HOUSES NOT CONNECTED WITH SEWERS. Al though, as now understood, sewage is limited to those houvehold and industrial wastes which are removed by sewers, it will be convenient to con sider, in addition, the disposal of exerementitious matters and fouled water from such houses and other buildings as are not connected with the sewers. In rural districts this is generally a simple matter. Privy vaults, whether adjoining or more or less remote from houses, are generally little more than holes in the ground, into which the wastes fall and where they remain until re moved at frequent intervals. The occasional addition of small quantities of dry earth or ashes will do much to lessen the almost inevitable nuisances of these devices. The comfort and ease of the family demand that such conveniences be placed as near the living rooms as possible, and preferably under the same roof ; while in densely populated districts the latter is impera tive. Wherever decency and a due regard for health prevail this leads to the adoption of some portable receptacle, which can he kept in a sani tary condition. The two chief means-employed to meet this demand are the earth-closet and the pail system. The former is said to have been invented in 1858, by the Rev. Henry Moule. Vicar of Fordington, England. He utilized the deodor izing powers of common soil and devised a mechanism for automatically dumping some of it into the closet when needed, somewhat on the same principle as the flushing arrangement for a water-closet. In the earth-closet a bucket, or some larger receptacle, may he used for the re ception and removal of wastes. The pail system is lot much different from the earth-closet, ex cept that no earth or other deodorizer is neces sarily used. The pails should be made of metal, or some other non-absorbent material. Tight fitting covers should be provided. With the in troduction of the w•ater-closet, with its flushing tank and its pipe for the removal of wastes from the houses, a new problem arose in the way of final disposal. If no cesspool had been provided for sink and bath wastes, one was built some where in the yard. These, also, are generally mere holes in the ground, roughly to prevent the caving in of the earth, but not made water-tight. In sandy soils the liquid soaks away. The solid matters are decomposed in the manner explained in the paragraph on septic tanks. In clayey or wet soils cesspools are sure to overflow. Theoretically all cesspools should be water-tight, but practically only a very few• are.
The contents of earth-closets may be utilized as fertilizing material with but little difficulty, either by composting or by direct application to the land. The utilization of pail-system wastes is not so easy, since they contain a large per centage of moisture. An absorbent may he used to reduce the moisture, or the pails may be emp tied where their contents can drain out. Still another way is to reduce the stuff to a powder in some form of drier. Occasionally night soil from the pail system, and possibly from privie.s,
is burned in garbage furnaces, care being taken to mix it with the driest material available. One of the best means of disposing of all night soil and allied matter is to bury it in trenches.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Rafter and Baker. Sewage Bibliography. Rafter and Baker. Sewage Disposal in the United States (New York, 1893), an exhaustive discussion of both principles and methods; Waring, Modern. Methods of Sewage Disposal (New York, 1894), a popular review of principles and methods; Kiersted, Sewage Disposal (New York, 1894), a brief discussion with particular reference to disposal by dilution; Baker, Sewerage and Sewage Purification (New York, 1896), brief and popular; Rideal, Sewage and the Bacterial Purification of Sewage (New York, 1900), a pretty thorough and rather scientific discussion of the bacterial phases of sewage treatment, written by an Englishman and almost wholly from the English point of view; Dibdin, Purification of Sewage and Water (London, 1903), also relates chiefly to the bac terial aspects, almost wholly English, but less technical than Rideal; Thudicum, The Bacterial Treatment of Sc-n-age (London, 1900), a brief, popular review of recent bacterial studies and results; Barwise, The Purification of Sewage (New York, 1899), another English author, fairly popular in style and more general in range than the three preceding; Crimp, Sewage Disposal Works (2d ed., London, 1894), the standard English engineering treatise, including principles, methods, and descriptions of works, but has noth on the recent bacterial studies; Corfield, The Treatment and Utilization of Sewage (3d ed., London and New York, 1887), somewhat simi lar to but less comprehensive than Crimp; Slater, Sewage Treatment, Purification, and Utilization (London, 1888), brief, semi-popular, controversial, and not up-to-date, but valuable on account of a descriptive chronological list of 456 English patents on methods of treating sew age, issued from 1846 to 1886, inclusive; Bai ley-Denton, Sewage Purification Brought Up to Date, 1896 (London and New York, 1896), by one of the chief exponents of intermittent filtra tion, written after the earlier announcements of the more recent bacterial studies, and describing eight land-filtration systems; Tidy, The Treat ment of Sewage (New' York, 1887), brief, com prehensive, semi-technical ; Burns, Utilization of Town Sewage, Irrigation, and Reclamation of Waste Land, being vol. v. of Outlines of Mod ern Farming (6th ed., London, 1839), a semi popular discussion of sewage fanning. from the agricultural point of view, a number of years hack; United States Consular Reports (special, vol. xvii.), Disposal of Sewage and Garbage in Foreign Countries (Washington, 1899), mostly popular, and generally meagre in detail, but con taining, some excel lent descriptive matter. See TER PRESSES; FILTER AND FILTRATION, IRRIGA TION; SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE; WATER SUPPLY.