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NEW INVENTIONS.

HAGEN'S PATENTS.-IMPROVEMENTS IN WASTE AND SOIL- PIPES, AND THE ODOURLESS WATER-CLOSET.

By the disconnection of soil- and waste-pipes from the external drains and sewers, sanitary engineers have succeeded in excluding sewer gas from dwellings; but to all acquainted with the state of waste- and soil-pipes now in use, it, will be only too apparent that a large amount of odour, arising from the orifices of various receptacles for foul water, still emanates even where special attention is directed to the thorough cleansing of the fittings or receptacles themselves. This is owing in a great measure

EXHAUST

BASIN

are fixed a foot or more below the orifice of fitting; this in itself admits of the fouled surface of pipe being a source of contamination. It is well known that any amount of water flushing will never remove the slimy and corroded lining from the inside of foul pipes, and yet these things are allowed to exist in some of the largest houses. By an improved arrangement which has been patented by Mr. F. W. Hagen, of 16 Parliament Street, Hull, the branch waste- and soil-pipes are made thoroughly self-ventilating, and accessible from the outside of dwelling. They are as efficient as they are simple, as will be seen from the following description, and have already been severely tested in numerous places where they have been fixed during the last twelve months, and found thoroughly efficient. Messrs. Reeves & Hagen state that there are already over sixty in use in connection with w.c.'s, baths, sinks, and basins.

The following is a description of the invention, illustrated below:-From within two inches of the surface of the bottom of the slop receptacle-be it bath, basin, sink, &c. the branch-waste is made to rise either in a straight or curved line direct through the external wall, towards the vertical or main soil-pipe or waste, which latter should be ventilated at both ends. The advantage gained by this arrangement is that whilst the water has to travel as it were upwards in its course towards the main pipe, yet at an easier gradient than an ordinary S trap, any noxious vapour generated in the pipes is allowed to follow its own

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ACCESS

AIR

URINAL

SINK

ODOURLESS

W.C

VALVE W.C

bent and will be induced to rise outwards away from the water-seal, and up the ventilating pipe. At the junction of the branch with the vertical or main pipe and opposite the end of the branch-waste, a gullet-formed opening is provided, which gives direct access the entire length of the waste- and main-pipe, and is covered with a closefitting hinged flap or screw cap. At the receptacle end of the branch waste-pipe the level of the water-seal is within an inch of the surface of the bottom of receptacle, and is sealed with a 2 in. dip, which prevents any possibility of effluvia forcing its way through, with a clear way over it up through the main ventilating pipe with exhaust cowl on the top. For water-closets the branch soil-pipe dips 2 in. into the water-seal of the basin, the top of the branch rising longitudinally towards the main soil-pipe. It is made without solder or seam, within the building, and being dipped into the water-seal of the basin at the receptacle end no escape of soil-pipe air can possibly enter the

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to the invariable practice of fixing the branch waste- or soil-pipe with direct fall from the fitting to the main soilpipe; and though a syphon trap be placed at or near the top of the waste-pipe, this will not always insure the total exclusion of soil-pipe air, for they are not unfrequently unsealed by syphonage and evaporation, and then there is a clear inlet for foul air through a length of fouled pipe. Even when this does not occur, the water of the trap becomes impregnated with the emanations from the foul-coated pipes rising and accumulating at the top of waste where the water-seal is fixed. Again, these traps

building, as it will be drawn upwards and be carried off by the ventilating pipe without. An additional advantage is that the arrangement is less expensive than the old method, requiring shorter lengths of branch pipes, and several can be branched on to the main soil-pipe without the slightest risk.

Messrs. Reeves & Hagen have also patented an Odourless w.C., which appears to meet with general satisfaction.

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INVENTION OF A NEW PAN-WAGGON. THERE has recently been patented, by Mr. W. Barton, of Wolverhampton, a new sanitary van, or pan-waggon, which is claimed to possess advantages over those now in use, and which has recommended itself to those who have seen it on this account. The van is built in sections, each of which is perfectly water-tight, being constructed of galvanised iron. Only two pans are exposed at one time, while the men are changing them, and they are inclosed by self-adjusting doors, which close hermetically, rendering it impossible for any odour to escape. Even though composed of iron, the van is lighter in weight than the wooden ones now in use by the Wolverhampton Corporation, and is very little, if any, more expensive. By the use of this van it is considered that the work can be done in the daytime without public inconvenience. Even should the excreta leak from the pans, or overflow in the waggon, it would not affect the exterior, as it would be caught in the bottom of the van and discharged by means of a plughole at the depot. The van has been highly approved of by the Corporation of Wolverhampton.

