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150
It appears to the Committee that this lamp should not only serve
as an efficient exhaust, hut that it should destroy the offensive elements
in the sewer air by the process of combustion, while the adjoining grids
would be rendered effective inlets of fresh air. The necessity of lighting
the lamp in the day time appears to the Committee a detail which must
necessarily depend on the practical experience of the working and the
presence or absence of complaints.
Your Committee are, therefore, of opinion that the scheme proposed
by the Borough Engineer is well worth a trial, but they are not prepared
to recommend that it be adopted as a whole until its working has been
tested on a smaller scale. It would seem desirable to select an area of
moderate size within which to test the action of Reeves' Apparatus and
Webb's Lamps, and it appears to the Committee that a convenient
locality for the purpose would be the Hillfield Road, Maygrove Road,
District.
To make any satisfactory test is would be necessary to erect Webb's
Lamps at the spots coloured red and numbered 1, 2, and 3 on the map,
and Reeves' Apparatus at the spots coloured blue and numbered 2, 3, 4,
5, and 6. The cost would be as follows: —
3 Webb's Lamps £75
5 Reeves' Apparatus £60
£135
Cleansing of Sewer Walls. It now remains to consider the
observations of Drs. Andrewes and Hurtley as to the cleansing of the
sewer walls. It must be clearly stated that these investigators were for
the purpose of their examinations taken to the most offensive sewers.
It would clearly be an error to conclude that the walls of all the sewers
are as dirty as those which came under their observation. Your
Committee are informed by the Borough Engineer that elsewhere the
walls are free from dirt and slime, and could not be the source of
disagreeable emanations. It has, however, been stated by other observers
that a slime on a sewer wall is an undoubted cause of offensiveness, and
the Committee, therefore, consider that where complaints arise in
connection with a grid, and the walls of the sewer in its vicinity are
found to be dirty, they should be carefully cleansed.