BY SMOKE FROM PUBLIC WORKS. ' 193 



parts in their natural forms, more or less injuriously affect all 

 growths, and chiefly those in shady or sheltered spots where there 

 may be, to some extent, want of light, or defective circulation of air. 

 The wonder, therefore, rather should be, that in the vicinity of 

 large cities and manufacturing centres of industry, and some- 

 times even in their very midst, we see trees and shrubs existing 

 as they do, and sustaining life under such abnormal conditions, 

 with comparative hardihood. But, as will be afterwards ex- 

 plained, nature placed in circumstances so uncongenial may be 

 artificially assisted in many ways, and induced, with a little 

 attention and care to her subjects, to cheer and brighten with 

 her freshness and greenery many a dismal town square or city 

 walk. 



In the immediate neighbourhood of chemical works, from 

 which, by day and by night in ceaseless volume, large quantities of 

 poisonous exhalations are poured forth into the atmosphere, the 

 living functions of vegetation and tree-life are much more seriously 

 crippled than by the mere smoke from coal-consumption near 

 towns, and in such situations herbage of all kinds is stunted and 

 browned, the very grass lingers on a feeble existence, trees are 

 leafless and withered, and in a very few years cease to live. 

 The same remarks apply to plants and trees in close proximity 

 to the calcining hearths of ironstone pits and blast furnaces. The 

 discharge from these of smoke strongly impregnated with the 

 sulphate of alumina is highly deleterious to all life. Blown by 

 a strong and steadily prevailing wind across any district, however 

 fertile and highly farmed and cultivated it may be, the pernicious 

 effects to cereals and green crops is most apparent, and cause 

 great deterioration and damages annually to many farmers. In 

 many parts of Lanarkshire, Fife, and Stirlingshire, the losses 

 caused by these effects are severely felt, and although compensa- 

 tion by pecuniary payment be made in most cases where the 

 damage has been proved, the indirect deterioration to the farmer, 

 from lack of straw, and head, and bulb, from their more stinted 

 growth, caused by the agency of this nuisance, is not compensated 

 for by any pecuniary allowance. Again, in some districts in 

 Ayrshire and West Lothian, as well as in Lanarkshire, the damage 

 caused to dairy farms from the destruction to their produce by 

 the deposit of soot-flakes, from these and other w^orks, such as 

 the shale oil manufactories, is very great; and it can easily be 

 understood that the permanent injury to the perennial occupants 

 of the ground, such as trees and shrul3s, must be also very marked. 

 If it were not for the presence of the chemicals already referred 

 to, in the smoke issuing from these and kindred works, the mis- 

 chief would not be nearly so serious, as the winter's snow and 

 rain bleach the merely smoke-begrimmed trunk and branches, and 

 thus clear out the plugged-up pores to a great extent periodically. 



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