A RUSSIAN HYGIENIC MACHINE. IN the Russian Court at the Inventions Exhibition, under Group III., is to be seen an ingenious contrivance, patented by Dr. K. Proussak. It consists of a wooden seat, with an ordinary dished hole and hinged flap, adaptable to a common privy. The flap, which opens sideways, is raised or lowered by means of a cast-iron handle fixed to its outer edge. The two sketch diagrams below respectively show the apparatus in section when closed, and when opened for use. When opened, as seen in fig. I, a

FIC. I.

strong steel spring attached to the upper side of the flap forces down an arm, which acts upon a lever, to which is attached a hollow hemisphere of zinc or other metal. This hemisphere fits tightly into the lower end of the open metal pan which serves as a basin, thus preventing any cold up-draught.

FIC.2.

the end of the lever, thus releasing the hemisphere from under the pan, and allowing the contents to fall through.

The dotted lines on the right side of each diagram show a receiver and a pipe, by which water may be poured through the apparatus while the flap remains closed.

AUSTIN'S POROUS DISINFECTOR. THIS useful invention has now passed into the hands of Messrs. Sharp & Co., the Sanitary and Ventilating Engineers, 4 Holborn Circus, E. C. It may be described as follows. A porous cell, hermetically sealed, and containing any crystal disinfectant (e.g. Pot. Permang.) is placed in the water-cistern supplying the closet. In a short time the action of the water on the porous cell (endosmosis) dissolves very gradually portions of the crystals nearest the circumference of the cell, and, on the principle of exosmosis, the water in which the "disinfector" is placed becomes impregnated with disinfectant, thus forming an efficient disinfecting fluid, which is always ready for use.'

Originally designed for the above and other allied uses, it is now proposed by Mr. Sampson Low, B.A., F.M.S. (with the full concurrence of the original patentee), to introduce the 'disinfector' in a slightly modified form, by which means it is rendered most suitable to the everyday requirements of medicine.

The disinfector' is now made, filled with any disinfectant or antiseptic crystals, in such a size (3 in. x 1 in.) that it can be easily carried about in a surgeon's instrument case. By merely dipping the 'disinfector' in water an efficient disinfecting fluid can readily be obtained.

It is a most convenient method of practising antisepsis, and no hospital-ward should be without its 'disinfector.' It is, moreover, very economical; one 'disinfector' lasts a year, allowing for daily usage, and costs but half-a-crown. The appliance can be seen in action at the establishment of Messrs. Sharp & Co., 4 Holborn Circus, London, E. C.

A CONSIDERABLE DIFFERENCE OF OPINION.-At the last meeting of the Northallerton Rural Sanitary Authority, it was proposed to appoint Mr. Lumley as Medical Officer of Health at £40 per annum instead of £60; but a letter from the Local Government Board was read, stating that that amount would not be a fair remuneration for the efficient discharge of his important duties,' upon which the Clerk was instructed to write, in answer, and state that the Authority was unanimously of opinion that £40 was ample to secure the proper discharge of the duties of the office.'

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REVIEWS.

A BATCH OF TEXT-BOOKS ON PUBLIC
HEALTH.

(1) The Law Relating to Local and Municipal Government, comprising the Statutes relating to Public Health, Municipal Corporations, Highways, Burial, Gas and Water, Public Loans, Compulsory Taking of Lands, Tramways, Electric Lighting, Artisans' Dwellings, &c.. Rivers' Pollution, the Clauses Consolidation Acts, and many others. By C. NORMAN BAZALGETTE, M.A., and GEORGE HUMPHREYS, B.A., Parristers-at-Law. Pp. 1762. Super-royal Svo. London: Stevens & Sons, 119 Chancery Lane, W.C. 1885. Price 34. 35.

(2) The Public Health Act, 1875. Annotated, with an Appendix containing the various Incorporated Statutes. By W. G. LUMLEY, Esq., LL.M., Q.C., and EDMUND LUMLEY, B.A. Second Edition, with very extensive additions, by WM. PATCHETT, Esq., Q.C., and ALEXANDER MACMORRAN, Esq., M.A. Pp. 1075. London: Shaw & Sons, Fetter Lane. Price 36s.

