THE AIR OF STOVE-HEATED ROOMS. 55 



London was supplied almost exclusively with " Wallsend " and 

 other sea-borne coals of a highly bituminous composition soft 

 coals that fused in the grate and caked together. Partly owing 

 to exhaustion of the seams, and partly to the competition of 

 railway transit, we now obtain a large proportion of hard coal 

 from the Midlands. This is less smoky and less sooty, and 

 hence the Metropolitan smoke nuisance has not increased quite 

 as greatly as the population. 



But I will now conclude by repeating that whatever scheme 

 be chosen, "smoke abatement" is to be achieved, not by 

 smoke-consumption, but by smoke-prevention* 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE AIR OF STOVE- HEATED ROOMS. 



WHATEVER opinions may be formed of the merits of the 

 exhibits at South Kensington, one result is unquestionable the 

 exhibition itself has done much in directing public attention 

 to the very important subject of economizing fuel and the 

 diminution of smoke. We sorely need some lessons. Our 

 national progress in this direction has been simply contempti- 

 ble, so far as domestic fireplaces are concerned. 



To prove this we need only turn back to the essays of Ben- 

 jamin Thompson, Count of Rumford, published in London 

 just eighty years ago, and find therein nearly all that the 

 Smoke Abatement Exhibition ought to teach us, both in theory 

 and practice lessons which all our progress since 1802, plus 

 the best exhibits at South Kensington, we have yet to learn. 



This small progress in domestic heating is the more remark- 

 able when contrasted with the great strides we have made in 

 the construction and working of engineering and metallurgical 

 furnaces, the most important of which is displayed in the 

 Siemens regenerative furnace. A climax to this contrast is 

 afforded by a speech made by Dr. Siemens himself, in which he 

 defends our domestic barbarisms with all the conservative 

 inconvincibility of a born and bred Englishman, in spite of his 

 German nationality. 



The speech to which I refer is reported in the Journal of 



