Report of the Board of Sewerage Commissioners of the City of Chicago for the Half Year Ending June 30 1860

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860. Excerpt: ... and the scour would become so great as, in a short time to establish a new depth, and a new and improved regime in the navigable channel. It would be foreign to our present duties to do more than to add, that we believe the advantages which would result from the construction of a Thames embankment, would not be confined to the improvement of the sanitary condition of the river, but that on the contrary, it would give relief to the overcrowded thoroughfares, improve the commercial value of the river frontages, afford desirable opportunities for the quiet recreation of the people on Sundays and holidays, and contribute greatly to the architectural embellishment of the metropolis. In the course of the investigations we have had occasion to make of this subject, we have been brought to the conclusion that many impurities in tidal rivers proceed not from the admixture of sewage with river waters, but from the admixture of sea water with land water. The inhabitants of London are generally impressed with the opinion that the waters of the sea do not ascend within the limits of the metropolis; and the fact would be established if experiments with solid floats were found to represent the paths taken by the particles of a fluid. This, however, is not the case. The tables we publish in our appendix from the medical officers of the Dreadnought hospital ship, exhibiting the results of analyses made without any reference to our inquiries, confirmed as they are by the investigations of Dr. Letheby, most distinctly prove--u First. That the matters held in suspension by, and dissolved in the river waters exist in the greatest proportion at high water--that is to say, when the intermixture of sea water with the land water is the greatest. They are then nearly four times...