menu_book Chapter 75

section seventy five of london labour and the london poor vol i by henry mayhew this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by gillian henry of the qualities and so on of the sewage. The question of the value, the uses, and the best means of collecting for use, the great mass of the sewage of the metropolis, seems to have become complicated by the statements which have been of late years put forth by rival projectors and rival companies. In our smaller country towns, the neighbourhood of many being remarkable for

fertility and for a green beauty of meadowland and pasturage, the refuse of the towns, whether sewage or cesspoolage, if not washed into a current, stream or river, is purchased by the farmers and carted by them to spread upon the land. By sewage I mean the contents of the sewerage, or of the series of sewers, which neither at present, nor I believe at any former period, has been applied to any useful or profitable purpose by the metropolitan authorities.

The readiest mode to get rid of it, without any care about ultimate consequences, has always been resorted to, and that mode has been to convey it into the Thames, and leave the rest to the current of the stream. But the Thames has its ebbs as well as its flow, and the consequence is the sewage is never got rid of.

The most eminent of our engineers have agreed that it is a very important consideration how this sewage should be not only innocuously but profitably disposed of, and if not profitably, in an immediate money return, to those who may be considered its owners, the municipal authorities of the kingdom, at least profitably in a national point of view, by its use in the restoration or enrichment of the fertility of the soil, and the consequent increase of the food of man and beast.

Sir George Staunton has pronounced some of the tea-growing parts of China to be as blooming as an English nobleman's flower garden. Every jot of manure, human orgyr, and all else, is minutely collected, even by the poorest. I have already given a popular account of the composition of the metropolitan sewage and so on under the head of wet refuse, and I now give it scientific analysis. In some districts, the sewage is more or less liquid, in what proportion has not

been ascertained, and I give, in the first place, an analysis of the sewage of the King's Scholars Pond sewer, Westminster, the result having been laid before a committee of the House of Commons, as the contents of the great majority of sewers must be the same because resulting from the same natural or universally domestic causes as in the refuse of cookery, washing, surface water and so on.

The analysis of the sewage of the King's Scholars Pond sewer may be accepted as one of the sewer matter generally. Evidence was given before the committee as to the proportion of land drainage water to what was really manure, and the matter derived from the sewer in question. A produce of 140 grains of manure was derived from a gallon of sewer water.

Messers Brand and Cooper, the analysers, also state that one gallon, 10 pounds, of the liquid portion of the sewage evaporated to dryness, gave 85.3 grains of solid matter, 74.8 grains of which was again soluble and contained ammonia 3.29 sulfuric acid 0.62

phosphate of lime 0.29 lime 6.25 chlorine 10.0 and potash and soda with a large quantity of soluble and vegetable matter

and 10.54 insoluble. This insoluble portion consisted of phosphate of lime 2.32, carbonate of lime 1.94, silica 6.28, total 10.54. The deposit from another gallon weighed 55 grains, of which 21.22 were combustible, being composed of animal matter rich in nitrogen, some vegetable matter, and a quantity of fat. Of this matter, 33.75 grains consisted of Other reports, and other evidence, show that what is described as

earthy matter and sand, is the mack, mud and the mortar or concrete used in pavement washed from the surface of the streets into the sewers by heavy rains, otherwise for the most part the proper load of the scavenger's cart. Further analyses might be adduced, but with merely such variation in the result as is inevitable from the state of the weather when the sewage is drawn forth for examination, whether the day on which this is done happens to be dry or wet.

