Modern methods of sewage disposal : for towns, public institutions, and isolated houses / by Geo. E. Waring.

  • Waring, George E., Jr. (George Edwin), 1833-1898.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Modern methods of sewage disposal : for towns, public institutions, and isolated houses / by Geo. E. Waring. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE END TO BE ATTAINED. The end sought in sewage purification is to separate the one part of organic matter from the thousand parts of water, in such a way as to leave the water pure and to render the organic matter harmless. If we do this, we satisfy the sanitary requirement. The restoration to the domain of life of that which we have discarded is only an inevitable natural process, which we may be able to hasten, and which we may turn more or less to our advantage, according to our skill in developing its agricultural possibilities. The restora- tion will, in any case, go on; Nature, in her rough way, will take care of that. What we have to do is so to guide her processes as to prevent annoyance and harm to the people, and to derive what benefit we may by converting them into processes of fertilization. If we so far secure the resolution of this matter into its elements as to make it available for plant food, the work of purification is accomplished. Whether or not we use it as plant food, is of no direct consequence from a sanitary point of view. This is a purely economical question, to be decided according to cir- cumstances. The capacity of the irrigation field or of