Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society » Cleaning the Paris Sewers

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March 24th, 2006

Cleaning the Paris Sewers

If you’ve ever visited the Musee des Egouts (Museum of the Sewers) in Paris, you know the extraordinary secret of how the Paris sewer system used to be cleansed of its sludge. Periodically, a huge wooden ball, just smaller than the tubular tunnel, would be dropped into the system directly behind the congested region. The buildup of water pressure behind the ball would force it through the tunnel until it emerged somewhere downstream pushing a mass of filthy sludge.

More at SewerHistory.org, and in the book Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations.

(Apologies to whoever’s flickr image we have appropriated)

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