The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-22 00:00:00

fi E PURIFICATION OF THE THAMES.

(Front the Morainy Post.)
The difficulties attending the complete purification cf
the Thames and the drainage of the metropolis are
doubtless very great. As it now seems determined that
it shall be done—that it shall be done by the present
authorities, and at the expense of the city, it may be
well to make a short r 4 uadi of the subjeot, and the
theories and errors that have been promulgated thereon.
Toe principal difsculties are these :—The only outlet
for the sewage is a tidal river ; that is one which runs
westward for thirteen hours. and hack a g eastward
for eleven hours, out of every twenty-four. e country
ounti
through which it runs is a dead,flat for manytomil.,
and asses are numerous large. and important ns
its baidne whose
welfare must be considered.
w Besides
on
this, an xtensive district which is to be drained is
teat cely above high-water mark.. It is only when the
tide is down the sewase from tans can escape, and these
sewers are scarcely emptied when the tide rises again,
and carries the filth up the river to descend again by the
next ebb, arid oscillate backwards and forwards through
the very centre of the most densely-populated city in
the world.
Several remedies have been proposed. One, the for-
Metion of gigantic brick tunnels and erections of enor-
mous steam engines, by the combined means of which
the sewage may be partly enticed and partly compelled
to make its way to a point below Barking-creek; other,
-the cutting of two open rivers of filth to run on each
side cf the Thames and convey the matter down to
Sea Beach. These black Tartaresque floods will not
be offensive, say their projectors, for we can always ad-
mit enough water ham the Thames to dilate their con-
tents, forgetting that, when diluted, as now, by the
whole volume, Cr rather when the *hole Thames is pol-
luted by them, the smell is intolerable. Others propose
the narrowing the stream by enormous embankments
on each side, under which the sewers are to flow. The
objections to this last scheme are —first, the tremendous
expense, the difficulties of construction, particularly
below bridge, and the fact that if by means of contract-
ing the channel the river runs down quicker, it will run
back again at a corresponding rate,and, worse than all,
will bring back-the filth with it again and again, as it
does now. It is true it may get rid of what are called
"the foreehores," or shallows, whereon the mud is de-
posited ; but experiment has proved the original sin to be
in the pollution of tho flowing, moving, tidal
volume of the Thames itself. The remedy proposed
is merely wipirg the fouled margin of the foun-
tain, not diverting the poisoned stream into other
and lower channels. The objections to the first
scheme are the magnitude of the undertaking, the
enormous cost, stated to be five millions of money ; the
pouring all the filth at once into one part of the river,
under the very nose of several important towns ; and
last, not least, the length of time that must elapse be-
fore the works could be finished. The city may be de-
populated by fever or cholera before one ounce of
sewage can be diverted from its, present channel, if no
scheme but the most full, the roost entire be at once
adopted.
Bat though a great length cf . time must necessarily
elapse, and much money be spent. before a complete job
may be made, can nothing be done at once to lessen the
evil—is there no ready way at once to get rid of
a large portion of it I It appears to us there is
if we seek it. If a man meet; with a severe
accident in the etree, we do not let him lie
there untouched till we can get the very first surgeon
in London, and the very best bandages. We try to
stanch the wounds with the first thing that comes to
hand, and send for the nearest Desistence, lest he should
bleed to death btfore Brodie or Holt could arrive.
