New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-01-04

dlIu llC Was lOICcO " uuS t1tC wall
in order to keep his feet out of
water. He went on thus darkly, re-
sembling some being Of the night,
cropping in the invisible and lost be-
low the earth in veins of gloom.
"Still, by degrees, whether because
distant gratings sent q little flicker
ing light into this opaque mist or
because his eyes had grown accus-
toned to the obscurity, he regained
some vague vision and began to get
a confused glimpse now Of the wall
which he touched, and now of the
vault under which he was passing.
He advanced anxiously but calmly"
Further on: "a little beyond an
affluent he paused. He was very
weary. A tolerably large grating,
probably the opening into the Rue
d'Anjou, afforded an almost bright
light" The light was sufficient for
him to read an entry in notebook.
Later: "Only the growing pallor Of
the flakes Of light, which he met
from time to time, indicated to him
that the sun was leaving the pave
ments and that day would soon be
over"
Finally, Jean Vatican came to the
outlet of the sewer on the banks Of
the Seine. In two hours he had
traversed a greater length of the
sewers than Bruneseau was able to
penetrate in year.
The next great improvement came
in 1855. From time immemorial the
Seine had been the main sewer Of
Paris. Balzac, in his studies Of
Catherine de- Medici, describes that
unbelievable pollution of one of the
great capitals of Europe. But the
same thing was true of London and
the Thames. Paris was not behind
the times. 1t was sanitation that
was behind consideration of the
public health. And even when Paris
came to the reconstruction and mod
ernization of her sewers through
the work and studies Of Bruneseau,
the Seine still remained the great
drain.
The new sewer system Of Paris
was built with six main outlets, all
into the Seine, and the pollution of
the river and the city, the danger
to the public health, still remained.
1t was Belgrand who changed that.
He introduced, in 1855, the reform
Of no sewer emptying into the river
in its passage through the city. He
stopped up all the outlets in the city
and by huge tunnel emptied the
entire sewage of the city into the
river at Asnieres and St. Denis.
This situation remained un-
changed until 1874, by which time
the complaints of Clichy made new
government investigation of the
drainage system of Paris necessary.
The report went into detail concern
ing the pollution of the river below
the point where the "great collector"
had its outlet. No living fish and no
green heritage were to be found in
that portion of the river exposed to
the contamination, and the water did
not recover a healthy condition for
many miles below the place where
the sewage entered the river.
1t was to remedy this condition
that the authorities first began Sc
riously to consider sewage irrigation.
Long before, in 1864, M. Mile drew
up a plan for distributing the sew
age of Paris on the plain of Genne-
and in 1867 a department
was organized with that object in
view. But on account of the great
prejudice against the idea and the
consequent difficulty of getting any
one to cultivate the land under sew
age irrigation the plan made slow
Roadway. An experimental station
Of seventeen acres was established,
and it's success, from an agricultural
point of view, was so signal that the
station was increased from seven-
teen to fifty-four acres.
In the war of 1901 the Genne-
villers plant was destroyed by the
Prussian gunfire, but it was rebuilt
in 1872, and by the end of 1875,
thanks to the investigation of the
year before. there were nearly sew