The treatment and utilization of sewage.

  • Corfield, W. H. (William Henry), 1843-1903.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The treatment and utilization of sewage. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    17 feet 6 inches in diameter, which would allow for an in- crease of 50 per cent over the maximum flow. It would be capable of discharging 40,000 cubic feet a miQute, with a fall of 1 foot per mile, and a velocity of flow varying from 1^ to 1^ mile an hour. The sewer would be constructed mostly in tunnel, and take a straight line down to Thames Haven. Here the sewage would be received in reservoirs capable of holding ten hours' flow, and would then be dis- charged into the river at ebb tide in its crude state. This sewer would be capable of taking the sewage of 5,200,000 people from the Metropolitan area, and of 1,800,000 from the suburban area. The cost of its construction would be £4,000,000, and the cost of pumping and other items would Cost, amount to £41,000 a year, allowing for an increase of 30 per cent on the population of London, the Lee valley, the Thames valley, and adjoining towns. The rateable value of all these amounts to £32,000,000, so that the cost would be equal to a rate of l-|d. in £1. This scheme is no doubt a good one as far as it goes. Scheme but we have seen that the Eoyal Commissioners condemned the discharge of sewage in its crude state into any part of the Thames, and this is what would be done if the scheme of the Engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works were adopted, without some method of purification of the sewage before its discharge into the river. A scheme for the treatment of the Metropolitan sewage on land has been put forward by Lieut.-Col. A. S. Jones and Mr. Bailey Denton, and is thus described in Engineering (21st August 1885): Within about a mile of Thames Haven is a large i^iece of land re- Cauvey claimed from the river and called Canvey Island. It is surrounded Island with hanks, and its surface is of one general level, with only such Scheme, natural hollows as have been formed by the off-flow of the surface water. The height of the land is about 8 feet above ordnance datum, or 9 feet 6 inches above low water mark, while the surrounding banks are 9 feet higher. The area is about 4000 acres, while the population is only Area of tlie 300, occupying 51 timber-built dwellings besides the vicarage. The island, whole island forms a natural tank capable of holding, without overflow, about 10,000 million gallons of liquid, supposing it were turned to the purposes of a reservoir, which, however, is not proposed. More than