Paris; even after being transferred from the Faubourg Saint-Martin to the foot of the Buttes Chaumont, it was an object of horror and disgust. An army of rats garrisoned the charnier, whilst the basins overflowed with rottenness. This horrible establishment had its clientèle; in 1832, the Préfet de Police, M. Gisquet, found, according to the account of M. Mille, a hideous thing,--individuals who, in the midst of these lakes, fished up again the dead fish. "In 1848, this notorious laystall was installed in the forest of Bondy, where it has undergone various transformations; for many years the basins were encumbered with a stock but very slightly appetizing; to reduce these mountains of refuse to industrial products was a very serious undertaking. After being, by slow desiccation by drying in the air and grinding, transformed into a fertilizer called _poudrette_, they are subjected to various chemical processes; there is extracted from them sulphate of ammonia, etc. The odors which are disengaged during these operations, while not injurious to the health of man, are not of those which leave public opinion indifferent; the girdle of insalubrious establishments which immediately surrounds Paris, individual _dépotoirs_, private _voiries_, manufactories of fertilizing materials, is no less menacing than disgraceful. "A single establishment is an exception to this rule, it is the dépotoir of La Villette, in the neighborhood of the _Marché aux bestiaux_. It would never be thought, from its appearance, that it was the nightly rendezvous of the most infectious scavengers' carts that traverse Paris. A coquettish garden, of a surprising greenness, all flowery and perfumed, charms the eyes; the receiving cisterns conceal themselves under vaults that do not reveal their secret to the first comer. The basin of the water of the Ourcq has the most innocent air in the world, and the return-pumps reveal nothing. "All night long, the dépotoir is visited by vehicles, two or three hundred in number, which arrive in single file, with a mysterious heaviness, to discharge themselves in the cisterns. What a discharge! a thousand to twelve hundred cubic mètres--of matter! "The next morning, all this deposit is relegated to a distance of nine kilomètres, as far as Bondy, by elevating machines: the cisterns are washed out and cleansed by floods of water; the heavy matter which the pumps do not take up is put in casks and taken away to be employed directly in the manufacture of manure, by mixing it with other fertilizing materials. The transportal of the liquid matter to Bondy is effected by means of a machine of twenty-five horse-power, through a conduit thirty centimètres in diameter, which follows the right bank of the canal de l'Ourcq." [Illustration: SERVICE MUNICIPAL FORESTIER: TRANSPLANTATION OF TREE ON THE BOULEVARDS. After a drawing by L. Vauzanges.]