Note, the following is the analysis of a gallon of sewage also dried to evaporation by Professor Miller. Ammonia 3.26, phosphoric acid 0.44, potash 1.02, silica 0.54, lime 7.54, Magnesia 1.87 Common salt 13.66 Sulfuric acid 7.04

Carbonic acid 4.41 Combustible matter containing 0.34 nitrogen 5.8 Traces of oxide of iron Making in solution 45.58 Matters in suspension

consisting of combustible matters, sand, lime, and oxide of iron, 44.50. End note. It has been ascertained, but the exact proportion is not, and perhaps cannot, be given, that the extent of covered to uncovered surface in the district drained by the King's Scholars Pond sewer was as three to one, while that of the Ranula sewer, not far distant, was as one to three,

at the time of the inquiry, 1848. It could not be expected, therefore, says the report, that the Ranala sewer, which moreover is open to the admission of the tide at its mouth, in the quantity or quality of the manure produced, could bear any proportion to the King's Scholars Pond sewer. Mr. Smith of Deanston stated in evidence that the average quantity of rain falling into King's Scholar's pond sewer was 139,934,586 cubic feet in a year, and he assumes

6 million tonnes as the amount of average minimum quantity of drainage yearly, yielding 400 weight of solid matter in each 100 tonnes, equals 1 in 500. Dr. Granville said, on the same inquiry, that he should be sorry to receive on his land 500 tonnes of diluted sewer water, such as that from the uncovered Ranala sewer, for one tonne of really fertilising sewage,

such as that to be derived from the King's Scholar's Pond sewer. I could easily multiply these analyses and give further parliamentary or official statements, but as the results are the same, I will merely give some extracts from the evidence of Dr Arthur Hassel as to the microscopic constituents of sewage water.

I have examined, he said, the sewer water of several of the principal sewers of London. I found in it, amongst many other things, much decomposing vegetable matter, portions of the husks and the hairs of the down of wheat, the cells of the potato, cabbage and other vegetables, while I detected but few forms of animal life,

those encountered for the most part being a kind of worm or annelid, and a certain species of animalcule of the genus Monus. How do you account, the doctor was asked, for the comparative absence of animal life in the water of most sewers? It is doubtless to be attributed, he replied,

in a great measure to the large quantity of sulphuretted hydrogen contained in sewer water and which is continually being evolved by the decomposing substances included in it. Have you any evidence to show that sewer water does contain sulfurated hydrogen in such large quantity as to be prejudicial and even fatal to animal life? With a view of determining this question, I made the following experiments.

A given quantity of Thames water, known to contain living infusoria, was added to an equal quantity of sewer water. Examined a few minutes afterwards, the animalcule were found to be either dead or deprived of locomotive power and in a dying state. A small fish, placed in a wine glass of sewer water, immediately gave signs of distress,

and, after struggling violently, floated on its side, and would have perished in a few seconds had it not been removed and placed in fresh water. A bird placed in a glass bell jar into which the gas evolved by the sewer water was allowed to pass, after struggling a good deal and showing other symptoms of the action of the gas, suddenly fell on its side and, although immediately removed into fresh air, was found to be dead.

These experiments were made in the first instance with the sewer water of the Friar Street sewer, near the Blackfriars Road. They were afterwards repeated with the water of six other sewers on the Middlesex side, and with the same result as respects the animalcule and fish, but not the bird. This, although evidently much affected by the noxious emanations of the sewer water,

yet survived the experiment. Would you infer from these experiments that sewer water, as contained in the Thames near to London, is prejudicial to health? I would, most decidedly, and regard the Thames in the neighbourhood of the metropolis as nothing less than diluted sewer water.

You have just stated that you found sewer water to contain much vegetable matter, and but few forms of animal life. The vegetable matter you recognised, I presume, by the character of the cells composing the several vegetable tissues? Yes, as also by the action of iodine on the start of the vegetable matter.

In what way do you suppose these various vegetable cells, the husks of wheat and so on, reach the sewers? They doubtless proceed from the faecal matter contained in sewage, and not in general from the ordinary refuse of the kitchen, which usually finds its way into the dustbin. Sewer water, then, although containing but few forms of animal life, yet contains in large quantities the food upon which most animalcule feed? Yes, and it is this circumstance which explains the

vast abundance of infusorial life in the water of the Thames within a few miles of London. The same gentleman, a fellow of the Linnaean Society and the author of A History of the British Freshwater Algae, or Water Weeds, considered popularly, in answer to the following inquiries in connection with the subject, also said, What species of Infusoria represent the highest degree of impurity in water? The several species of the genera Oxytrica and Paramecium.

