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15
How far these minute creatures can consume the large
amount of animal and vegetable matter which constitute
the refuse of a large city, is a question I will not pretend
to answer; but in the enormous problem which now
demands our full attention—how to defecate our river—
it appears to me that we should not entirely lose sight
of that mode of purification which we see in nature,
where nothing is wasted—where life as soon as extinguished
by the death of one creature gives birth to
others, these in their turn promoting the breed of fishes,
which again administer to the wants of man. I do not
think it too bold a speculation to conceive, that, if we
did not poison the small fry of our rivers by mineral
debris, our estuaries and seas might abound with fish
almost sufficient to compensate for the waste of those
animal exuviee which in a well-ordered state of things
ought to be returned to the exhausted land. In the
last century Brindley, the great engineer who constructed
the Bridgwater and other canals, defined the
use of rivers to be " feeders of navigable canals : " in
the present day we might define them as receptacles for
the contents of water closets.
The present disgusting state of our river necessarily
causes alarm; and, although hitherto it has not been so
injurious to health as we should have expected, the
probability is it may become so. We have, during
the last three years, constructed so many water closets,
and sent their contents into the river, that we must
impute to this the increased stench of the two last summers.
The intercepting drainage, when in operation,
may carry the stench farther from us; but it is to be
feared much will return by the tides; and if there be
truth in the opinion, that the smell in a great measure
results from the increasing quantity of sea water in the
London portion of the Thames, there is reason to fear
that this cause will be increased by deviating from the