wall, and at no time interfere with the canal being used for sewerage. It was provided that this transfer, with the proposed modifications, be submitted to Congress for approval.

The mayor of the city, in a communication to Congress of the 23d April, 1866, states that the condition of the canal is such as to require an abatement of the nuisance caused by deposits from the sewers, while the bill now under consideration of the council greatly increases and prolongs this nuisance.

The committee concurs in the opinion of the mayor of the city that the proposed grant of the canal to a private corporation would be a grievous injury to the inhabitants of the city, and would defeat the much-desired object of both Congress and the community of securing the health of the city.

The committee learns from the mayor that it is proposed to extend the Chesapeake and Ohio canal from Georgetown, through the city, to the deep water along the Eastern Branch, with the view of establishing a shipping port for large vessels, and depot for the Cumberland coal, thus sharing with Georgetown and Alexandria the profits of this branch of industry. The project is one to which the committee should present no objection, provided it does not interfere with the general health of the city, or works necessary for promoting the health of the inhabitants.

The committee considers that a canal for such a purpose, or any other, through this city, should not lock down to tide-water until it has passed entirely through the city, and recommends that neither the existing canal, the proposed modifications, nor transfer of the existing canal to any private corporation, be approved by Congress unless the subject of public health and sewerage be first provided for, and insured against all hindrance and interruption for all time to come, and that no sewage matter be allowed to enter any open canal whatever, within the limits of the District of Columbia.

INFLUENCE OF THE CANAL ON THE HEALTH OF THE POPULATION.

At the present time the Washington city canal is an extended cesspool, the bottom of which is below the level of low water, the surface varying with the slow and gradual rise and fall of the tide, without any current to act upon the bottom or of sufficient velocity to move insoluble ponderous matter that is received into it.

The sewage from the water-closets, kitchens, laundries, stables, cattle-pens, and street gutters is now received into this immense trap, there to remain, without power of any kind to carry it into the river or other place to protect the city against its pernicious effects and influences. The existing sewers now enter this reservoir so much below low water as to have caused one-half their entire height to be closed by deposit, and as a consequence filling every such sewer with poisonous matter into the city to the level of the intersection of the water in the canal with the inclined plane of the bottom of the sewer. This mass cannot be removed by any means now available. On the supposition that the canal receives the sewage from a population of only 30,000 of the inhabitants of the city, the estimated annual cubic mass that is thrown into the canal is not less than 300,000 cubic feet, or at the rate of 10 cubic feet per head per annum of solid and fluid human excrement.

This fecal matter has for some years past been accumulating in the canal, in proportion to the extent and number of sewers constructed from time to time, without any power of removal of the solid parts, and only a slight power for moving the fluid portions backwards and forwards, there being no continuous current to force even the fluid and soluble parts into the Potomac or Eastern Branch.

From the experience of other cities, and the investigations of chemists and engineers, we learn that open sewers, as the canal in this city, evolve gases very

prejudicial to health. Observation has shown that the death rate is much greater among the population along these open sewers than in streets removed but a short distance from them.

The signs of animal life visible to the naked eye in small rivers after receiving sewage matter consists of myriads of minute worms, characteristic of all sewage water, and may be regarded as the last remains of animal life which can survive in such a locality; and even these die off in summer.

The putrescence of the organic liquids and deposits in the open sewers and bottoms and beds of streams in all weathers, and the evolution of noxious gases therefrom, lead to the sensible contamination of the surrounding atmosphere, and consequently decreases the purity and healthiness of the air, and the discharge of sewage matter into streams and small rivers pollutes the water by the mixture of much organic matter in a state of active putrescence.

Analysis gives 15 to 80 grains per gallon of suspended matter, and from 35 to 76 grains of dissolved matter, of the sewage of large towns. Of the former about 35 per centum is organic, and of the latter about 28 per centum. The organic matter consists of vegetable and animal fibre with a soluble extractive in a high state of decomposition. The organic constituents give off such an abundance of foul gases that they are a constant source of annoyance. These gases consist of about 73 per centum of light carburetted hydrogen, 16 per centum of carbonic acid, 10 of nitrogen, and traces of sulphuretted hydrogen, ammonia, and a putrid, organic vapor that is in the highest degree offensive.

Every gallon of sewage will discharge from 14 to 13 cubic inches of this gas per hour, and the fermentation continues for weeks. Whenever this gas escapes from privies, cesspools, or sewers, it causes disease, and finally sets up a putrid form of fever which is exceedingly fatal.

Every effort is made elsewhere to prevent the diffusion of these fœtid gases into the houses and public ways, while in Washington we promote the evil to an incalculable extent and danger in that vast fermenting vat, the city canal.

It follows that the sewage of large populous cities and towns can only be conducted into large rivers near the sea, that they may not contaminate the atmosphere, and should never be discharged into fresh-water streams used or required for man or beast.

If conducted into closed harbors or bays, they create such a deadly pollution as soon to lead to the most alarming consequences.

