The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-09-25 00:00:00

,ARD.

119

ink, and almost as thick. In the canal which passes
through part of Huhne, and through Old Trafford,
Stretford, Sale, Timperley, and Altrincham (a distance
of eight miles) towards Liverpool, it becomes more
offensive than in the river, because a great portion of
the canal being made before the invention of locks the
drainage is comparatively small, and it becomes
at times nearly stagnant. The districts named as
those through which it passes out of the town are
those which have been found most eligible for villas
and suburban residences of the middle classes and
town, where people who can afford to do so
seek to escape from the smoke and impurities of
Manchester. The Altrincham Railway, by which
they travel backwards and forwards, runs nearly all
the way close to the canal, and only those who have
travelled by it can form an idea of the fact, is a great
open sewer, and any plan which can be adopted to
purify its waters must, of course, be a great blessing
to such an extensive neighbourhood. An experiment
is now in the course of being. made to filtrate the
water of the Medlock at Manchester, near the point
where it empties itself into the canal, and by a very
simple method. On the left bank of the river, 40 or
50 yards from the canal, a good-sized tank is filled
with lime and water, and resembles one of the lime
puddles often seen near to new buildings for purposes
of mixing with the other constituents of mortar.
From this tank a trough, or open pipe, is carried
across the river, along which the lime and water
flows, and small holes, about an inch in diameter, at
the bottom of this pipe, allow the fluid to fall through
into the river at different points. From the place
where the lime water falls into the river to its
entrance into the canal the river is converted into a
reservoir by means of a weir or backwater, at the
mouth of the canal, the object being to hold the water
here while the lime can operate upon it, and precipi-
tate the impurities mingled with it to the bottom.
The surface water out of this reservoir flows over the
littleweir minorae
;starneadm,
thoof onlyugh anotbpoeurtfectw inches
thyo
clear,thdeewep orater
as it passes this point shows that the experiment has
not wholly failed, but has accomplished a change
already which is a desideratum. Indeed, there
appears little doubt, upon the approach to success
which the experiment has thus early attained after
two days' trial, that the perfect purification of the
river is quite possible and is likely to be accom-
plished. The refuse and lime which sink to the
bottom of the reservoir will, no doubt, be exceedingly
valuable as manure.

A VISIT TO THE MOSQUE OF OMAR, JERUSALEM.--
Some notes by Miss Rogers, the daughter of the emi-
nent wood-carver of that name, descriptive of a visit
made by her and her brother (Vice-consul at Caiffa),
under the auspices of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore,
will interest our readers :---" All had to take off their
shoes. We had to change ours. The yellow shoes
brought for me Lady M. wore. I kept on-my bronze
slippers, which did very well. We enter the wonderful
building, darker than I expected to find it ; a solemn,
gorgeous gloom, recalling the effect of Owen Jones's
Alhambra, at Sydenham. Very ancient mosaic of
glass and stone, in Arabesque florid style, lines the
base of the dome. A gallery of arches, like a Norman
triforium, runs round above the surface of mosaic
richly-stained glass windows, which, from the variety
of colour, intricacy yet certainty of design, minuteness
of division, have all the effect of transparent mosaic.
Within a wooden railing (which I could peep over on
tip-toe) was the wonderful stone which, attempting to
follow the prophet to heaven, left the earth, and never
quite returned to it again. Here it stands, in a very
strange position, certainly, with not much to rest
upon. The large dimension of this rock, or stone,
surprised me exceedingly. The wooden railing is, in
the upper part, pierced, painted, and prettily carved
with rich interlacing designs, not unlike the Saxon
MS. decoration ; an immense variety of panels in the
lower part are not pierced ; the elaborate patterns are
grounded out. We are now shown the praying-place
of David, a white marble shrine of exquisite design
and execution ; a recess, or niche, supported by two
double columns, each column divided into four parts,
and quaintly twisted and plaited, not only with itself,
but with its sister column. The capitals, such as I
have seen in Norman work—very, very fine---such
exquisite nicety of finish. Now we descend a dark,
cavernous-looking place, attended by taper-bearers ;
are now under the great stone, Mere are four places