(3) The Laws Concerning Public Health. Edited by WM. ROBERT SMITH, M. D., B.Sc., F.R.S. Edin. Pp. 812. London: Sampson Low, Marston, & Co. (4) Handy Guide to Public Health. By THOS. WHITESIDE HIME, B.A., M.B., Medical Officer of Health for the Borough of Sheffield. Pp. 207. London: Baillière, Tindal, & Cox. (5) Sanitary Law: a Digest of the Sanitary Acts of England and Scotland. By H. AUBREY HUSBAND, M. B., C.M. Pp. 240. Edinburgh: E. & S. Livingstone. WE are constantly being asked to advise as to the best text-book on the subject of public hygiene now in the market intending purchasers being confused and distracted, as well they may be, by the perpetual flow of new text-books, and hand-books, and pocket-books, and summaries by a multitude of eminent hands. Our answer has been, and must be, that very much depends upon the purpose for which the book is needed. If for the elucidation of subtle points of law and learned speculations as to what was the intention of Parliament in using a particular form of words, then one of the text-books by sanitary lawyers must be employed; if a less formal exposition of the law be desired, then one of the summaries which have been prepared will be useful; if not only sanitary law but sanitary practice be sought for, then one of the standard manuals of hygiene must be acquired. But no one book that we can name contains a sufficient leaven of all these. Yet it must constantly happen that a sanitarian wants to know not only the canons of hygiene, but how these canons have been crystallised into law, and how the exact language of the law has been interpreted by the Courts of the realm. As has been well said, 'To hit the happy medium, to be neither too technical nor too slatternly, neither too sketchy nor too hair-splitting, should be the characteristics of the perfect handbook of sanitary law.' And this, it must be confessed, notwithstanding the imposing array of books at the head of this notice, has yet to be written.

It would be unfair to pit the books before us one against another, when their professed object is so very different. We may take it, however, that they are one and all designed for the enlightenment and instruction of their devotees. There are evidences in almost all of a sincere desire to be helpful, and we should hesitate to say of any one of them that there was any conscious padding. But in one case, at least, a little hardening of the editor's heart might have saved some pages of a swollen volume for the insertion of the indispensable but crowded-out index. The central figure of each book is, of course, the Public Health Act; but there is endless variety not only in the adornments with which it is bedecked, but in the supernumeraries which different stage-managers regard as necessary for its befitting exhibition.

To gauge the value or merit of books by their weight in pounds avoirdupois is, perhaps, hardly a scientific method of appraisement; and yet the temptation is irresistible to point to Messrs. Bazalgette and Humphreys' book (1) as the finished product of our wisdom in sanitary legislation. It transgresses by nearly two pounds the laws of the Postmaster-General as to the limit of weight for the parcels post; it contains nearly 1,800 closely-printed pages of super-royal octavo; and it reproduces some 150 statutes affecting local and municipal government. The heart of the boldest reviewer may fail within him as he essays to criticise this younger brother of the Post Office London Directory.

Mr. Lumley's successors, whose book (2) has a more restricted range, manage to escape with as few as eighty other Acts besides the principal Act. We are quit of the Public Health Act and its exposition by page 445; the remaining 630 pages are devoted to the 'appendix.' The wealth of material begets in Dr. Smith such despair that he forbears from criticism or exposition altogether, and uses up his 800 pages with a heterogeneous mass of Acts more or less connected with the public health, and with a motley crowd of circulars and model by-laws, not arranged in any way that is understandable, and provided with no key in the shape of an index. Such a book it is hopeless to criticise, except in the direction of pointing out its omissions or redundancies. The Scotch public health law -always a sealed book except to the elect-is insufficiently set forth by Dr. Smith; and the Artisans' Dwellings Act of 1868-perhaps the most important of the series of Dwellings Acts-is omitted, though those of 1875, 1879, and 1882 are printed in full. It is not easy to understand why the Contagious Diseases Acts should be set forth in extenso, whilst the Registration of Births and Deaths Act is held unworthy even of mention. On the whole, we are sorry not to be able to recommend Dr. Smith's book as a useful or a practical manual of ready reference.