What species is most abundant in the Thames from Kew Bridge to Woolwich? The Paramecium chrysalis of Ehrenberg. This occurs in all seasons of the year, and in all conditions of the river, in vast and incalculable numbers, so much so that a quart bottle of Thames water, obtained in any condition of the tide, is sure to be found on examination with the microscope to contain these creatures in great quantity. Do you find that the infusorium of which you have spoken varies in

number in the different parts of the river between Kewbridge and Woolwich? I find that it is most abundant in the neighbourhood of the bridges, where the outlet of the sewers is common. Then the order of impurity of Thames water, in your view, would be the order in which it approaches the centre of London? Yes. You find then, in Thames water, about the bridges, things decidedly connected with the

sewer water, as vegetable and animal matter, in a state of decomposition? I do. About the bridges, and in the neighbourhood of London, there is very little living, vegetable matter on which an amalcule could live. The only source of supply which they have is the organic matter contained in sewer water, and which is to be regarded as the food of these creatures. Where infusoria abound, under circumstances not connected with sewage,

vegetable matter in a living condition is certain to be met with. Respecting the uses of the sewage, I may add the following brief observations, without wishing in any way to prejudice the question. Indeed, the reader will bear in mind that I have all along spoken reprovingly of the waste of sewage. I am bound to say that the opinions I heard during my inquiry from gentlemen scientifically, and in some instances practically

familiar with the subject, concurred in the conclusion that the sewage of the metropolis cannot, with all the applications of scientific skill and apparatus, be made either sufficiently portable or efficacious for the purposes of manure to assure a proper pecuniary return. In this matter, perhaps, speculators have not traced a sufficient distinction between the liquid manure of the sewers and the pudrette, or dry manure, manufactured from the more

solid excrementitious matter of the cesspools, not only in Paris, but until lately even in London, where the business was chiefly in the hands of Frenchmen. The staple of the French pudrette is not sewage, that is, the outpourings of the sewers, for this is carried into the Seine, and washed away with little inconvenience, as the tide hardly affects that river in Paris. But it is altogether cesspoolage, that is, the deposit of the cesspools collected in fixed and

movable utensils, regulated by the Universal Police of Paris, and conveyed by government labourers to the Voiries, which are huge reservoirs of night soil at Montfassant, about five miles, and in the forest of Bondy, about ten miles, from the centre of Paris. The London-made manure also was all of cesspoolage, the contents of the nightman's cart being shot in the manufacturer's yard, and when so manufactured was, I believe, without exception, sent to the sugar-growing

colonies, the farmers in the provinces pronouncing it too hot for the ground. The same complaint, I may observe, has been made of the French-manufactured cesspool manure. I heard, on the other hand, opinions from scientific and practical gentlemen that the sewer water of London was so diluted, it was not profitably serviceable for the irrigation of land. All, however, agreed that the sewage of the metropolis ought not to be wasted,

as it was certain that perseverance in experiment, and perhaps a large outlay, were certain to make sewage of value. The following results, which the Board of Health have just issued in a report, containing minutes of information attested on the application of sewer water and town manures to agricultural production,

supply the latest information on this subject. The report says first that It then proceeds to cite the following statements on the authority of the Honourable Dudley Fortescue as to the efficiency of sewage water as a liquid manure applied to land. Quote

of Cragentinney, situated about one mile and a half south-east of Edinburgh, of which 260 Scotch acres – a Scotch acre is one-fourth more than any English acre – receive a considerable portion of such sewerage, as, under an imperfect system of house drainage, is at present derived from half the city. The meadows, of which it chiefly consists, have been put under irrigation at various times, the most recent addition being nearly 50 acres laid out in the course of last year and the year previous,

which, lying above the level of the rest, are irrigated by means of a steam engine. The meadows first laid out are watered by contour channels following the inequalities of the ground, after the fashion commonly adopted in Devonshire, but in the more recent parts the ground is disposed in panes of half an acre, served by their respective feeders.

