The St. Lawrence State Hospital was built and is operated under the supervision of a board of managers, whose fidelity to it is described as phenomenal by the people of Ogdensburg.  The members of the executive committee, Chairman William L. Proctor, Secretary A.E.  Smith, John Hannan and George Hall, especially Mr. Proctor and Mr. Smith, have given as much time and attention to it as most men would to a matter in which they had a business interest.  The result has been a performance of contract obligations in which the State got its money’s worth.  The people of Ogdensburg, too, have taken a great interest in the institution.  Such men as Mayor Edgar A. Newell, ex-Collector of the Port of New York Daniel Magone, Postmaster A.A.  Smith, Assemblyman George R. Malby, and his predecessor, Gen. N.M.  Curtis, who was the legislative father of the hospital scheme; Frank Tallman and Amasa Thornton take as much pride in the institution that the State has set down at the gates of their city as they do in their cherished and admired city hall, which combines a tidy little opera house with the quarters necessary for all public and department uses.

The executive staff of the hospital consists of Dr. P.M.  Wise, medical superintendent; Dr. J. Montgomery Mosher, assistant:  Dr. J.A.  Barnette and Steward W.C.  Hall.—­N.Y.  Sun.

* * * * *

THE ELECTRICAL PURIFICATION OF SEWAGE AND CONTAMINATED WATER.

[Footnote:  Recently read before the Chemical Society, London.  From the Journal of the Society.]

By WM. WEBSTER.

The term sewage many years ago was rightly applied to the excremental refuse of towns, but it is a most difficult matter to define the liquid that teems into our rivers under the name of sewage to-day; in most towns “chemical refuse” is the best name for the complex fluid running from the sewers.

It is now more than ten years since I first commenced a series of experiments with a view of thoroughly testing various methods of purifying sewage and water contaminated with putrefying organic matter.  It was while investigating the action of iron salts upon organic matter in solution and splitting up the chlorides present by means of electrolysis, that I first became aware of the importance of precipitating the soluble organic matter in such manner that no chemical solution should take the place of the precipitated organic matter.  If chemical matter is substituted for the organic compounds, the cure is worse than the disease, as the resulting solution in most cases sets up after precipitation in the river into which it flows.

My first electrolytical experiments were conducted with non-oxidizable plates of platinum and carbon, but the cost of the first and the impossibility of obtaining carbon plates that would stand long-continued action of nascent chlorine and oxygen made it desirable that some modification should be tried.  I next tried the effect of electrolytic action when iron salts were present, but did not think of using iron electrodes until after trying aluminum.  I found that the action of non-oxidizable electrodes was most efficacious after the temperature of the fluid acted upon rose 4 deg. or 5 deg.; but the cost of working made it impossible on a large scale.