The scheme of the two more important works (I and 2) under consideration is essentially different. Messrs. Bazalgette and Humphreys aim at comprehending within two covers all the laws which urban and rural authorities and municipal corporations are called upon to administer.' Thus the Public Health Act, whilst holding the first place in their thoughts and in their pages, has to take its chance of annotation and exposition with the rest of the Acts. Messrs. Patchett and Macmorran, on the other hand, go much more into detail over the Act of 1875, and only garnish it, as it were, with the eighty odd other Acts which are more or less incorporated with it. Whilst, therefore, for greater convenience of review, we group the two books together, it must be understood that they are not really comparable, and that it would be unfair to say of either of them that it was better than the other. If the typography of No. 2 is clearer than that of No. 1 (the microscopic difference of type between the text and the notes of the latter is occasionally very confusing), the index of No. I is incomparably more complete and businesslike than that of No. 2. And, after all, by what is a man advantaged if he possess the most complete and accurate of works, and have not a sensibly compiled key to it?

Messrs. Bazalgette and Humphreys announce with a certain pride in their preface that they give 142 statutes and substantial parts of statutes. The table of contents accounts, indeed, for as many as 141, and there are at least three Acts-the Labouring Classes Dwelling Houses Act, 1867 (page 1,262), the Public Libraries Amendment Act, 1866 (page 723), and the Poor Law Act, 1879 (page 1,370)-which, though given in full in their proper places, have unaccountably slipped out of the table of contents. Other Acts there are, such as the Epidemic and other Diseases Prevention Act of 1883 and the Public Health (Fruit Pickers') Lodgings Act of 1882, which, though not considered worthy of mention either in the index or in the table of contents, may be found with a little research on pages 110 and 215. We would venture to suggest to the learned authors that students of this book may sometimes desire to refer to the text of a particular Act, a reference

to which they may come across in promiscuous reading, and that it would be worth while to give a definite and separate line in the index to Acts of this description, now effectually concealed from the vision of the ignorant. And in this connection it may be pointed out that Sect. 248 of the Public Health Act directs that the accounts of every rural sanitary authority shall be audited in the same manner' as the accounts of guardians are audited. Might it not have been well, in order to have completed the story, to have described in the book the manner in which such accounts are to be audited by printing some of the clauses of the Acts of 1844, 1848, 1849, and 1866 which relate to this question?

On the whole, we have no reason to quarrel with the statutes printed in the volume, except, perhaps, on the ground that the relation of some of them with local government is very remote. We have only discovered one Act-the Baths and Washhouses Act of 1882--which is actually omitted from the book, and which we could have desired to see included. It is true that this Act is a very short one; but it is as long as some of those deemed worthy of separate mention, and it makes an alteration of some importance in Sects 24 and 27 of the Baths and Washhouses Act of 1846, by giving power to local anthorities to provide baths, &c., not only within the district, but also in the immediate neighbourhood thereof. The Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act of 1878 is really chiefly important for the Orders of Council made under it, and these, we think, might use fully have been printed. Probably the memorandum as to the sanitary requirements of cemeteries, promised on page 1,145. was crowded out at the end, but it is infinitely more to the purpose than the circular on the same subject which the authors find room to print on pages 1,552-54. The circular as to annual reports of medical officers of health, printed on page 1,486, is now out of date. It would have been well to print the regulations issued by the Local Government under Sect. 2 of the Canal Boats Act of 1877 (page 1,470). The preface promises the standing orders of the House of Parliament relating to local Bills and Provisional Orders,' and these might, if given properly, have proved, as hoped by the authors, of practical value. But the only standing orders printed are those relating to provisional orders, and a stray clause as to reports by select committees. Supposing standing orders to claim a place in the book, it would be needful to give the classes into which Parliament divides local Bills, the advertisements in the local papers and in the London Gazette that are necessary before such Bills can be introduced, the notices and applications to owners and occupiers, the different dates for deposit of plans and copies of Bills, the Government departments to which plans and Bills are to be sent, and the other important requirements, neglect of any one of which may prove fatal to a Bill.

We have now exhausted the wormwood in our inkbottle, and are free to speak in terms of the highest praise for the really remarkable perseverance and patience with which Messrs. Bazalgette and Humphreys have gone through their 142 Acts, and have tried to make out of them an understandable code of sanitary law. We have dipped into their annotations in all sorts of places, and have usually found them accurate and helpful. In cases of doubt they are judiciously silent, where less cautious commentators commit themselves to questionable interpretations. We cannot complain of this, and, indeed, the scheme of the work puts out of the question any argumentative reference in detail to particular clauses. The special value of the book will probably prove to be its inclusion of all Acts which can conceivably affect local municipal administration, the careful cross-references which make up a large proportion of the notes, and the very complete and serviceable index. Faultless it could perhaps hardly be expected to be; the possibilities of error in a technical volume of 1,800 pages being amazing. The criticisms on which we have ventured have certainly been made from no lack of appreciation of the laborious and careful work which Messrs.

