24 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 63 



The Lancet undertook by means of a system of gauges of its own 

 design to estimate the annual deposit in London of all adventitious 

 matter from the atmosphere. In the city proper it was calculated 

 to be nearly five hundred tons to the square mile or about four and a 

 half pounds per acre each day. Were it mere dirt it would not be so 

 serious, but it is charged with gases and fluids of a deleterious char- 

 acter such as sulphates, chlorides, ammonia, and carbon that is more 

 or less oily and tarry. One of the experts employed by the Meteoro- 

 logical Council in connection with the County Council of London, 

 found that the sulphur contents of the coal ranged from one to two 

 per cent and that from half a million to a million tons of sulphuric 

 acid were diffused in the air every year. The loss to property from 

 this erosive influence he estimated at about five and a half million 

 pounds sterling. The effect upon health was a more elusive c|uestion, 

 but stress was laid on the rise in death rate during foggy weather 

 in which coal smoke plays a prominent part. Owing to the activity 

 of the Coal Smoke Abatement Society, under the presidency of Sir 

 William Richmond, atmospheric conditions are greatly improved, 

 and it is claimed that there is a steady diminution in the number 

 and density of the black fogs. 



In an article on London as a Health Resort and as a Sanitary City, 

 by S. D. Clippingdale, M. D., Trans. Royal Society of Medicine, Feb- 

 ruary, 1914, there is an interesting historical account of London air 

 and fog, with a bibliography. 



CARBON DIOXIDE 



Parallel conditions are observed in cities like Leeds, Liverpool, 

 Manchester, and Glasgow, and in less degree in cities like Pittsburgh, 

 Cincinnati, Chicago, Cleveland, and St. Louis, during periods of 

 comparatively calm, and of heavy and humid atmosphere. Egbert ' 

 states that " it has been calculated that for every ton of coal burnt 

 in London something like three tons of carbon dioxide are pro- 

 duced," and as the city's coal consumption is over 30,000 tons per 

 diem, its atmosphere must receive the enormous daily contamina- 

 tion of about 300 tons of soot and 90,000 tons of carbonic acid every 

 day ! How important, then, the adoption of practical means to 

 abate the smoke nuisance ! Engineers assure us that such means 



entirely solved by the abolishment of the use of solid fuel or by the installa- 

 tion of devices and methods which shall prevent the formation of smoke in 

 furnaces, regardless of the nature of the fuel. 



^ Seneca Egbert : A Manual of Hygiene and Sanitation, Philadelphia, 1900. 



p. 74. 



