Specification of James Alexander Manning : treating night soil, &c.

  • Manning, James Alexander.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of James Alexander Manning : treating night soil, &c. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Mannings Improvements in the Treatment of Night Soil, $c. 5 the whole and reduce it to a liquid or semi-fluid state, when it is passed from the lower extremity of the tank through covered shoots or troughs at a proper inclination, and charges a series or set of retorts by its own specific gravity on its passage. 5 These letoits I prefer to wake of cast ironj they are heated by coal from three furnaces, one situate at each side of, and the third in the centre under the front of the retort, the lower half of which opens for the discharge of the product when the operation is completed. In their form the retorts are a very flat oval, in order to obtain the largest possible surface for the evaporation 10 of the fluid portion of the excreta, the whole mass being kept in a continuous state of agitation as soon as it reaches the boiling point until the operation is completed by an agitator, which works backwards and forwards from the centre to each side to prevent the adhesion of the solid matter to the bottom of the retort; the retorts are only charged with the mixed fluid and solid excreta to 15 half their capacity, in order to facilitate the rising of the vapour at or over their widest surface. To ensure a more rapid evaporation, I introduce by a fan or otherwise, a strong current of heated air over the surface of the boiling mass to drive off the vapour, chemical experience having demonstrated that this operation is productive of great economy of time, fuel, and labour, as well 20 as reducing the number of retorts, which would otherwise be required in working a large town. When the fluid is evaporated and the solid matter is brought nearly to a state of dryness, by the preceding process, the lower half of the front of the retorts is unscrewed, the solid product is discharged into • iron waggons and conveyed on a tram road to the drying and sifting houses, 25 where it is prepared for the market. The process herein described is also applicable to the treatment of the wet deposit of sewage obtained by precipitation, as set forth in the first part of the Specification of my Patent “ for Improvements in the Treatment, Application, and Use of Sewerage Matters and general Wastes of Towns and Factories,” 30 dated the Thirty-first day of May One thousand eight hundred and sixty, and Numbered 1343. In witness whereof, I, the said James Alexander Manning, have hereunto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-fifth day of July, One thousand eight hundred and sixty-three. 35 JAMES ALEX. MANNING, (l.s ) LONDON: Printed by George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, Printers to the Queen's most Excellent Majesty. 1863.