128 
 
 Health, effect of sanitary work, 20. 
 Health question, its financial aspect, 
 
 51. 
 Holland, Liemur's system in, 305. 
 Hotel, Grand Union at Saratoga, 141 
 House drains, dangers of, 91. 
 House drains, how to be laid, 76. 
 House drains, obstructions in, 76. 
 House drains should enter sewers 
 
 above water line, 1&±. 
 House drains, sizes for, 137. 
 House drains, ventilation of, 91-95. 
 Householder, problems to solve, 72. 
 House slops, disposal of, 196, 829. 
 Houses, drainage of, 71, 186. 
 House sewerage, 76- 
 House-slops, disposal of, 196 
 House ventilation, 201. 
 HuU privy, 279. 
 Eull system, 276 
 
 Hygienic advantages of earth system 
 263. 
 
 Impervious courses in foundations, 73 
 
 Industrial establishments should pay 
 for their own extra sewei; require- 
 ments, 116. 
 
 Inspectors of sewage work, 183. 
 
 Intercepting sewers, 124. 
 
 Intermittent water supply as a cause 
 of typhoid infection, ^. 
 
 Irrigation, 315. 
 
 Irrigation tank, sewage, 319. 
 
 Jennings's closet, 78, 79, 193. 
 Johnson, Prof. S. W., on soil pollution, 
 
 24. 
 Junctions of sewers, 177 
 
 Kitchen drain, 75. 
 
 Lamp-holes, 175. 
 Large sewers wasteful, 118. 
 Latham's charcoal ventilator, 161. 
 Lead pipes, decay of, 95, 96. 
 Leconte, Dr., recommendations, 34. 
 Leconte, Dr., report on typhoid at St. 
 
 Mary's Hall, 38. 
 Lewes, typhoid from intermittent wof 
 
 ter supply, 41. 
 Liebermeister on typhoid, 58, 
 Liemur's system, 284. 
 London pumps, 27, 68. 
 
 Malaria, 108, 109. 
 
 Malaria makes all diseases more se- 
 rious, 116. 
 
 Malarious condition made worse by 
 population, 110. 
 
 Man-holes, 175. 
 
 Manure question as affecting earth 
 system, 225. 
 
 Manure from earth-closet, 284. 
 
 M!aplewood School, 30. 
 
 Miasmas and contagions, 57. 
 
 Mists deleterious to healthy 47, 48. 
 
 Mortality by war and by disease, 17. 
 
 Moule's apparatus, 244. 
 
 Moule's dry -earth system, 214. 
 
 Moule's system for house slop disposal, 
 196. 
 
 Nervous toothache, bad drainage, 53. 
 Netten liadclifEe on the earth system, 
 
 253. 
 Neuralgia, bad drainage, 63. 
 Newport death-rate, 61. 
 Newport, sanitary drainage, 59. 
 New York, cost of cleansing sewers by 
 
 flushing, 170. 
 New York, cost of cleansing sewers by 
 
 hand, 170. 
 New York, old water-courses not coH' 
 
 nected with diphtheria, 53. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 365 
 
 New Tork rain-fail, 132. 
 
 Nuisances, 87. 
 
 Odor and taste of dangerous drinking 
 
 water, 83. 
 Odor of sewer gas, 94. 
 Odor not a sufilcient test of poisonous 
 
 condition, 108. 
 Organic matter, refuse, 87 
 Outlets, 124. 
 
 Outlets closed by tide, 125. 
 Outlets exposed to winds, 126, 1B6. 
 Over-Darwen, typhoid at, 42. 
 
 Pail system, 273. 
 
 Palmer, Dr., report on " Maplewood " 
 fever, 31. 
 
 Pun closet, 192. 
 
 Pettenkofer's theory of typhoid in- 
 fection, 23. 
 
 Pipe sewers need flnshing, 173. 
 
 Pittsfield (Mass.), " Maplewood feyer," 
 30. 
 
 Plans of sewerage, 123. 
 
 Plumbing arrangements, 187. 
 
 Plumbing defecte, 78. 
 
 Plumbing requires careful superrision, 
 15. 
 
 Pneumatic emptying of vaults, 275. 
 
 Pneumatic system of drainage, 70. 
 
 Pneumatic system, Liemur's, 284. 
 
 Pressure of air in sewers, 164, 156. 
 
 Private drains, 106, 177, 206. 
 
