Excerpt from Collection and Disposal of Municipal Refuse AS the human race evolved, and nomadic tribes settled down in permanent abodes to form communities, the disposition of their rejected materials began to require special attention. It is recorded that Moses enjoined his people to carry all offensive and unclean matter outside of the camp and burn it. Garbage was thrown out on the fields, as still done in parts of Asia to-day, to be eaten by dogs or buzzards. All non decomposable and inoffensive waste was usually thrown on low areas or on the roads. Some of the streets in the oldest European cities have been gradually raised several feet by the rubbish dumped on them during centuries. The rapid growth of modern cities, particularly since the develop ment of sanitary science had mastered the problems of water supply and sewerage, brought the refuse removal problem also into prominence. England led this progressive movement in starting works for such removal and disposal in its cities and towns. Germany followed, and advanced the subject in essential directions by its proverbial thorough ness in both theory and practice. France also followed the advance, and was interested chiefly in utilizing the valuable parts of the refuse. America then took up the above experiences and, while trying most of the European methods, developed others, made possible by the greater wastefulness of its people and consequently by a greater per capita production of salable refuse. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.