View report page

14
thus in our rivers that dead organic matter becomes the
food of animalculæ, insects, and fish. In a few hours
or days the stinking mass is eaten up by these scavengers
of nature, and thus it would be even in our own river if
we had not destroyed all living beings in that river by
the poisonous emanations of the debris our various factories
cast into the drains, sewers, and rivers. It is a
notorious fact that the number of fish in the river
Thames has been gradually diminishing for many years,
until they have in many places become extinct; and
this fact probably is equally true of the smaller scavengers
which live and thrive on animal exuvise, down to
the very minute creatures only to be seen in the microscope.
All this life has been poisoned—not by the
increase of animal manure, but by the chemical and
mineral poisons poured into our sewers, &c., as the
waste of various factories—soap, gas, and others. Animal
and vegetable decomposition would not poison these
scavengers of nature, but, on the contrary, would feed
and nourish them. Were it not for the poison poured
into our sewers and rivers, the innumerable animalcula;
which would otherwise people them would eat up any
amount of organic exuviae committed to them: nay, it
does not seem improbable that the increasing quantities
of dead organised matter resulting from the increased
population of cities would only increase the amount of
life in animalculse, crustaceae, and fish, if the latter were
permitted to increase as nature dictates. But the
cleansing process, by which our offal should be again
converted into living beings is frustrated by the mineral
poisons which a manufacturing people necessarily create,
but which need not of necessity be cast into our rivers.
If there be any truth in these views, the present experiment
of pouring lime into our sewers will do more
harm than good, by still further destroying nature's
scavengers in the form of crustaceans and animalculæ.