 Private drains, how to be laid, 76. 
 
 Private drains of brick or stone, 118. 
 
 Private sewers, 106. 
 
 Privies, 272. 
 
 Privies, earth, how arranged, 250. 
 
 Privy vault, 90. 
 
 Providence rain-fall, 131. 
 
 Providence, rules for laying private 
 drains, 208. 
 
 Providence, sewerage well managed, 
 181. 
 
 Public sanitary improvement, 14. 
 
 Purification of sewage, 318. 
 
 Rain-fall, 128, 130. 
 
 Rain-water necessary in sewers, 150. 
 
 Rain-water pipes, as sewer ventilators, 
 156. 
 
 Removal of sewage should be imme- 
 diate, 113. 
 
 Rochdale system, 273. 
 
 Rome, malarious region about, 109. 
 
 Rowe on storm-water discharge, 132. 
 
 Rules for laying private drains, 208. 
 
 Sand foundations, 73. 
 Sanitary dangers, 87. 
 Sanitary improvement in British navy, 
 
 22. 
 Sanitary works, effect on health, 20. 
 Saratoga sewer, 130, 184. 
 
 Scarlet fever, 96. 
 
 Scarlet fever, bad drainage, 53. 
 
 Scavenging, 88^0. 
 
 Separate system, 149. 
 
 Sewage discharged into tidal wafceia, 
 
 127. 
 Sewage, disposal of, 314. 
 Sewage, effect of vegetation on, 200. 
 Sewage irrigation, 149, 315. 
 Sewage not dangerous when fresh, 
 
 112. 
 Sewage, pumpiog, 118, 124, 126. 
 Sewage purification, 318. 
 Sewage, quantity of, for each person, 
 
 129. 
 Sewage, recent, floats, when macerated, 
 
 sinks, 127. 
 Sewage tank, 319. 
 Sewage with and without water-closet 
 
 discharge, 113. 
 Sewerage, 123. 
 Sewerage and water supply should be 
 
 provided at the same time, 108, 114. 
 Sewerage, cost and value of, in Croy- 
 don, 115. ( 
 Sewerage, how to be paid for, 115. 
 Sewerage should be comprehensive 
 
 115. 
 Sewer gas, 94. 
 
 Sewer gas and diptheria, 44. 
 Sewer gas, dilution of, 158. 
 Sewer gas, how admitted to the house, 
 
 98, 99, 103, 189. 
 Sewer gas transmitted through the w^ 
 
 ter of traps, 97. 
 Sewer junctions, 177. 
 Sewer pipes, 144. 
 Sewer ventilation, 104, 149. 
 Sewer work must be thorough, 181 
 Sewers, capacity of, 134, 136. 
 Sewers, choking of, 133. 
 Sewers, construction of, 180 
 Sewers, deposits in, 144 
 Sewers, fall of, 142. 
 Sewers, flushing of, 165. 
 Sewers may become elongated cess- 
 pools, 101. 
 Sewers, pressure of air in, 154, 166. 
 Sewers, private, 106. 
 Sewers, requirements of good, 105. 
 Sewers, safe, 152. 
 Sewers, sanitary authorities should 
 
 decide what is to be admitted to them 
 
 117. 
 Sewers, sizes of, 127, 135, 138, 143. 
 Sewers sure to convey contagion, 101, 
 
 112. 
 Shawneetown (111.), formerly malarl* 
 
 ous, 110. 
 Shedd, J. Herbert, plan of street gul 
 
 lies, 175. 
 Sickness, proportion to deaths, 17- 
 Simon, Dr., on " ferments of disease 
 
 35. 
 
366 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Simon, Dr., on the action of infective 
 matters, 37. 
 
 Simon, Br., on water-closets, 190. 
 
 Sink drain, 76. 
 
 Site of house, its relation to typhoid, 
 66. 
 
 Smith's closet, 78, 79. 
 
 Smith, Br. Stephen, " Visitation of 
 Providence," 68. 
 
 Soil moisture as a cause of consump- 
 tion, 44. 
 
 Soil moisture and fever and ague, 45. 
 
 Soil moisture cause of dangerous mists, 
 47. 
 
 Soil pipes, 94. 
 
 Soil pipes as sewer ventilators, 163. 
 
 Soil pipes, inspection of, 97. 
 
 Soil pipes unventilated, 100. 
 
 Soil pipe ventilation, 194. 
 
 Soil water drainage, 108. 
 
