Specification of Jasper Wheeler Rogers : apparatus for the collection of night soil and drainage of houses.

  • Rogers, Jasper W.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of Jasper Wheeler Rogers : apparatus for the collection of night soil and drainage of houses. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Rogers Improved Means, Qc. for Collecting for Use the Excrement of Towns, <$fc. fall or water shed of the locality) by degrees into one main, discharging at the principal sewer mouth wherever it might be, the length of pipes or “ house refuse mains ” discharging at one point being regulated by the nature of the locality to be drained, and I would make the joints of such construction so that they could be readily disconnected and made air-tight when connected 5 again. At the point of discharge I place a chamber, which I designate the “ filtering vacuum chamber,” the construction of which will be seen in the vertical section, Fig. 4. This chamber I build up of cast or wrought iron plates, which are bolted together ; I make the chamber of sufficient strength 10 to resist atmospheric pressure from without whenever I may find it necessary to produce a perfect or partial vacuum therein, and of a size proportioned to the quantity of matter and water to be passed into and through it. Into this chamber I discharge the whole contents of the “ house refuse mains ” at such level as would be found suitable to the rise and fall of the river into which the 15 main sewer emptied itself. Within the chamber a, a, I construct a filtering bed h, hy composed of peat charcoal, prepared according to my special process for manufacturing that article of peat, mould or ground peat, and of broken cast iron, the whole disposed in layers or beds in such quantities or proportions as would be 20 suitable to the extent of sewage water to be passed through it. The water and matters from the house refuse mains would fall into the filtering or vacuum chamber in or about the position shewn on the Drawing of the chamber, and the weightier solids would naturally precipitate towards the bottom, but the general liquid gradually rising to its own level would pass 25 up through the grating c, and traverse through the filtering bed h9 rising up a second grating d, or a water and pump shaft, and discharge itself through one or other of the tide valves e and /, according as the river water would allow; the number of tide valves must be such as is found desirable for the locality. Thus the filtering bed would prevent the passage of any solid matter, and SO absorb (by means of the affinity existing between the preparations of peat moss described and the impurities existing in the sewage) that most injurious noxiousness which is now imparted to rivers by the discharge of sewage matter into them, and the use of which preparations for such purpose is already patented by me. 35 The tide valve is specially constructed so as to prevent the admission into the “ filtering and vacuum chamber ” of exterior water. It will be seen by the Drawing that it is something resembling the port-hole of a ship, but is hinged from below, and rises upwards to close the hinge, being made water-