Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Fig. 1.—Construction of Peck’s Run Sewer, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frontispiece.
SEWERAGE
AND
SEWAGE TREATMENT
PREFACE
This book is a development of class-room and lecture notesprepared by the author for use in his classes at the Universityof Illinois. He has found such notes necessary, since amongthe many books dealing with sewerage and sewage treatmenthe has found none suitable as a text-book designed to cover theentire subject. The need for a single book of the characterdescribed has been expressed by engineers in practice, and bystudents and teachers for use in the class-room. This bookhas been prepared to meet both these needs. It is hoped thatthe searching questions propounded by students in using theoriginal notes, and the suggestions and criticisms of engineersand teachers who have read the manuscript, have resulted in atext which can be readily understood.
The ground covered includes an exposition of the principlesand methods for the designing, construction and maintenance ofsewerage works, and also of the treatment of sewage. In coveringso wide a field the author has deemed it necessary to include somechapters which might equally well appear in works on otherbranches of engineering, such as the chapter on Pumps andPumping Stations. Special stress has been laid on the fundamentalsof the subject rather than the details of practice, althoughillustrations have been drawn freely from practical work. Thequotation of expert opinions which may be in controversy, or thecitation of examples of different methods of accomplishing thesame thing, has been avoided when possible in order to simplifyexplanations and to avoid confusing the beginner.
The work is to some extent a compilation of notes and quotationswhich have been collected by the author during yearsof study and teaching the subject. Credit has been givenwherever due, and at the same time references have pointed outthe original sources whenever possible. These references, whichvihave been supplemented by brief bibliographies at the end ofcertain chapters, will be useful to the student and engineer interestedin further study. Occasionally the original reference hasbeen lost or the phraseology of a quotation has been so alteredby