Sanitary engineering in India : for the use of municipalities and engineers / by John Wallace.

  • Wallace, John.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sanitary engineering in India : for the use of municipalities and engineers / by John Wallace. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    188/300 (page 160)
    distribution of the refuse of a town is divided as much as possible in the neighbourhood. In agricultural economy it has less value than the application of the whole of the waste water and nightsoil of a town to one estate laid out expressly to receive it, but it serves to awaken the cultivator to the manurial value of a material which he has heretofore neglected or misused, and which is capable of increasing, more than anything else within his reach, the productiveness of his land. The soil for effective trenching should be loamy and porous, and fairly well drained, and the section and depth of the trench must be of such dimensions as shall allow the process to be carried out without nuisance. The dimensions will vary with the quality of the soil. The temperature of the air and of the ground are favorable to the changes that take place during the process of conversion, and land that has been used for a period for trenching has its productiveness greatly increased. Trenching is best suited for localities with a moderate rainfall, as the process of sewage removal will admit of no interruption. At Nasick the nightsoil of the town containing 35,000 inhabitants is trenched in loamy soil in a manner that is both effective and profitable. The trenches are made about 18 inches wide and deep, and of any desired length. They receive twelve inches of sewage, and are then covered up with earth. After a period of two to three weeks, the sewage is removed, with part of the earth which it has saturated, and placed in a depot for sale. It has now no offensive smell, and is readily purchased and used by the culti- vators of Nasick.