Fumifitglum ; />j/ John Evelyn, I66I. 349 



Watt's suggestions and inquiries. To establish his priority of 

 invenlioii, we shall quote a few lines from the specification of 

 his patent as printed in the Repertory of Artsiox 1796*. " My 

 newly improved methods of constructing furnaces or fire places, 

 consist in causing the smoke or flame of fresh fuel in its way to 

 the flues or chimneys, to pass, together with a current of fresh aii 

 through, over, or among fuel which has already ceased to smokt, 

 or which is converted into coke, charcoal, or cinders, and which 

 is intensely hot; by which means the smoke and grosser parts of 

 the flame by coming into close contact with, or by being brought 

 near unto the said intensely hot fuel, and by being mixed with 

 the current of fresh or unburnt air, are consumed, or converted 

 into heat, or into pure flame, free from smoke." Mr. Watt's 

 specification then goes on to describe the construction of the 

 fire-place and flues, and continues thus : " My said invention 

 consists only in the method of consuming the smoke and in- 

 creasing the heat, by causing the smoke and flame of the fresh 

 fuel to pass through very hot funnels, or pipes, or among, 

 through, or netir fuel which is intensely hot, and which has 

 ceased to smoke, and by mixincj it with fresh air, lolien in these 

 circumstances." 



We do not, however, mean to claim for Mr. Watt the original 

 idea of burning smoke, by causing it to pass through hot fuel, 

 but merely to shew his merit in applying a smoke-consuming 

 apparatus to furnaces of engines, and other fire-places producing 

 large quantities of black and inconvenient vapours. Franklir., 

 as our readers probably know, was a great chimney-doctor, and 

 suggested a similar means of getting rid of smoke in I785I. 

 Bijt, long before Franklin, namely, in 1(582, Mr. Justell read to 

 the Royal Society, " An account of an engine that consumes 

 smoke, shewn lately at Sr, Germains' fair in ParisJ." This 

 " engine," as it is here called, was merely a chaflfing-dish with 

 a descending flue, so that the fumes and smoke of substances 

 burned upon it passed downwards through the ignited fuel and 

 were in that way destroyed. In 1723, too, a Dr. Leutmann of 

 Wirtemburgh, described in his Vulcanus Famulans, " a stove 

 which draws downwards." We thrown out these notices merely 

 to shew the little originality of the contrivances of the Marquis 

 de Chabannes, and others who have burned their smoke by a 

 downward draught of air. 



In the Parliamentary Report above alluded to, there are two 

 inventions for the destruction of smoke, which appear principally 

 to have occnpied the attention of the committee, and which also 

 profess to accomplish that desirable object with a very consi- 

 derable saving of fuel. 



Mr. Brunton is the patentee of one of these inventions; he 



• V«/l. IV. p. as*!. f Mnnoirs of Ihe Life and IVrititigsiif Beniaml 



/■';o/fA/'«, >i.l. vj p. 40H. J I'fiil. Triiiii, 