a plan which, though somewhat more expensive at the outset, is found preferable in practice. The whole 260 acres takes about 44 days to irrigate. The men charged with the duty of shifting the water from one pane to another give to each plot about two hours irrigation at a time, and the engine serves its 50 acres in 10 days, working day and night,

and employing one man at the engine and another to shift the water. The produce of the meadows is sold by auction on the ground, routed, as it is termed, to the cow feeders of Edinburgh, the purchaser cutting and carrying off all he can during the course of the letting, which extends from about the middle of April to October, when the meadows are shut up,

but the irrigation is continued through the winter. The lettings average somewhat over £20 the acre, the highest last year having brought £31 and the lowest £9. These last were of very limited extent, on land recently denuded in laying out the ground, and consequently much below its natural level of productiveness.

There are four cuttings in the year, and the collective weight of grass cut in parts was stated at the extraordinary amount of 80 tonnes, the imperial acre. The only cost of maintaining these meadows, except those to which the water is pumped by the engine, consists in the employment of two hands to turn on and off the water, and in the expense of clearing out the channels, which was contracted for last year at £29.

And the value of the refuse obtained was considered fully equal to that sum, being applied in manuring parts of the land for a crop of turnips, which with only this dressing, in addition to irrigation with the sewage water, presented the most luxuriant appearance. The crop, from present indications, was estimated at from 30 to 40 tonnes the acre,

and was expected to realise 15 shillings a tonne sold on the land. From calculations made on the spot, we estimated the produce of the meadows during the eight months of cutting at the keep of 10 cows per acre, exclusive of the distillery refuse they consume, in addition, at a cost of one shilling to one shilling sixpence per head per week.

The sea meadows present a particularly striking example of the effects of the irrigation. These, comprising between 20 and 30 acres, skirting the shores between Leith and Musselboro, were laid down in 1826 at a cost of about 700 pounds. The land consisted formerly of a bare sandy tract, yielding almost absolutely nothing.

It is now covered with luxuriant vegetation, extending close down to high watermark, and lets at an average of £20 per acre at least. From the above statement, it will be seen how enormously profitable has been the application, in this case, of town refuse in the liquid form. And I have no hesitation in stating that, great as its advantages have been,

they might be extended four or five-fold by greater dilution of the fluid four or five times the extent of land might i believe be brought into equally productive cultivation under an improved system of drainage in the city and a more abundant use of water besides these craigantinny meadows there are others on this and on the west side of edinburgh which we did not visit similarly laid out and i believe realizing still larger profits from their closer proximity to the town and their lying within the toll-gates Note. The following note appears to Mr Fortescue's statement. In some trial works near the metropolis, sewer water was applied to land on the condition that the value of half the extra crop should be taken as payment. The dressings were only single dressings.

The officer making the valuation reported that there was at the least one sack of wheat and one load of straw per acre extra from its application on one breadth of land. In another, full one quarter of wheat more and one load of straw extra per acre. The reports of the effects of sewer water in increasing the yield of oats as well as of wheat were equally good. It is stated by Captain Vetch that in South America, irrigation is used with great advantage for wheat. End note.