Bazalgette and Humphreys have bestowed upon the book. and the insignificant character of the blemishes pointed out may inferentially be taken as a tribute to the great merit of the volume as a whole. But really the publishers ought to supply a special lectern with the book, if they expect it to come into general use. One thinks twice before lifting from its shelf a book which turns the scale at something like eight pounds and a half.

Nor is Messrs. Patchett and Macmorran's book quite free from the imputation of unwieldiness, though its portability is greater than that of the ponderous tome of the other brace of lawyers. Perhaps it is necessary that all the eighty Acts in the second edition of Lumley' should be printed in extenso; but we are not sure that those who are specially interested in the exact verbiage of Acts of Parliament on a particular subject may not prefer to search for minutiae of legislative language in special manuals, such as Mr. Dalton's book on Local Loans,'

and Messrs. Michael and Will's book on 'Gas and Water.' This, however, is largely a matter of taste; and for those who like to invest in a single law book about the Public Health Act and its incorporated statutes, probably Messrs. Patchett and Macmorran's volume is as good and complete a book as could be found. But it is not without its defects. The first edition of the work was brought out in a hurry by Mr. Lumley immediately after the passing of the Public Health Act, and bore, as was to be expected, evidences of hasty compilation. If the learned author had been alive to have himself revised the second edition, the errors and crudities of the first would no doubt have been set right. But the present editors (whom not to know is perhaps to argue oneself unknown, but of whom it is safe to say that their forensic distinction has not been won by outward and visible erudition in sanitary cases) are probably unacquainted with the official details familiar to Mr. Lumley. These, trivial in themselves, are nevertheless important to be given correctly. For example, the Public Works Loan Commissioners do not, as stated on page 279, lend money at 31 per cent. The lowest rate at which they will make advances is, and always has been, 31⁄2 per cent.; and the scale of charges quoted in the footnote to Sect. 243 has for some considerable time been quite out of date. There is a newer set of instructions as to applications for provisional orders than that quoted on page 348, and numerous other instances might be cited of want of touch with official documents and practice. It is but fair to say, however, that on all the important clauses of the Public Health Act, especially those that lend themselves to ingenious legal permutations, Messrs. Patchett and Macmorran's notes are very full and precise. They have taken enormous pains to give the very latest decisions of the Courts, even going so far as to reprint some pages for this purpose. We cannot, however, compliment them on their chronological arrangement of the appended Acts correlated to the Act of 1875. Surely it would have been simpler to print all the Artisans' Dwellings Acts together, the Waterworks Clauses Acts together, and so forth. Facility of reference is an indispensable desideratum in all text-books of this description, but it appears to be almost the last thing that compilers can bring themselves to consider.

The other books (4 and 5) mentioned at the head of these observations need no extended notice. Dr. Hime's little gold-edged guide is the best of the two, but it is marred by one or two serious errors. On p. 146 he stultifies his own remarks on p. 137 as to the Alkali Acts; and on p. 145 his remarks on p. 122 as to the Canal Boats Act. A descriptive list of circulars issued by the Local Government Board is quite useless for any practical purpose. But the tables and information on various sanitary points-such as rainfall, water analysis, soils, and the like -are very capitally done, and the Public Health Act itself is annotated carefully and intelligently. Dr. Husband's book (5) is very confusing, with its objectionable initials on every page (L. A. standing for Local Authority, and so forth), and his interpretations of the law are not

always legally defensible. There is no index and no table of contents. For reference purposes the book is therefore useless as a digest of the Sanitary Acts of England and Scotland.'

L'Hygiène dans la Construction des Habitations Privées. Par le DR. FÉLIX PUTZEYS et M. E. PUTZEYS. Librairie Polytechnique, Liège.

THIS work, which is the joint production of 2 doctor and an engineer, is a satisfactory résumé of the better known works upon the subject that have appeared in England, France, and Germany. If we may divide it into two parts, theoretical and practical, for each of which, as we are informed, one author is separately responsible, we should say that the doctor's half is much better done than the engineer's.

The theoretical requirements of each division of the work are well stated, but when the practical application of these requirements has to be made we find an enumeration of the principal systems or appliances, but we are left to discover their relative merits very much by ourselves. This want of guidance will be found to be rather embarrassing by the young student, for whose benefit the work was primarily designed.

