Mr. Moncrieff (who brought forward his scheme without any company-mongering, or claims for patent rights) estimates the saving to London at £2,125,000 per annum, over and above the far greater saving that would result from the abolition of smoke.
In connection with this scheme I may mention a fact that has not been hitherto noted, viz., that we have perforce and unconsciously done a little in this direction already. Formerly London was supplied almost exclusively with “Wallsend” and other sea-borne coals of a highly bituminous composition—soft coals that fused in the grate and caked together. Partly owing to exhaustion of the seams, and partly to the competition of railway transit, we now obtain a large proportion of hard coal from the Midlands. This is less smoky and less sooty, and hence the Metropolitan smoke nuisance has not increased quite as greatly as the population.
But I will now conclude by repeating that whatever scheme be chosen, “smoke abatement” is to be achieved, not by smoke-consumption, but by smoke-prevention.
THE AIR OF STOVE-HEATED ROOMS.
Whatever opinions may be formed of the merits of the exhibits at South Kensington, one result is unquestionable—the exhibition itself has done much in directing public attention to the very important subject of economizing fuel and the diminution of smoke. We sorely need some lessons. Our national progress in this direction has been simply contemptible, so far as domestic fireplaces are concerned.
To prove this we need only turn back to the essays of Benjamin Thompson, Count of Rumford, published in London just eighty years ago, and find therein nearly all that the Smoke Abatement Exhibition ought to teach us, both in theory and practice—lessons which all our progress since 1802, plus the best exhibits at South Kensington, we have yet to learn.
This small progress in domestic heating is the more remarkable when contrasted with the great strides we have made in the construction and working of engineering and metallurgical furnaces, the most important of which is displayed in the Siemens regenerative furnace. A climax to this contrast is afforded by a speech made by Dr. Siemens himself, in which he defends our domestic barbarisms with all the conservative inconvincibility of a born and bred Englishman, in spite of his German nationality.
The speech to which I refer is reported in the “Journal of the Society of Arts,” December 9, 1881, and contains some curious fallacies, probably due to its extemporaneous character; but as they have been quoted and adopted not only in political and literary journals, but also by a magazine of such high scientific standing as Nature (see editorial article January 5, 1882, p. 219), they are likely to mislead many.
Having already, in my “History of Modern Invention, etc.,” and in other places, expressed my great respect for Dr. Siemens and his benefactions to British industry, the spirit in which the following plain-spoken criticism is made will not, I hope, be misunderstood either by the readers of “Knowledge” or by Dr. Siemens himself.