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privilege and health-giving pleasure of swimming and bathing
in this beautiful lake set in such charming and natural
surroundings.
Samples of the water are taken, and will continue to be
taken, at intervals during the season, and submitted for analysis,
in order to ascertain that the water remains sufficiently unpolluted.
Sewerage and Sewage Disposal.—The District is
drained by the dual system. The surface-water sewers discharge
at convenient points into the nearest watercourses, and as the
fields adjoining the smaller courses become converted into
building land, suitable sewers and culverts are provided. Where
possible and necessary the surface-water sewers are laid at such
depths as will enable the subsoil under cellars and basements to
be drained and connected therewith, thus ensuring dry dwellings
and avoiding any accumulations of stagnant water inside or
beneath any dwelling-house.
The main sewage sewers traverse as much as possible the
natural valleys, and run from the higher lands on the west
towards the east, where they are joined to the sewers of the
Edmonton District at three points along the boundary between
the Southgate and Edmonton Districts. By the Edmonton
Local Board Separation Act, 1881, by which Southgate became
a separate District, the Edmonton District is required to receive,
convey, and dispose of the sewage of Southgate. Only one
length of sewer, apart from culverts, is now constructed of
brickwork, that length being the southern main joining the
Edmonton sewers.
The sewers are laid principally in open trenches, but as their
depth is in some cases as much as 30 feet below the surface, the
driving of short tunnels as headings is occasionally resorted to.
Pymmes Brook is crossed in several places by means of inverted
syphons. These have been constructed with iron pipes from
special designs, which permit the smallest area of sewage being
exposed in the manholes, and have worked very satisfactorily.
The sewers are also carried at several points under the New
River, and a few years ago the late New River Company insisted
upon a special system being adopted, by which large cast-iron shield