In

The book is divided into eight chapters. The first chapter is upon the selection of a site for a house. speaking of the temperature of soils some experiments are referred to which were carried out at Brussels to ascertain the temperature of the subsoil at different depths beneath the surface. The result of these experiments accords very nearly with that obtained in a similar manner in England. 'In Brussels (MM. Putzeys say) a thermometer, placed at 3.88 mètres underground, attained its maximum in September and its minimum in April. Another thermometer, sunk to a depth of 24 feet, marked the highest temperature on December 15, and the lowest on July 15. As you descend the difference between winter and summer diminishes more and more, and it ceases to be perceptible in temperate zones at a distance of from 17 to 26 mètres from the surface. At this level the uniform degree of heat is about equal to the average temperature of the locality.'

A reference is made to the observations of M. Delbrück (de Halle), and of M. Pfeiffer (de Weimar), who consider that they have verified the existence of a connection between the temperature of the soil and the development or extinction of choleraic epidemics.

After referring to the undoubted decrease in pulmonary consumption in England wherever works of deep drainage have been carried out, MM. Putzeys make the following statement about the military prison of Möllersdorf, near Vienna, on the authority of Nowak :-The prisoners before being sent there had to undergo a medical examination, and they were never retained there if they showed any disposition towards tubercular consumption; and yet among 200 prisoners we find as many as 50 deaths every year, although the diet and occupations of the prisoners, and the general attention bestowed upon them are superior to those to be met with in other military prisons. This frightful mortality is almost entirely caused by consumption, to which disease even the most hardy fall victims. The soil of this prison is clayey, and is saturated with water. Moisture oozes from all the walls, and betrays itself all over the building by a mouldy smell.' Dreadful, indeed, as is such a state of affairs, we are not told of the undertaking of any remedial measures.

The subdivisions treating of damp-proof courses and hollow walls are tolerably complete, and that on ground air,' or the air contained in various soils, is a useful summary of our knowledge upon the subject. We were in some doubt as to the identity of the Mr. Knight whose opinions are quoted at p. 46; but we find from a footnote that Knight's Annotated Model By-laws are referred to.

Chapter II. refers to building materials. Speaking of the facility with which air passes through many materials

which we are apt to regard as impervious, he quotes the rather startling experiment of Von Pettenkofer. Upon an impervious base he constructed with bricks and ordinary mortar a portion of wall having a superficial surface of I square mètre, and, being o'30 mètre thick (about I foot); each of the larger faces was covered with a sheet of metal having a small tube attached to it at its centre, and the three exposed edges were carefully covered with an impervious coating. It was found that on blowing down one of the tubes the current of air that escaped from the other extinguished a candle readily. The important subject of humidity in dwellings is treated of at considerable length, with detailed explanations of various ways of obviating or curing this dangerous defect.

Chapter III. treats of the house and its adjuncts. The height that should be permitted to a house in proportion to the width of the street upon which it abuts is a subject whose consideration leads our authors to lay down some very sensible rules. In Paris it appears that the following proportions have to be preserved.

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These regulations are condemned as being insufficient for the purpose of providing sufficient air and light to the houses, and the learned work of Ad. Vogt, of Bern, is referred to as being the only treatise that has put this subject upon a satisfactory basis. This painstaking writer assumes that every building should be exposed to the sun for at least four hours upon the shortest day of the year, and gives a valuable table by which the angle of incidence may be calculated for various latitudes.

The advice given upon the disposition of the various apartments of the house and of such adjuncts as laundry and stables is clear and to the point.

Chapter IV., which treats of warming, contains a tolerably complete account of grates, stoves, and of systems of warming by hot air, hot water, gas, and steam. The stove invented by the ingenious M. Wazon is well worth attention. It professes to be smoke-consuming, at the same time that it extracts the foul air from the room, and delivers fresh air, warmed or cool, as may be desired.

Chapter V. treats of ventilation. Chapter VI. is a fairly exhaustive study of systems of lighting by oil, gas, and electricity. Chapter VII. takes up the subject of water supply; and in Chapter VIII. the disposal of domestic waste (sewage, waste water, ashes, &c.), is considered in detail. The various systems of sewage disposal are divided as follows :

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1. Water carriage.

a. Single system of sewers.
b. Double system of sewers.

2. Dry disposal.

a. Earth closets.

b. The Goux system.

c. Ash closets.

3. Other systems.

a. Fixed cesspits.

b. Movable cesspits.

c. Liernur's pneumatic system.

The first of these three divisions of the subject is treated of at great length; drains, waste and soil pipes, traps, closets of all kinds (illustrating most of the best known

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