 Stagnant pools, 110. 
 
 Staten Island, fe^er and ague, 45. 
 
 Storms, records of. 129, 131. 
 
 Storm-water removal, 124, 128, 132 . 
 
 Street gullies, 173. 
 
 Subsoil irrigation with house slops, 
 196. 
 
 Sulphuretted hydrogen, 163. 
 
 Surface water, 80. 
 
 Taste and odor of dangerous drinking- 
 water, 83. 
 
 Taunton, "the cleanest town in En- 
 gland,'' 63. 
 
 Thoroughness of sewer work, 181. 
 
 Tide valves, 178. 
 
 Tide water outlets, 125. 
 
 Town sewerage, 123. 
 
 Traps, forcing of, 98, 99, 102, 126, 189. 
 
 Traps for grease, 195. 
 
 Traps, siphoned out, 99, 103. 
 
 Traps transmit gases, 9 ( , 189. 
 
 Trough closets, 282, 283. 
 
 Tumbler closets, 282. 
 
 Tumbler for flushing sewer, 167. 
 
 Typhoid, 101. 
 
 Typhoid and sewer ventilation, 153. 
 
 Typhoid at Brierly, 40. 
 
 Typhoid at CrosshilL 40. 
 
 Typhoid at Lewes, 41. 
 
 Typhoid at Over-Darwen, 42. 
 
 Typhoid at Uppingham, 39. 
 
 Typhoid, contagion by means of excre- 
 ment, 162. 
 
 Typhoid, English theory, 24. 
 
 Typhoid first attacks those who have 
 become debilitated by foul surround- 
 ings, 67. 
 
 Typhoid from infected milk, 40, 41. 
 
 Typhoid from infected water, 26. 
 
 Typhoid from unventilated sewers, 
 151. 
 
 Typhoid infection from intermittent 
 water supply, 41. 
 
 Typhoid, its causes controllable, 29. 
 
 Typhoid, its contagion, 36. 
 
 Typhoid, its relation to site of houses 
 
 66. 
 Typhoid, Liebermeister on, 58. 
 Typhoid may be produced de novo, 30. 
 Typhoid, Pettenkofer's theory, 23. 
 Typhoid propagation, 26. 
 Typhoid rate, reduction by sanitarj 
 
 works, 21. 
 
 Uppingham, typhoid at, 39 
 
 Vaults, 272. 
 
 Vaults, privy, 90. 
 
 Vegetable decay as a cause of typhoid, 
 29. 
 
 Vegetation, effect of, on sewage, 200. 
 
 Velocity of flow, increase of, in sewers 
 134. 
 
 Velocity of flow in sewers, 134, 143. 
 
 Ventilation of house drain, 91, 93, 95 
 
 Ventilation of houses, 201. 
 
 Ventilation of houses, effect of, on 
 health, 206. 
 
 Ventilation of, sewer, 104, 106, 106. 
 
 Ventilation of sewers by frequent open- 
 ing into streets, 158, 162. 
 
 Ventilation of sewers through soil 
 pipes of houses, 163. 
 
 Ventilation of soil pipes, 100, 194. 
 
 Ventilation of water-closets, 78. 
 
 Village sewers, 138, 139. 
 
 Voelcker, Dr., on earth-closet manuro, 
 234. 
 
 Wash-basin, 103. 
 
 Wash-basins (stationary), 78. 
 
 Water carriage, 118. 
 
 Water-closets, 190. 
 
 Water-closet, defects in, 77. 
 
 Water-closet, Dr. De Chaumont on, 
 192. 
 
 Water-closets, Dr. Hill on, 192. 
 
 Water-closet ventilation, 78. 
 
 Water-closets should always be sup- 
 plied from separate cistern, 191. 
 
 Water supply and sewerage should be 
 provided at the same time, 108, 114. 
 
 Water supply, infected, as a cause of 
 typhoid, 43. 
 
 Water-closet system has increased the 
 
 frevalence of certain diseases, 101, 
 11. 
 Water-closet unsuitable, for poorer 
 
 classes, 191. 
 Water traps, 93. 
 Wells, 80. 
 Williamstown (Mass.), typhoid frois 
 
 poisoned well, 67. 
 Windsor (England), typhoid from de 
 
 fective sewer, 112. 
 Worthing death-rate, 62. 
 , Worthing, sanitary drainage, 62 
 
■\w^ \ ^