If we walk to the tops of Greenwich or Highgate-
bills, if we glance at any map of London with the levels
or contours marked, we shall find, though there are
considerable tracts but little above high-water mark,
that by far Orel anger portion of North and South Len-
den is actually on a Let us treat of the former
first. Cteapside and Piccadilly are more than 40 Let
above high-water mark—Trinity datum. Whitechapel
and Bethnal-green are 30 feet ab ire the same, and the
whole r'f Lon lon then rises rapidly northward towards
Highgate and Hampstead. The top of the Regent's-park
and the heart of Islington are each ono hundred and
twenty feet above high-water mat k. Surely there ought
to be but little trouble in draining these high and pepu-
lons districts. Begin and drain the eat once, and take
time for the difficult' and low levele. D that which is
easy at once, and be leisurely with that which craves
care and precision. -
-The rising grounds or hills on which the north of
London stands are intersected by two valleys—one,
corameacieg from the river at Thackfriars, passes in a
rortberly direc ion, and is the channel of the ancient
river Fleet ; the other arises from the marshes to
the east of L.,n 'on, and has two branches, one pass-
ing westward through Hackney to Ittrogsland and
Islington ; the other, starting from the same point,
goes north ward to Stol: e-Newingt in, d then makei
a sweep eastward to Holloway and the foot of High
gate-hill. Through cheer branches of the latter
wally it has been proposed to construct sewers to
"intercept," as it is called, the present sewers—that is,
they are to be se deap that the latter may diecharge
themselves into the new sewers, and so convey the filth
away to Bowe p, let down the river where the v.-lame of
watt r is so great that it shall be so diluted as to be cum-
pat atively hart:ale:a—at any rate, so far that tee tide w 3.1
not *carry it back to London. This enures nppeeire so
obvious and so feasible that it seems marvel )us it was
nut set about and fleiste I long a;o. But, like most
things in England, we are not content with what is good,
but; must strive after eerriethieg better ; and then we gat
into heavy difficulties and expenses, eked the end is, no-
thing is done at all, but the old evils and nuisances re-
main. No I we must have one gigantic scheme ; high
and low, difficult and easy must he joined together, and
the result has been that neither the skid cf our engineers
nor the depth of cur pockets can carry out the whole
itbo_t inordinet3 larstion and a dolay of five long
par,. "Le minx est reuneini du bien," is a good
French proves'',; it would be well if it cirri.] be natura-
-1 i;ed here.
• New, let us leg:lire whence comes this obstructiveness.
0-ic of the first degrees laid down was to proiide for
the it cr. use of popu'ation. This in many inetaimes is
er •per, but not when time and circumstances pre.s
heavily The wisest coarse with regard to the tutor-,
perhepe, le to do as a new railway otten does—to buy
land enough f r tan lanes, hut to lip down only one till
the iecreaee of traffic juraVies it. Of course, as a firet
tree, this provision for posterity, the !deeming sewers
not only fur the present but the future, very much in
creased tbe-amounts of the es:larvae. The sic ad great
can )e of expense ea-, that it was determined the new
sewers should take off all the ram water as will ae the
sewace,ardc tnscquentiy it st a • nectasary that they should
be large eeough to carry away the greatest qaaeitity cf
water that had ever been known t ) fat? in the shortest
space of time. Tois was sub aqu.ntly ranch modi-
fied, but at the eeltueted rates of a fall of a quarter
of an loch of rain in twenty-four hours, and cf the pas-
sage of thirty genera of sewage water fir each individual
of ay. population, in the rime time, tl-.e k 23 of sewer
required _few the former was d mblo that of tee later.