The

The magnitude of this evil, and the suddenness with which it may come upon us in its most fatal form, are exemplified by the experience of London. committee asks attention thereto, as fully illustrating the evil we have to combat in this city, and the necessity of prompt attention:

"On the introduction of the water-closet system in London, and the abolition of cesspools, with the increase of gas-works, the Thames began to give indications of receiving a larger quantity of decomposing matter than it could purify or get rid of by the tide movement. In 1856 it became apparent in the summer months that the river emitted a disagreeable stench. This became still more evident in 1857, and was obviously dependent on the increased attention paid to the removal of all refuse from houses by the aid of drainage. In 1858 the stench appeared with increased intensity, and especially in the neighborhood of the new houses of parliament. Every one felt it was necessary to meet so gigantic an evil. The river had become one elongated cesspool, and the effect upon the teeming population of its banks might be in a short time of the most disastrous kind. In 1858 an act was passed for preventing, as far as practical, the sewage from passing into the Thames within the metropolis, giving authority to expend three millions of pounds sterling to effect the object."

This experience may very properly be received as a truthful representation of what is being done in this city, and the consequences.

The specific gravity of sewage gases is lighter than that of the atmosphere

Generated in large volumes in the canal, and lower end of as well as in the sewers, it ascends the sewers to escape at every higher level, and creates the pestilential influences heretofore referred to. We had some experience in this city in 1857, causing death and prolonged disease among the inmates of one of our hotels. Thus the deleterious gases ascend and the poisonous liquids descend, making the ventilation of the sewers as important as conveying away the solids and liquids to insure the health of the city. No system of cleansing sewers by manual labor is justifiable.

Laborers employed in this disgusting business in the culverts for fluid excrements, as in the Paris system, are subject to two terrible diseases, both due to the deadly effluvium of fæces, the one caused by ammonia gas, creating distempers of the nose and eyes, and the second by sulphuretted hydrogen, nitrogen, and hydrosulphuretted ammonia, causing sudden death. In the sewers for fluid and solid excrementa, as in London and Washington city, the effects are even more fatal. In the report of the engineer relating to the London sewers, it is stated that he witnessed several cases of death, and others in which men were taken out insensible, after only a few seconds' exposure. In Warwick street, Fimlico, five men were killed, in 1852, by this gaseous sewage. Three of them had gone into the sewer early in the morning, and, not returning for breakfast, alarm was felt for their safety. A surgeon entered the sewer and was killed on the spot. A young policeman followed and was struck dead in a few minutes. On examination after death it was shown that he could not have made more than two respirations before death after entering the sewer. On making an opening from the street into the sewers to get the bodies of these men, the gases as they escaped were set fire to by a match and burnt with a yellow flame, rising twenty feet. Within three months of the date of the engineer's report three more lives were lost near Whitechapel by breathing sewage gases as it escaped from an opening made into another sewer.

It is now a well-established fact, deduced from the medical statistics of the English armies in India, and of our army in its marches during the past two years, that cholera is propagated mainly by atmospheres contaminated and poisoned by the excrement of cholera patients.

In this city the canal would be the reservoir for such matter, first to be contaminated by travellers from infected districts, sojourning temporarily at the hotels, all the sewers from which now or are hereafter to empty in the canal.

The committee is of the opinion that the canal, as it now exists, is a great cause for creating and propagating disease, and should at the earliest possible moment be filled up and discontinued for use as a sewer and reservoir for excrement and waste waters of kitchens, water-closets, laundries, and other sources of contaminating matter, and is also of the opinion that, if the proposition of granting the city rights to this canal be confirmed, the evils herein set forth cannot be efficiently corrected by any means left in the power of the public authorities without incurring a heavy expenditure to purchase rights and property now proposed to be given away.

It is proper to state that part of this system of sewage, and, it is believed, the commencement of making the canal a reservoir and cesspool, was made under appropriations of Congress for building sewers from the Capitol and the executive buildings from Fifteenth to Seventeenth streets.

REMEDIES FOR THE EXISTING EVILS.

It

The committee has pointed out the probable evil consequences of our existing system of sewage, as a result of using the canal as a cesspool and reservoir for the fecal matter, from whence it cannot be removed by any existing means. has also shown that the air and water from the canal are contaminated by the sewerage of the city, and produce fatal diseases tending to virulent epidemics, and that the canal is neither fit for navigation, sewerage, or drainage, in its present form and dimensions.

It remains for the committee to propose some method by which these evils may be remedied.

The old, thickly populated cities and towns of Europe have been compelled, for self-preservation, to expend millions of money, and adopted a variety of systems to remove excrement from the limits of their abodes.

The systems last adopted for Paris and London, at an immense outlay, give in general the main reliable features of the most acceptable plans.

In Paris metallic vessels for every family are so arranged that the solid fæces are separated from the urine. The latter passes into street sewers of large dimensions, conducting it, with the surface drainage from the streets, into the Seine, and the solids are removed from the dwellings by scavengers with carts, and conveyed some miles from Paris, where it is converted into dry poudrette and sold for manure. No less than 278,000 cubic metres of these solid excrementa were collected from the tenements in Paris and removed to La Vilette for conversion into fertilizing matters in one year.