Such, then, are said to be the results of a practical application of sewer water. The preliminary remark of the Board of Health, however, applies somewhat to the statement above given, for we are not told what the same land produced before the liquid manure was applied, nor are we informed as to the peculiar condition and quantity of the land near Cragantinney,

and how it differs from the land near London. The other returns are of liquid manures, of which sewer water formed no part, and therefore require no special notice of them. The following observations are, however, worthy of attention. Quote The cases above detailed furnish some measure of the possible results attainable in cultivation,

especially corroborated as they are by others which did not, on this occasion, come under our personal observation, but one of which I may mention, having recently examined into it, that of Mr Dickinson at Wilsden, who estimates his yield of Italian ryegrass at from 80 to 100 tonnes an acre, and gets eight or ten cuttings, according to the season, and as there is no peculiar advantage of soil or climate, the former ranging from almost pure sands to cold and tenacious clays, and the latter being inferior

to that of a large proportion of England. To prevent the same system being almost universally adopted, they give some idea of the degree to which the productiveness of land may be raised, by a judicious appliance of the means within our reach. When it is considered that such results may, in the vicinity of towns and villages,

be most effectually brought about by the instant removal of all those matters which, when allowed to remain in them, are among the most fruitful sources of social degradation, disease and death, one cannot but earnestly desire the furtherance of such measures as will ensure this double result of purifying the town and enriching the country. And, as the facts I have stated, came at the same time under the notice of the gentleman I mentioned above,

under whose able superintendence the arrangements for the water supply and drainage of several towns are now in course of execution. I trust it will not be long before this most advantageous mode of disposing of the refuse of towns may be brought into practical operation

in various parts of the country. I have, and so on, D. F. Fortescue, General Board of Health. End quote. Of the new plan of sewerage. This branch of the subject hardly forms part of my present inquiry,

but having pointed out the defects of the sewers, it seems but reasonable and right to say a few words on the measures determined upon for their improvement. It is only necessary for me, however, to indicate the principal characteristics of the new, or rather intended, mode of sewerage, as the work may be said to have been but commenced, or hardly commenced in earnest. the report of Mr. Frank Forster, the engineer, bearing the date of January 30, 1851.

In the carrying out of the engineer's plan, which from its magnitude, and in all human probability from its cost, when completed, would be national in other countries, but is here only metropolitan. In the carrying out of this scheme, I say, two remarkable changes will be found. The one is the employment of the power of steam in sewerage,

the other is the diversion of the sewage from the current of the Thames. The ultimate uses of this sewage, agriculturally or otherwise, form no part of the present consideration. I should, however, first enumerate the general principles on which the best authorities have agreed that the London sewers

should be constructed, so as to ensure a proper disposal of the sewage, for these principles are said to be at the basis of Mr. Forster's plan. I condense under the following heads the substance of a mass of reports, committee meetings, suggestions, plans, and so on. 1. The channels or pipage, or other means of conveying away house refuse,

should be so made that the removal will be immediate, more especially of any refuse or filth capable of suspension in water, since its immediate carrying off, it is said, would leave no time for the generation of miasma. 2. Means should be provided for such disposal of sewage as would prevent its tainting any stream, well or pool, or by its stagnation or obstruction in any way poisoning the atmosphere,

and as a natural and legitimate result, it should be so collected that it could be applied to the cultivation of the land at the most economical rate. 3. In providing works of deposit or storage in low districts, or of discharge where the natural outlets are free, such works should be provided as would not subject any place or any man's property to the risk of inundation, or any other evil consequence.

While in the construction of the drainage of the substratum, the works should be at such depth below the foundation of all buildings that tenements should not be exposed to that continued damage from exhalation and dampness, which leads to the dry rot in timber, and to an immature decay of materials and a general unhealthiness. There are other points insisted upon in many reports to which I need but allude,

such as a. The channels containing sewage should be of enduring and impermeable material, so as to prevent all soakage. b. There should be throughout the channels of the subterranean metropolis a fall or inclination which would suffice to prevent the accumulation of any sewage deposit with its deleterious influence and ultimate costliness. c. Similar provisions should be used were it but to prevent the creation of the noxious gases which now permeate many

houses, especially in the quarters inhabited by the poor, and escape into many streets, courts, and alleys. For until improvements are effected, the pent-up sewage and the saturated brickwork of the sewers and older drains must generate such gases. D. No tidal stream should ever receive a flow of sewage, because then the cause of evil is never absent, for the filth comes back with the tide, and as the Thames water constitutes the grand fount of metropolitan consumption,