The sewers, therefore, as planned, were three times as
large, arid three tiM33 as CJStiy as they would have been
if intended to carry aff sewage ()lily. The method of
caltutati, g the fell cf rain seems a'se to have been very
arbitrary. lo the City, shoo every ?ore is c ivered
%eh either roofs or plows, all the water that fe Is [roe)
the heavens (except that a Elena Ll:ay be evapenafee) meat
go down the towers ; •hut in dieti ie.te svb:,re every b ,Use
has a gardeu the lei•,. eat pertiee f the run is fee-,oe bed
by the thirsty rat th, tEd surplus soakB k lowly down
till it nasots +Ash some etre um not perrneafle, waters
it forme west are technically cated " land springs,"
whi sh never gat int.a to ears at all, arid yet no such die-
tinteiin seem+ to have Leal reed,: in the celctfletion. B
t'a..;o4h it is clearly etsiree to prevent filth fl axing into
the elver, what hurt can 'rain ao 1 Can there be any
oliji elicits to this flowing into the Thames I The mud
frem:the streets is remove I by tlrp tart., and e f the
little that lieds its way down the gall-ya the chief con;-
peneet part is the abraision from the granite. By all
ns let OA, be prover:tett from going lila/trete/a tete
the river if is he f)nrej, irjarieus, but let us immediately
divert filth and disregard the rani. Oee is hie:Zi-
on e the other p isocuus ; ono affects the eye, the other
touches life. It appears to U 3 that nethieg is mere
easy tt en to do this Let the ordinary sewage piss off La
the neer channel, the now iefeeceptirg sewer; but let theflashes of rale, let the storm-eaters, when thiechau-
nal it; full, ram and pass off by the old t xistiraed sewers
till the low keel intercepting sewer is completed.
But there V. OA another eireueateece often moaned.
over as a cause tf great difficulty end expense. It
would be easy to .draw the sewaps of three-four.he of
Noith Lordoo to the verse of the Victetia-perk, from
*berms there is the am pie fall of 30 feet, or five feet per
mile, to Barking Creek, Bat, ol; I the difficulty, the
ground hilts so rapidly at tbis,firet named point, that 20
feet are last at once in the first half-quarter of a mile, and
then the tardy. Mugge h course is nearly level :o Barking,
'I." a° unusually large sever must he mule to coovey
away its 1.-ty content?. A Romeo engineer would at
oncesru. haveaaa
,etniluv,Eddutc.l
cdri u ty, nickinghis "
NOW, VC& world peculiarly it on an embankment.
the 'alai, for the work; WeulYtl I:uitpat,abeovceornadeitinoanrigef.
able Raver lira, Lae save 11,0 t 50
V veex ernesae,.
yo f a sanding
Culverts under its bed, and A OUI7
to whatever outlet might eventually be d.echled upon.
cease ttlls utos I:ithuelitinivlarret:::ty, with the same
Common
current, drained
lower le:vale. • Why, then, should all Lee"
.211eiit:atiiesechtahragte,
at one point Let the sawage 02 tee L.
out further to sea than that of ttie low dis aviecit be
tr''.u'
diffit• u hies of engineering would be touch diminished"
and Brith arid Gravesend world no Leger t'°
the vast t f filth
proposed to be peearao?t, b aeluterol
their windows; in erre dense volume. The same r,asor-
log spplieieto the snnih of London as to the ner
Tire main difficu:fy has been cl aretiaces 1Y -
met t. Tee enurces are now defined, an I the lurid- neer.
now be !easily raised. Want of in they is note
stack, But tutneor states there is still to Le scioli,
iota thevilsli.ti, ternpo:i-ine, epeeehifyiug, and squab-
bling among the b. met, frerri whom eo ]meta tea liar,
xpeettil so much a: d Lave got nothing but alk. If
ti ie he- ira, representative institu reins art t of ooly cn
their bet tan tic broad, precipitsue road to hat-al
and
waterer. Let no hour t e lost. Ali 1-1 /13 are
levers have been taken toot y'cars ego. Let p
rations -be wade and wee' g—
relieving the Thames 'ref ert7tH:nteireed info directly
far
end let this be carried oat
Ca ifs 'um:ANT.
,eitthie a few reoethe. Le'
the pr and mete difficu:t f l
in due course. If
not, let us aAriewleclge the aab
rat
cf. a'l cane- re ed.
jai cf
~ to cot.scruct thr
and, as (ain' sent to the Etr'U
vast Cloaca maxima tl:2Laii:utom.,,
1
France, or let us entsge—tre ni,-;,47,6..t, Fer' to
.e
eleven dip fortified Sehastopel,
reed sage err who
cur lives by
acknowl Vging the linorarce cf our ngeets. glt
- ,