In London a system commenced in 1859 of sewers at different levels, running parallel with the Thames, receives all the house and street drainage, both solid and fluid, and conducts the same, miles below the city, into the river, to find its way to the sea. These longitudinal sewers drain the entire city surface of 117 square miles, and are together 82 miles in length. Their fall does not exceed two feet per mile, and are carried over rivers, railways, roads, and streets, by wrought-iron aqueducts. Of the surface thus drained 25 square miles are below the level of high water, and drained by a sewer of 10 miles in length. A part of the sewerage, or 14 miles of this surface, has to be pumped up 173 feet to discharge it into the Thames; and at what is called the Abbey Mills Station, the whole mass of sewage is pumped up 36 feet to the level of the outfall sewer. This system is peculiar in having culverts parallel with the river, to receive the sewage at high levels as far as practicable, and not allow it to fall into basins or valleys below the river surface, and by steam pumps raising all the sewage matter from surfaces below the river level into the main drains leading to the river. Another system is advocated, by which all the excrementa is received from the water-closets, both solid and fluid, into small boxes in the streets, from whence it is drawn by pneumatic portable engines into tight barrels, and thence in its liquid state distributed in drills underground by ploughs, as a manure for the surrounding country. It is claimed to be the only effectual way of removing this offensive matter and preserving the whole of it for manuring the soil.

With subsoil ploughing, rotation of crops, lime, marl, green sand, barn-yard manure, guano, and other fertilizers, the use of sewage matter is not likely to be acceptable to our agriculturists, and no demand will probably exist sufficient to absorb the quantities that by this system must be daily disposed of in summer and winter.

The committee has come to the conclusion that we must construct the sewers of the city of Washington on levels above high water, and conduct them to discharge their contents in the strong ebb current of the Potomac river at high water, that the entire accumulation of twelve hours may have six hours of ebb tide to carry it towards the Chesapeake, which, with the annual freshets and constant flow of the Potomac, will always carry it beyond the distance it can be brought back by the flood.

It is indispensable the outlet of these main sewers should be below the Long bridge, (and as distant as practicable,) otherwise all the solid matter would accumulate on the shoals between this bridge and Georgetown, and in time create as great an evil as the canal.

To effect this object all the main sewers must be carried across the site of the present canal on closed aqueducts or causeways, at the most advantageous levels above high water, and thence under the grounds south of the canal, to suitable places on the bank of the river, where closed and covered reservoirs may be con

structed to retain the sewage until the ebb-tide makes, when gates or valves will be opened to allow it to escape into the river, under the water surface, using the waters of Rock creek and the Tiber to cleanse them.

The present canal should then cease to be used for any other purpose than as an escape for the waters of the Tiber during extraordinary freshets, and for such surface drainage as cannot be carried across it into the sewers leading to the Potomac, and to this end must be filled up and reduced in size and form to an arched culvert. The proposed canal for commercial purposes, with an outlet in the Eastern Branch, should, in like manner, be carried over the valley of the present canal on an aqueduct or causeway, and then through or along the high ground to the Eastern Branch.

We have found that the canal is not useful for navigation. A railroad over the same ground, extended along the river front, with turn-outs and sidings to warehouses and depots, free to every owner of a car, would better subserve the public welfare, it is believed, than any water transportation that can be derived from the existing or other canal. Such a road for heavy traffic, with a wellconstructed paved street for light vehicles, and a paved walk along the south side, adjacent to the public reservations, connecting the Capitol, botanic garden, Smithsonian, agricultural, and Washington monument grounds with the grounds about the President's house, would insure greater health, promote public convenience, and greatly enhance the value of property now separated from the settled portions of the city by an impassable barrier. These are additional considerations for using the site of the existing canal as a covered drain or culvert for surface water only.

The committee has confined itself to pointing out the evil effects of the exist ing sewerage, the necessity for immediate correction, and a general plan therefor, leaving it for the talent and genius of the most experienced engineers to select the most advantageous sites for the outlets of the sewers, at the most distant points from dense population, and mature the details of a project for carrying this system into effect.

All of which is respectfully submitted by

RICHARD DELAFIELD,

For the Committee of the Regents. RICHARD WALLACH, Mayor. RICHARD DELAFIELD, U. S. Army. PETER PARKER, M. D.

WASHINGTON, D. C., May 15, 1868.

After discussion,and the unanimous expression of opinion that the canal was a nuisance which should speedily be abated, on motion of Mr. Pruyn the following resolution was adopted:

Resolved, That the report of the executive committee be accepted, and that the committee be authorized, in their discretion, to unite with the corporate authorities of Washington in a memorial to Congress for such relief as may eventually lead to an abatement of the nuisance complained of."

On motion of General Delafield, it was

"Resolved, That the vacancy in the executive committee be filled by the election of Rev. Dr. John Maclean."

Professor Henry presented his annual report of the operations of the Institution during the year 1868, which was read, accepted, and ordered to be presented to Congress.

On motion of General Garfield, it was

"Resolved, That the regents renew their application to Congress to increase the annual appropriation for the care of the government collections to $10,000." The board adjourned, to meet at the call of the secretary.