the water companies, with very trifling exceptions, give us back much of our own excrement, mixed with every conceivable and sometimes noxious nastiness, with which we may brew, cook and wash, and drink if we can, filtering remedies but a portion of the evil. Now it would appear that not one of these requirements, the necessity of which is unquestioned and unquestionable, is fully carried out by the present system of sewerage,

and hence the need of some new plan in which the defects may be remedied and the proper principles carried out. The instructions given by the court were to the following effect. a. The Thames should be kept free from sewage whatever the state of the tide. b. There should be intercepting drains to carry off the sewage, so keeping the Thames unsoiled by it, wherever practicable.

c. The sewage should be raised by artificial means into a main channel for removal. d. The intercepting sewers should be so constructed as to secure the largest amount of effective drainage without artificial appliances. In preparing his plan, Mr. Forster had the advice and assistance of Mr. Haywood of the City Court of Sewers. The metropolis is divided into two portions, the northern portion of the metropolis,

or rather that portion of the metropolis which is on the north or Middlesex bank of the Thames, and the southern portion, or that which is on the south or Surrey side of the river. The northern portion is in the new plan considered to divide itself into two separate areas, and to these two areas different modes of sewerage are to be applied. 1. The interception of the drainage of that district, which from its elevation above the level of the outlet,

is capable of having its sewage and rainfall carried off by gravitation. 2. The interception of the drainage of that district, which from its low-lying position, will require its sewage and in most localities its rainfall to be lifted by steam power to a proper level for discharge. The first district runs from Holdstone Green, beyond the better known Kensal Green, in the west, to the Tower Hamlets in the east. Its form is irregular, but not very much so, merely narrowing from Westbourne Green to its western extremity,

the country then becoming rural or woodland. Its highest reaches to the north are to Highgate and Stamford Hill. The nearest approach to the south is to a portion of the strand between Charing Cross and Drury Lane. Care has evidently been taken to skirt this district, so to speak, by the canals and the railroads. This division of the northern portion is described as the district for natural drainage.

The area of this division is about 25 and a sixth square miles. The 2nd Division meets the 1st at the highway separating Kensington Gardens from Bayswater, and runs on, bordering the river, all the way to the West India Dock. Its shape is irregular, but, abating the roundness, presents somewhat of that sort of figure seen in the instrument known as a dumbbell,

the narrowest, or hand, part being that between Charing Cross and Drury Lane, skirting the river as its southern bound. At its eastern end, this second district widens abruptly, taking in Victoria Park, Stratford and Bromley. The area of this division of the northern portion is 16 and a sixth square miles. There are, moreover, two small tracts comprising the southern part of the Isle of Dogs,

and a narrow slip on the west side of the River Lea, which are intended to allow the rainfall to run into the Thames and the Lea, respectively. The area of the two is 1 3⁄4 square miles. The area to be drained by natural outfall comprises then 25 1⁶ square miles as regards rainfall and the same extent as regards sewage,

while the area to the drainage of which steam power is to be applied comprises 14 1⁄3 square miles of rainfall and 16 1⁶ square miles of sewage, the two united areas of rainfall and sewage respectively being 39.5 and 41.3 square miles. The length of the great high-level sewerage will be, as regards the main sewer, 19 miles and 106 yards, that of the low-level sewerage, 14 miles and 1,501 yards.

I will now describe the course of each of these constructions. On the eastern bank of the Lee, The sewage of both districts is to be concentrated. The high-level sewer will commence and cross the lee near the four mills. It is then to proceed in a westerly direction under the East and West India Dock Railway and the Blackwall Extension Railway, beneath the Regent's Canal,

to the east end of the Bethnal Green Road, at the crossing of the Cambridge Heath Road, at which point it will be joined by the proposed Northern Division of the Hackney Brook, which drains an extensive district up to the watershed line north of London, including Hackney, Stoke Newington and Holloway, and part of Highgate and Hampstead.

