The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-06 00:00:00

PURIFICATION OF THE THAMES.

The Thames flowing through the City of London !
What a gorgeous mind-picture of silvery waters, set in
a frame of superb palaces, must the very thought of it
present to a meditative Brahmin or an imaginative Hin-
doe. The description of a city composed of Aladdin's
palaces, set in Sin bad's valley of diamonds, would pos.
eibly satisfy the Oriental imagination. But it would be
assuredly beyond the bounds of even a Hindoo's credu-
lity to believe that the great river of the great capital of
England is purposely goaded into " running a muck
through the town—whether we understand the phrase,
like the Hindoo, to signify a blind sacrifice of human
life, or explain it, by the aid of our dictionaries, to
refer to the flowing of a liquid mass of manure. But
in four years' time the Thames is to be purified, and
the sewage of London to find another channel. One
year has been already wasted by constituted autho-
rities, and possibly the other would be similarly frit-
tered away, but that certain plain and practical
men, endowed with common sense, and not pos-
sessing that enormous determination of words
to the mouth which specially afflicts folks " dressed in a
little brief authority," have lent helping hands to get
through the difficulty. Though in all these private plans
there are innumerable obstacles to iie overcome, yet there
is not one of them but excels the pet plan of the Board
of Works, providing, as it does, an outfall within three-
quarters of a mile of Erith Csurch ; against which a de-
putation of the inhabitants protested most strongly in an
interview last week with Lord Palmerston.
The plan of Dr. Marshall Hall, to carry off the sewage
in large c'oscas on either bank of the river, and when far
away from the town, to remove it for the cultivation of
the soil, would also remedy an evil that seems to have
hitherto been singularly overlooked ; probably from ten-
der consideration for the vested interests of the mud-
larks. The formation of such cloacae, covered over with
wide i tone quays (and why should not our convicts try
their hands at chiselling them!) would considerably
narrow the stream of the Thames, and so rid us of those
wide beaches of mud and decomposing animal matter
which may be seen at every low tide. This narrowing
the stream would also tend to deepen the river, and the
construction of quays, as at Paris, would, moreover,
materially relieve our over-crowded thoroughfares.
Attention is specially directed, in the plan of Sir W.
Worsley, to the imperative necessity that must arise, in
any case, of providing additional means for flushing the
sewers at frequent intervals. He proposes to take the
water of the river from Battersea to Limehouse Reach
by a short cut ; and, between these points, to oust Fa-
ther Thames altogether from the bed where he has so
long wallowed ; planting the ground thus acquired with
trees, Ste., and carrying the main sewer beneath to
empty itself at Woolwich ; above which stsstion dams
are to be constructed for keeping out the sea-tide.
The most important item in the scheme is the forma-
tion of reservoiri at Battersea for fleshing the sewers
at regular intervals. This should be made a subjected
t
of careful consideration, whatever be the plan adop,
otherwise frightful, evils will most assuredly arise
from the decomposition of more than seven millions of
cubic feet of sewage rotting in the drains beneath our
if
se feet
removedduring
thea nhyo tmai
lends dryaa
away;
vv months,e and
have wnhoetn
sthpaecevetnot
enter into all the details of Sir Wen. Worsley's plan, to
which the enormous annual traffic of that portion of the
river he proposes to obliterate, must form a fatal objec-
tion. Moreover, the current of air produced by a flow-
ing stream of water, if only moderately pure, is of great
importance in a sanitary point of view.
The chief attraction in the plan of Mr. WCiean (most
appropriate of names) is that Sir M. Peto, the great con-
tractor, offers to carry it out for a certain sum le a given
time. This is an object for consideration, when we re-
member how great the difference usually is between the
estimated cost of our public works (as the Houses of
Parliament) and the actual expenditure. Mr. M'Clean
proposes to carry the sewage, by covered ways, into
the river Crouch, at Waltham, and so into the Ger.
man Ocean. Fatal sacrifice ! The plan of Dr. Marsball
Hall has the great advantage of disposing of the sewage
elsewhere than in the Thames, and of making it a vast
source of wealth. A large mass of decaying organic
matter flowing into the river, at any one point, would
necessarily produce, for some miles, a tract of water be-
fouled with condensed pollution, and likely top lay sad
havoc amongst the crews and passengers of vessels ply-
ing up and down.—The Lancet.

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