A handbook of sewage utilization / by Ulick Ralph Burke.

  • Burke, Ulick Ralph, 1845-1895.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handbook of sewage utilization / by Ulick Ralph Burke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    44/84 (page 32)
    scheme for whose details wo must refer our readers to his recent publication, ' The Sewage Question,' 8vo, 1871. We do not, however, believe in the advantage of this artificial system for many reasons, amongst others— 1. It is entirely unremunerative, the amount of sewage applied to a given area of land being probably in such a case too great to admit of the growth of any ordinary agri- cultural crop. 2. The whole of the manure ingredients of the sewage would be absolutely wasted. 3. The collection of solid faecal matters upon the surface of the soil, with no vegetation to make use of them, would probably give rise to a formidable nuisance, especially in hot weather. . . . The action of the filter must not be considered as merely chemical. The process carried on in it is also mechanical. Filtration, properly carried out, results in the oxidation and transformation of offensive organic substances in solution, as well as in the mere mechanical separation of the suspended solid matters, which, when in motion, sewage conveys with it. [Tott.Bep., pp. 67-68.] With reference to this scheme of Mr. Bailey Denton, Pro- fessor Voelcker says:— The greater portion of the soluble alkaline medicinal salts, together with the products of oxidi- zation of the nitrogenous constituents of fasces and urine, cannot be removed by filtration through any amount of soil. The effluent water is not fit for use until mixed with other pure water.