The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-09-12

The question of the disposal of the sew
age of cities is one that is receiving con-
slant attention from sanitary architects
and engineers. 1t is one of the great scien-
engineers. 1t is one of the great scien-
tihc questions of the day. 1t has been
discussed recently in the Morning News
by Engineer Sugden of this city and DR..
Troup Maxwell of Jacksonville, with what
success our readers are left to judge
In the September number Of THE An
nails of Hygiene" the question is pre-
scented in an article entitled Inaugural
ton of New Sanitary Works at Paris"
The purpose of the article is not to dis
cuss the sewage problem, but to show
what is being done in Paris toward the
solution of it, 1t is a brief account of
meeting of members of the Society of San
itary Architects and Engineers of France
at the Inauguration of the acqueduct and
irrigation fields OF Acheres. The meeting
was held on the new iron bridge, which
crosses the Seine from Colonies. on the
peninsula of Genuevillies, where the first
sewage farm was established.
ArgenteuiL At Colonies are i'm
mense engines which raise the
sewage to an elevation from which
1t reaches by gravitation the most distan;
irrigation fields.
At the meeting NJ Poubelle, I'm the course
of an eloquent speech, said:
The Paris main sewers throw into the
Qo1 pf nor
day. or 100000 cubic meters per an
mum, containing per annum about TO-
900 kllogrammes of nitrogenous sub
stances, which might be estimated az
about 20000,O00 francs. Thus 100000 worth
of fertilizing agents are lost annually.
Three generations of engineers had sought
to prevent this waste-Belgrand, Applaud,
Mile Couche and Durand-Claye, the lat
ter being "the sincere and persuasive adj
vocate of the principle now accepted:
'All to the sewer and nothing to the
river In 1900 the peoples of the world
who would come to Paris TO Practically
celebrate the advent of a new century viii
be able to admire and marvel at the per-
feet health the French capital would then
enjoy. They will study the harmonious
working of its organization and will see
in its innumerable combinations the reali-
zation for towns of the principles of the
circulation of the blood in the human
extremities, so viii pure spring water
be brought by pipes to every house and
| every tenement Then from every dwell
| ling, drain-pipes and sewers, like veins,
| will bring the sewage to be revivihed In
! the pores of the earth, and by the action
| of the plants which will derive their
nutriment from the impurities of these
| waters. The contemplators of this sys-
] tenn will understand the lofty character
| of the lesson in natural philosophy that
/ results from these phenomena. They will
! celebrate under a multiplicity of forms
| and appearances the grand unity of science
| and they will carry away with them the
| conviction that the study of life and It's
laws can prove as beneficent for a town
| as for an individual and that man is all the
nearer to truth as he succeeds more and
more in borrowing from nature its pro-
cesses and in faithfully conforming to
! its laws.
NJ. Baudin spoke of the desire of the
! Paris municipality not TO compromise the
! interests of the neighboring districts. but,
| on the contrary, to enrich their agricul-
| tural resources. They would find that
the advent of sewage in the arid plains
that would now Be put under cultivation
would not only save the Seine from pollu
ton, but would enrich the suburban dis
| tricts.
There can be no doubt that the true So
luton of the sewage problem is that
adopted by Paris and Berlin. But is not
| the cost of il greater than small munich
/ palities can bear? That is a question
which city like Savannah must take
into consideration.