Sewer manure. Statement of the course of investigation & results of experiments as to the means of removing the refuse of towns in water, and applying it as manure : with suggestions of further trial works (for voluntary adoption) of the practicability of applying sewer water as manures by subterranean channels; prepared for the consideration of the Committee of Works / by Edwin Chadwick, Esq., C.B., with appendices.

  • Chadwick, Edwin, 1800-1890.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sewer manure. Statement of the course of investigation & results of experiments as to the means of removing the refuse of towns in water, and applying it as manure : with suggestions of further trial works (for voluntary adoption) of the practicability of applying sewer water as manures by subterranean channels; prepared for the consideration of the Committee of Works / by Edwin Chadwick, Esq., C.B., with appendices. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The examination at Edinburgh presented strong sanitary objections to this method, on account of the offensive and no doubt injurious emanations which the sewer water gave off when spread over the water meadows. The evils arising from the emanations from sewer water eight times a year in the vicinity of the town were, how¬ ever, certainly much less than the perpetual decomposition and discharge of the emanations within the town, within and beneath the habitations—less than the emanations from ordinary top-dressings, and such as would have escaped notice, as copious emanations do when the emanations are constant instead of intermittent; but still the evil is undoubted, and though far the least, appeared to be worth much exertion for its removal. Moreover, the offensive emanations indicated an extensive waste of the manure itself. Much of the offensiveness of which the Town Council of Edinburgh made just complaint appeared, however, to arise, not from the irrigation of the surface of the meadows, but from the open sewers in which the sewer water was conveyed, and the open tanks in which it was improperly kept near habitations. The observation of some casual examples of the increased vegetation marking strongly the course of house drains which run close to the surface of lawns, suggested the inquiry whether irrigation might not be conducted in covered instead of open channels of distribution. I put this as a topic of inquiry to Mr Smith, who was of opinion that the object was practicable, but he has never worked it out. Such casual examples of subterranean irrigation on a small scale appeared to me to be demonstrative of the fact (shown experimentally by Sir Humphrey Davy, when he directed the neck of a retort under the soil, and discharged gas into the earth, which displayed afterwards an increased amount of fertility) that plants are supported by manure, in combination with moisture in a gaseous state. I his was also shown by the increased fertility of the vegetation of turf coverings over manure tanks, where the roots must apparently derive their whole nourishment from the moist or gaseous emanations. When we would obtain any end by mechanical means, when it is for the supply of a want which is likely to have been extensively experienced, the presumption is that it has been the subject of previous trial. There may be found much sound invention which has been out of place or out of time, which has succeeded perfectly, but has dropped from changes of populations, or from there being no one near of sufficient intelligence to carry it forward. When upon the observation of the evil effects and the expense of permeable brick drains, I proposed the substitution of tubular earthenware drains, I was unaware that the simple expedient had ever been tried; but Mr Cresy traced out the tubular earthenware drains as systematically laid down in the Colosseum at Rome. The filth and evils observable in densely-populated districts, in the tall houses occupied by the labouring classes (which I venture to designate as per¬ pendicular courts and alleys—and in Edinburgh they may almost be called per¬ pendicular streets), suggested a vertical system of drainage for each separate