Report of a committee on a plan for cleansing the drains of Black Town.

Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of a committee on a plan for cleansing the drains of Black Town. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    33/105 (page 25)
    APPENDIX A, MEMORANDUM BY LIEUT.-COLONEL A. T. COTTON, CHIEF ENGINEER AND MEMBER, MILITARY BOARD, ON THE REBUILDING OF THE NORTHERN TUNNEL, &c. The circumstance was pointed out to me by the Secretary, that no provi- sion has been made for the discharge of the contents of the sewer during the alteration of the Tunnel, which it is calculated will take 18 months, either an open ditch might be cut parallel to the Tunnel with some temporary work to protect the mouth and so discharge into the Sea, or it might be discharged in- to the Cooum; but both of them appear to me so very objectionable on account of the pollution of the air around the Fort, that they would cause, that I con- sider, that the alteration of the Tunnel on the plan sanctioned cannot be car- ried into effect without this difficulty is met in some other way. Again, in the Eeport of the Committee ordered by the Court to report upon Captain Boul- derson's plan for washing out the Black Town drains, it is recommended, that the only alteration that should be made to the Tunnel, is, that the floor should be so raised from its inside ends as to reverse the slope and give it the same inclination to seaward as it now has to landward ; if this only were done it would meet the present difficulty, because the mere raising of the floor would be a work of so small extent, that it could with good arrangements be done in a very short time, and consequently the stoppage of the escape of the sewage by this Tunnel would not be of so much consequence. The Committee's Eeport however seems to put the whole matter in an entirely new point of view. The proper management of the sewerage of Towns has been made the object of so much thought and attention within the last very few years, and so much new light has been thereby thrown on the subject, that it seems extremely advisable, that the whole question of cleansing and watering Black Town [and the rest of Madras of which Black Town forms only a small part,] should be re-considered with the help of the valuable works written on this subject that are now accessible. It seems quite evident, that the question has hitherto been considered wholly by ihose who have had no experience in such works in England, nor have had much opportunity of mak- ing themselves acquainted with what has been done there, and the results • I