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So great an extent of exposed mud must be injurious to human
health. Persons residing near the north end of the pond, where
it flows among the houses of a crowded population, complain of a
nauseous stench exhaled during the summer months, when the
tide is out, and sometimes for a fortnight together the mud will not
be all covered. Round Jamaica Level the nuisince is not so great,
because the miasmata are emitted into open space, largely diluted,
and probably modified or decomposed by the active vegetation
of the surrounding gardens. Here, too, the cottages of the
inhabitants are far apart, and few in number.
The most common form of complaint connected with the mud
of the mill-pond is ague, in all its varieties, intermittent neuralgia,
and other diseases of that type; a few cases of which are occasionally
seen along the line of the stream, from Cork's gate to its
discharge into the river, and also among the cross branches.
As long as the mill-stream continues in its present state, I would
venture to suggest that as much water as possible be kept in it,
from the simple reason that evaporation from stagnant water cannot
be so deleterious to health as the effluvia from mud baking in the
sun, and all reeking with organic decomposition.
On the 17th June I went over Mr. Bonnor's Patent Manure
Manufactory, at Bull-head Dock. I was accompanied by the principal
and the foreman. Mr. Bonnor's process is as follows:—
One hundred weight of bone, imported from Buenos Ayres, and
previously to being shipped totally deprived of animal matter by
calcination; one hundred weight of animal charcoal; one hundred
weight of powdered coprolite; one hundred weight and a half of
gypsum (sulphate of lime); one hundred weight and a quarter of
strong sulphuric acid, and three pails of water are first well mixed
together in an octagonal wooden vessel. The result of the mixture
is, that the whole mass is speedily converted into a blackish coarse
powder. The object of the addition of sulphuric acid being to
transform the unsoluble superphosphate of lime of the bone and
coprolite into soluble phosphate. During the mixture a slight smell
of sulphuretted gases is given off. The powder is then sifted and
thrown into heaps, which heaps are directly sprinkled over with
common salt (chloride of sodium). By the contact of the salt with
the acid mass a chemical action takes place; free chlorine gas is
given off and acts as a deodorizer. The result of this last stage of
the manufacture is, that there is very little smell in the factory
itself, and none whatever in the neighbouring street. In the first
part of the process, also, the use of calcined bones, deprived entirely
of animal matter, is a great improvement, as the foul stench exhaled
in most of the Patent Manure Factories arises from the
action of the acid upon the putrid organic substances in the bones.
Mr. Bonnor's factory forms a contrast with many others, inasmuch
that it proves that patent manure can be made almost inodorously.
No smell whatever, as I said before, being perceived outside of