From thence, the main sewer proceeds along the Bethnal Green Road, Church Street, Old Street, Wilderness Row, where a short branch from Coppice Row will join, to Brook Street Hill, from thence to Little Saffron Hill, where a distance of about 100 yards

is proposed to be carried by an aqueduct over the Fleet Valley. thence along Liquor Pond Street, at the end of which it will receive a branch from Piccadilly on the south side and a diversion of the Fleet River on the north side, thence along Theobald's Road, Bloomsbury Square, Hart Street, New Oxford Street, to Rathbone Place, where it will receive a diversion of the Regent Street sewer from Park Crescent, along Oxford Street, and extending

thence across Regent Circus to South Moulton Lane, where it will intercept the King's Scholar's Pond sewer, continuing still along Oxford Street to Bayswater Place, Grand Junction Road, Uxbridge Road, where it is joined by the Ranula sewer, the sewage of which it is capable of receiving, and at this point it terminates. It is difficult to convey to a reader, especially to a reader who may not be familiar with the

localities of London generally, any adequate notion of the largeness, speaking merely of extent, of this undertaking. Even a map conveys no sufficient idea of it. Perhaps I may best be able to suggest to a reader's mind a knowledge of this largeness, when I state that, in the district I have just described, which is but one portion, although the greatest, of the sewerage of but one side of the Thames, more than half a million of persons, and nearly 100,000 houses, are,

so to speak, to be sewered. The low-level tract sewerage also concentrates on the Lee, near to Four Mills Distillery, taking the north-western bank of the Limehouse Cut, at which point it receives the branch intended to intercept the sewage of the Isle of Dogs, thence continuing along the bank of Limehouse Cut through a portion of the commercial road, Brook Street, and beneath the Sun Tavern Fields, into High Street, or Upper Shadwell.

Thence along Ratcliffe Highway and Upper East Smithfield, across Tower Hill, through Little and Great Tower Streets, East Cheap, Cannon Street, Little and Great St. Thomas Apostle, Trinity Lane, Old Fish Street, and Little Knight Rider Street. Thence beneath houses in Wardrobe Terrace, and on the eastern side of St. Andrew's Hill, along Earl Street to Blackfriars Road.

from blackfriars bridge it is proposed to construct the sewer along the river shore to the junction of the victoria street sewer at percy wharf which sewer between percy wharf and shaftesbury terrace pimblico becomes thus an integral portion of the intercepting line At Bridge Street, Westminster, a branch from the Victoria Street sewer is intended to proceed along Abingdon and Millbank streets, as far as and for the purpose of taking up the King's Scholars Pond and other sewers at their outlets into the Thames. From Shaspary Terrace, the Victoria Street sewer is proposed to be extended through Eaton Square and along the King's Road, Chelsea, to Park Walk, intercepting all the sewers along its line,

and terminating at a point where the drainage of Kensington may be brought into it without pumping. The lines of sewerage thus described are then all to the west of the Lee, and all, whether from the shore of the Thames or the northern reaches in Highgate and Hampstead, converging to a pumping station, or sewage concentration, on the east bank of the Lee in West Ham. By this new plan then, the high-level sewer is to cross the Lee,

but that arrangement is impossible as respects the second district described, which is below the level of the Lee, so that its course is to be beneath that river, a little below where it is crossed by the high-level line. To dispose of the sewage therefore, conveyed from the low-level tract,

there will be a sewer of a depth of 47 feet below the invert of the high-level sewer. This sewer then, at the depth of 47 feet, will run to the point of concentration containing the low-level sewage. At this point of the works, in order that the sewage may be collected so as to be disposed of, ultimately in one mass, it has to be lifted from the low to the high-level sewer. The invert of the high-level sewer will, at the lifting or pumping station, be 20 feet above the ordinance datum,

