Report on the means of deodorising the sewage of Glasgow : addressed to the Sanitary Committee of the Town Council / by Thomas Anderson and John Frederic Bateman.

  • Anderson, Thomas, 1819-1874.
Date:
[1858]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the means of deodorising the sewage of Glasgow : addressed to the Sanitary Committee of the Town Council / by Thomas Anderson and John Frederic Bateman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    25/42 (page 23)
    a simple process into a manure which would probably sell at about £3 per ton. We refrain from entering into details regarding this plan, but its importance must not be underrated. At present but a small proportion, not above one-fourth of the' houses in Glasgow are furnished with water-closets, and their rapid increase must tend to magnify very greatly the evils at present experienced. The plans proposed for precipitating and deodorising the sewers are no more than palliatives, and with the extension of the city and the increase in the number ot water-closets, these palliative measures must become day by day more costly, so that it is really a matter for grave con- sideration whether the attention of the public should not be directed to the contrivance of some substitute for the con- veniences now in use, which shall fulfil sanitary requirements without contaminating the sewers, and yield a marketable manure. The importance of adopting some plan of excluding from the river the offensive contents of the sewers, has been made still more obvious, by a series of experiments which have been going on simultaneously with those relating to the precipita- tion and deodorisation, and which have an important bearing on both the chemical and engineering features of the case. The experiments, though not yet carried out as far as is desir- able, already exhibit very important data for our guidance in determining the best mode of treating the sewage, and of preventing the pollution of the river. While it was well known, and would probably be universally admitted, that the sewage of the city, after flowing into the Clyde, remained there a long time, driven backwards and forwards by the tides, before it finally escaped to sea; and while it would most likely also be admitted, that the improvements in the river, which have so largely benefitted the navigation, by increasing the depth of water, have, at the same time, penned back the natural current of the stream, and retarded the downward passage of the fresh water and the sewage; the extent of the evil, and the length of time which was really required to carry the sewage clear of the river, were unknown, and could scarcely be guessed at with a probability of being near the truth. /