Smoke Abatement. 351 



immediately formed at Johannesburg under the patronage and 

 financial support of the Gold Mining Companies and Chamber of 

 Mines. It should not be difficult in such a comraonsense community 

 as ours to prove that money can be saved and dividends increased by 

 preventing the discharge of the thousands of tons of unconsumed 

 carbon which, I submit, is anything but creditable to our engineers, 

 though it may be profitable to the colliery owners, and save our 

 firemen some trouble. 



We all realise that legislation can be made obstructive and 

 destructive of the very object it has in view, but it cannot be denied, 

 I think, that without legislative power behind it, persuasion, argument 

 and commonsense would be of little avail. After all, engineering 

 science is little more than commonsense, backed up by education and 

 experience, all of which we claim. Yet it seems to me that the 

 practical application of those attributes to our interests, as a 

 community, is sadly neglected. 



Last year the English Coal Smoke Abatement Society issued a 

 series of questions to manufacturers and others, with a view to ascer- 

 taining the causes of waste and the best means of counteracting the 

 same. The Society was, I believe, careful to select many manu- 

 facturers for their enquiries who had at one time or another been 

 serious offenders against the Public Health Act. A typical reply 

 to the circulars acknowledged that even when so-called smokeless 

 coal is used, smokeless combustion cannot be secured unless both boiler 

 and furnace are scientifically designed, and the stoking carried out 

 with intelligence and care. Great circumspection was exercised in 

 the selection of suitable stokers, and special attention had been given 

 to the training of these men at their works, under the close inspection 

 and instruction of their engineers. By way of encouragement, 

 higher wages were paid to firemen who shewed exceptional ability, 

 and it was acknowledged that such increased wages were more than 

 saved by the economy in fuel and the extra power secured by the 

 services of the more intelligent and conscientious stokers. It was 

 further acknowledged that the better class of firemen fully appreci- 

 ated the necessity of studying the elementary science of combustion 

 and the difi'erent classes of fuels, so that it mattered little to him 

 where he was located, as he was more or less conversant with the 

 peculiarities of all classes of fuel, and soon ascertained the amount 

 of coal per square foot of grate surface per hour that should be 

 consumed. Such a man studied the manipulation of his dampers, 

 the regulation of air to his furnaces, the cleaning of his fires, the 

 working of his feed pumps and injectors, and had an intelligent idea 

 of the proper character of his flue gases. 



I have been informed that much of the smoke and consequent 

 waste of fuel along our reef is due to the fact that the boiler power 

 at many mines is inadequate, thus necessitating the forcing of com- 

 bustion. It surely should not be a difficult matter to arrange a 

 system by which firemen should receive a bonus upon the value of 

 fuel saved by their care and intelligence. If such was done, the 

 stoker would be careful to see that bad coal was not supplied to 