while that of the low-level sewer will be 27 feet below the same standard. Thus, a great body of metropolitan sewage, comprising among other districts the refuse of the whole City of London, must be lifted no less than 47 feet, in order to be got rid of, along with what has been carried to the same focus by its natural flow. The lifting is to be effected by means of steam, and the pumping power required has been computed at 1,100 horsepower. horsepower. To supply this great mechanical and scientific force, there are to be provided two

engines, each of 550 horsepower, with a third engine of equal capacity, to be available in case of accident, or while either of the other engines might require repairs of some duration. The northern sewage of London, or that of the Middlesex Bank of the Thames, covered by that division of the capital, having been thus brought to a sort of central reservoir or meeting point, will be conveyed in two parallel lines of sewerage to the bank of the river Roding, being the eastern

extremity of Galleon's Reach, which is below Woolwich Reach, in the Thames. The Roding flows into the Thames at Barking Creek Mouth. The length of this line will be four miles. At this point, it is stated in the report, the level of the inverts of the parallel sewers will be 8 feet below high water mark, and here it is intended to collect the sewage into a reservoir during the flood tide, and discharge the same with the ebb tide immediately after high water.

And as it is estimated that the reservoir will be completely emptied during the first three hours of the ebb, it may be safely anticipated that no portion of the sewage will be returned with the flood tide to within the bounds of the metropolis. The whole of the sewage and rainfall then will be thus diverted to one destination, instead of being issued into the river through a multiplicity of outlets in every part of the northern shore, where the population is dense, and will be carried into

the Thames at Barking Creek, unless, as I have intimated, a market be found for the sewage, when it may be disposed of as is most advantageous. The only exceptions to this carrying off will be upon the occurrence of long-continued and heavy rains or violent storms, when the surplus water will be carried off by some of the present outlets into the river. But even on such occasions, the first scour or cleansings of the sewerage will be conveyed to the main outlet at the river

roading. The inclination which has been assigned to the whole of the lines of sewers I have described is, with some unimportant exceptions, 4 feet per mile, or 1 in 1,320. These new sewers are, or rather will be, calculated to carry off a fall of rain equal to a quarter inch in 24 hours, in addition to the average daily flow of sewage. Mr Forster concludes his report,

I am only able to submit approximately that I estimate the cost of the whole of the lines of sewers, the pumping engines and station, the reservoir, tidal gates and other apparatus at £1,080,000. This estimate does not include the sums required for the purchase of land and houses, which may be needed for the site of the pumping engine house, or compensation for certain portions of the lines of sewers.

As regards the improvements in the sewerage on the south side of the Thames, the great fever district of the metropolis, and consequently the most important of all, and where the drainage is of the worst kind. I can be very brief, as nothing has been positively determined. A somewhat similar system will be adopted on the south side of the Thames, where it is proposed to form one main intercepting sewer. But owing to the physical configuration of

this part of the town, none of the water will flow away entirely by gravitation. There will be a pumping station on the banks of the Ravensburn to raise the water about 25 feet, and a second pumping station to raise the water from the continued sewer in the reservoir in Woolwich Marsh, which is to receive it during the intervals of the tides. The waters are to be discharged into the river at the last named point. The main sewer on the south side will be of nearly equal colossal

proportions, for its total length is proposed to be about 13 miles, three furlongs, including the main trunk drain of about two miles long and the respective branches. The area to be relieved is about proportionate to the length of the drain, but the steam power employed will be proportionally greater upon the southern than upon the northern side. There are diverse opinions, of course, as to the practicability and ultimate good working of this plan, speculations into which it is not

necessary for me to enter. Mr. Forster has, moreover, resigned his office, adding another to the many changes among the engineers, surveyors, and other employees under the Metropolitan Commission, a fact little creditable to the management of the commissioners, who, with one exception, may be looked upon as irresponsible.