, 1879-03-16

A fsw weeks ego the public gar was stun
ned with m outcry down the canal agains
the offensive smells that arose from the
water discharged into the Illinois River be.
| low Lockport. Threats were made to fill uI
the canal nt the Summit aud stop the flow,
"compelling Chicago to keep her own
stiaks," as the irate denizens said 4 large
committee, consisting of Village Mayors,
Magistrates, and other officia1s, was appointed
to visit Chicago and lay their unfragrant
grievances before the City Fathers, and see
what plan could DO devised to abato the
nuisance. The City Engineer told them that
just as soon as the weather moderated
enough to melt out the ice that had nearly
filed up the prism of tho canal the bad
smells would cease to annoy them. Let the
canal have chance, he said, to carry of o
larger volume of water, and above all let the
air have free acccss to the surface Of the
flowing water, aud the smells would disap-
pear and the water become comparatively
pure by the time it reached Joliet.
The Committee returned home reposing
little faith in this opinion of the City En-
g,neer; but the result has been just as he
predicted. The ice is gone, the canal dis
charges good, large stream, the water in
the Chicago River is no longer offensive to
the olfactory nerves. Whatever odors may
arise from the Chicago River MS it enters the
canal disappear before they reach Joliet.
The chemistry of this change the people
down the "ditch" have not studied. The
various animal and vegetable substances
emptied into the Chicago River by the
sewers emit or e1hale unfragrant gases into
the air, which the oxygen of tho atmosphere
seizes upon and consumes by q process of
burning, more slow, Of course, but as real
as if it took place in furnace. This slow
combustion the chemists call g crend-
causls," or, to use q simpler term, oxida-
ton. This oxidation is the grand process
by which the surface of the earth, aud the
air, and the sea are purified of eontanlina-
tons. Noxious vapors from decaying ami
NAL and vegetable matter and pestilential
e61uyia are destroyed by the oxidation, or
slow burning process, that is constantly
going on. Thus the offensive impurities |
emptied into streams from sewers and slauch- |
ter-houses, which escape into the sir in the |
:orm Of nozious gases, are seized upon by |
he al-decouring oxygen Of the atmosphere |
md consumed, and the foul and putrid |
Tater is purified and sweetened by exposure
o this action of the air, and this is the rea-
on that go little offensive odor is now |
perceived ut Joliet, Morris, Ottawa, LaSalle, |
II other points on the Illinois River, past,
which the canal water flows.
AS long Us the Chicago River and the
anal were Theoretically sealed over with
wo or three feet of solid ice, the oxygen of
be air could not reach the noxious gases
nd, as the foul water did not come in con-
act with the purifying atmosphere until it
7as discharged into the river at Lockport,
be oxygen of the air had not time to consume
he mephitic vapors that were thrown oil in
'rGa volumes as the water churned and
ambled over the fall between Lockport and
oliet. The etfluyium was eliminated too
apidly for the oxidation, and it contamin
ted the lower strata of atmosphere. and
aus.d the outcry of th3 inhabitants who
reathed it.
The leo is now out Of both the Chicago
iger md the canal, and large part of the
huVlum is isdestroyed over the river as it rises,
I'd most Of the remainder is consumed in
lie way described before going the thirty |
lies to:Iockport. If it wero not for this !
snefcent provision of Nature, all the river
alleys would become uncomfortable from the
sing of noxious yapors, aud all lakes and i
as would be contaminated, and, in fact, all
e air would become unfit to breathe,
VICIOUS LEGISLATION.