IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT AND USE OF SEWAGE AND LIQUID MANURES; AND IN RESERVOIRS AND PIPES TO BE USED THEREIN
Year: 1862

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left' by William Footman at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 30th May
1862.
I, WILLIAM FOOTMAN, of No. 5, Great Queen Street, Westminster, in the
County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT AND USE OF SEWAGE AND LIQUID MANURES;
AND IN RESERVOIRS AND PIPES TO BE USED THEREIN," to be as follows:
The object of my Invention is to treat and dispose of the sewage of towns
and other places, and to manure land with sewage water or other fertilizing
liquids in a more efficacious and less obnoxious manner than heretofore.
The nature of my Invention consists, first, in constructing tanks or reservoirs
to receive the sewage, and to effect a separation of the liquid from the floating
and sedimentary matters contained therein; secondly, in laying down an inlet
system of underground pipes for manuring the land with liquid manure in
conjunction with an outlet system of underground pipes for draining the land
from water; thirdly, in the manufacture of the said underground pipes to be
used for the above purposes.
In order to carry out my Invention I first construct a covered tank or
reservoir for the reception of the sewage, and then proceed to separate the
liquid from the solid and floating matters contained therein. This I do by
first fixing one or more inclined gratings or perforated plates at the top or
mouth of the reservoir, and there intercept in their passage the floating matters

page_text: contained in the sewage. The bottom of the reservoir I form in compartments,
and incline the sides thereof to a centre, from which centre I lay a drain or
pipe to convey away the sludge or sediment to a pit outside. I form the
bottom of the pit with porous substances so as to draw off the liquid from the
sludge, and I mix earth with the sediment as it accumulates, and carry the
same away for manuring the land as required.
Secondly, in using and applying the sewage or liquid manure, I form an outlet
system of pipes for the thorough drainage of the land by laying down rows of
pipes across the land a few feet below the surface of the ground, but with
much smaller intervals between the rows than is now usual, and at as small a
gradient as possible, the rows leading to a ditch or other ordinary outlet.
I then construct an inlet system of pipes for saturating or manuring the
land by laying down a row of pipes in each of the spaces between the rows of
the above-described outlet or drainage system. The rows of the inlet system
are laid a few inches.only beneath the surface of the ground, and are fed from
main or supply pipes leading from the tank or reservoir. When the ground
has an inclined surface I. sometimes run the main or supply pipe down the
incline in a zig-zag direction, and feed inlet pipes made to issue from the
angles, or I sometimes run all the pipes so as to follow the contour levels of
the land.
Thirdly, in laying down the pipes to be used in the systems herein-before
described, although I sometimes use ordinary drain pipes, I would prefer to use
pipes for the inlet system made with projections running the whole length on
each side and bending downwards so as to form lateral and inverted channels
on each side of the pipe.