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67
worked by two pairs of triple expansion Worthington engines. The
sewer cost £30,000, and the engine house, pumps, and boilers
complete, £40,000. Each pair of engines pump 650 gallons per
stroke, or 20 million gallons in 24 hours; and when the compounding
of the beam engines (which pump from the main low level sewer)
is finished the new pumps will be entirely for the district drained by
the Isle of Dogs sewer—viz., Isle of Dogs, North Poplar, Sonth
Bromley, and part of North Bromley—so that flooding will never take
place except under very highly exceptional circumstances, and the
risk of flooding of the district drained by the low level sewer and its
branches minimised. Should the Committee visit the pumping
station they will realize the magnitude of this working, which has the
health and well-being of not only our own district at stake, but that
of the Metropolis. Close to this station will also be seen the foundations
of the new building in which pumps are to be erected which
will deliver into the northern outfall the sewage of West Ham. That
District having established its right to discharge into the metropolitan
outfall, provision will be made to discharge into five sewers, viz., the
three existing ones and the two to be built to relieve the high and
middle levels ; so that pollution of the River Lea shall cease except
when the sewage in the London sewers rises within six inches of
the top of the storm overflow weir at Old Ford. Lately the Council
have raised these weirs by six inches, and should they do away with
them, and make fresh ones, as suggested, at Abbey Mills into the
Channelsea tributary of the Lea, where a storm outlet from the West
Ham district will be under the new system, the health of the Poplar
District will be still further improved by the unavoidable storm metropolitan
sewage being discharged into the tidal portion of the River
Lea instead of at present above the locks. The cost of the West
Ham sewage scheme will be about £73,000. Tenders have been
received for pumping engines and gear, the estimate being £25,000.
The County Council will make a new sewer to Barking for the Silvertown
district, and the condition of the Thames will be still further
improved. It has been singularly interesting to watch the Diphtheria