PROBLEMS IN SMOKE, FUME, AND DUST ABATEMENT. 



Bv F. G. COTTBELL. 



[Witb 37 plates. J 



The problem of maintaining a clear and unpolluted atmosphere 

 is one which grows with our modern civilization and for the most 

 part as a direct result of it. 



There are, to be sure, natural phenomena, such as fog and ex- 

 halations from decaying vegetation, with which we have to- contend 

 in certain instances, but by far the most serious sources of air pollu- 

 tion are man made. 



When coal smoke first came to public notice as the result of the 

 growing use of this fuel, it was looked upon as a distinct and seri- 

 ous menace to the community, and the feeling had grown so strong 

 in England that we find in the time of Queen Elizabeth a law was 

 enacted absolutely prohibiting the burning of coal in London dur- 

 ing the sessions of Parliament. Since then the pendulum of public 

 opinion seems, as usual, to have swung to its greatest elongation in 

 the opposite direction, but is now on its return journey, which, let 

 us hope, will be to a position of rational equilibrium where limitation 

 of the smoke evil to the lowest economically practicable point will 

 be rigidly insisted upon without either apathy or hysteria. 



SMOKE FROM ORDINARY COMBUSTION. 



Although the black smoke resulting from the incomplete combus- 

 tion of coal or oil fuel is not the only artificial offender, it is un- 

 doubtedly the most familiar and perhaps the most important. The 

 rational remedy for the greater part of it is undoubtedly to be 

 found in improved conditions of combustion guaranteeing complete 

 oxidation of these particles of carbon and oily matters within the 

 fire itself, thus eventually discharging them from the chimney as in- 

 visible carbon dioxide and water vapor. 



This can almost invariably be accomplished if one is willing to 

 make the necessary expenditure for equipment and attention to oper- 

 ation.^ This means ample and well-constructed combustion cham- 



1 U. S. Geological Survey Bulletin 334, " The Smoke Problem at Boiler Plants — A 

 Preliminary Report," by D. T. Randall, revised by S. B. Flagg as U. S. Bureau of Mines 

 Bulletin 39. Also U. S. Geological Survey Bulletin 373, " The Smokeless Combustion of 

 Coal in Boiler Furnaces, With a Chapter on Central Heating Plants," by D. T. Randall 

 and II. W. Weeks, revised by Henry Kreisinger as U. S. Bureau of Mines Bulletin 40. 



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