Schemes for the interception, conveyance, and utilisation of the sewage & drainage of Glasgow / by James Brown.

  • Brown, James.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Schemes for the interception, conveyance, and utilisation of the sewage & drainage of Glasgow / by James Brown. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    11/20 (page 9)
    sand dredgings from the river being daily superadded. There are other testimonies from actual experience of the almost entire absence of effluvia, outside a very limited distance, from sewage when poured upon open porous land. Messrs. Bateman & Bazalgette say—''At Croydon, the purification of the sewage of that town, by passing over grass lands in the immediate neighbourhood, has been so successful that people residing close up to the sewage irrigated land do not complain of any nuisance. But still further to provide against anything offensive arising from the discharge of the sewage into the inclosed banks, it was proposed that inside the carriage ways, and also along the landward sides, a belt of forest trees and shrubbery shouldJbe._planted. This belt would serve the double purpose of secluding from piiblic view the process of depositing and filling up, as well as the works of the alternative scheme yet to be indicated, and of effectually preventing the spread of any effluvia that might arise. At the same time, not to speak of the remedy—the best, it is presumed, that present knowledge supplies for the nuisance existing on the banks—the proposed belt would shelter and conserve the amenity of the conterminous uplands, where, be it remarked, there is at present, with very few exceptions, scarcely a patch of growing timber. These works, it was assumed, would extend over a number of years ; and with the opportunities and facilities afforded by the progress of the works, the whole question of the ultimate and profitable utilisation and disposal of the sewage could be studied practically on a scale commensurate with itself. More pax-ticularly, Mr. Chapman's, or some similar scheme, could be applied and wrought, improved in either principle or detail, and per- fected so as to satisfy the purposes it is designed to serve. • *^Uiould. a mcjre expeditious filling up of the enclosed banks than would be afforded by the river dredgings turn out to be desirable, the large bank outside the harbour of Port-Glasgow, from year to year increasing, and threatening the existence of the port, would supply abundant material; and with an adequate number of dredges at work, the raising of the enclosed banks to the level of the river walls could be accomplished in a comparatively brief period. A very important benefit would here accrue to the River Trust. The tidal waters being confined between the banks thus built up, instead of spreading over the immense area they now cover, would furnish a very efficient scour for the river bed, and soon save the Trust a handsome sum annually for dredging. The works would doubtless be expensive. It is only first cost, however; and meanwhile a valuable property of a deep rich soil would have been created in the interest of the corporation and community, which, taken at mere agricultural value, would yield a revenue of about £30,000 per annum—sufficient, it is assumed, to cover interest on the cost of construc- tion of the whole works. But taken as building ground, for which it is not unreasonable to suppose it would ere long come to be in demand, and all the more so, as the nuisance which prevents places of sea-side resort being erected would have been removed, and the whole converted into fields of health and beauty j the annual revenue would rise to something considerable—above £100,000 : a sum which would not only furnish an ample sinking fund for discharge of costs of construction and for main- tenance, but would also, at no great distance of time, relieve the citizens of rates and burdens under which they at present groan and protest in vain.