842 



SMOKE 



person employed ly such owner or occupier, shall, upon a summary conviction for such 

 offence before any justice or justices, forfeit and pay a sum not more than 51. nor less 

 than 40s., and upon a second conviction for such offence, the sum of Wl., and for 

 each subsequent conviction, a sum double the amount of the penalty imposed for the 

 last preceding conviction: provided always, that nothing in this Act shall extend or 

 apply to any glass-works or pottery-works established and existing within the 

 metropolis before the passing of this Act, with the exception, however, of all steam- 

 engine furnaces and slip-kiln furnaces employed in and belonging to such works 

 respectively, to which furnaces the provisions of this Act shall extend and apply.' 



'An Act to Amend the Smoke Nuisance Abatement (Metropolis) Act, 1853.' (July 

 29, 1856.) 'From and after the 1st day of January 1858, the above-mentioned pro- 

 vision whereby certain furnaces in glass-works and pottery-works were exempted from 

 the operation of the said Act shall be repealed ; and all steam-vessels plying to and 

 fro between London Bridge and any place on the river Thames to the westward of 

 the Nore Light shall be subject to the provisions of the said recited Act relating to 

 steam-vessels above London Bridge. 



'And whereas it is expedient that furnaces employed in public baths and 

 wash-houses should bo included within the provisions of the said recited Act : be it 

 enacted, that from and after the said 1st day of January 1858, every furnace employed 

 or to be employed in any such public baths and wash-houses in the metropolis, 

 although the same shall not be used for the purposes of trade or manufacture, shall 

 be, and the same is hereby included in and made liable to all the provisions of the 

 said recited Act.' 



Among the numerous inventions which have been patented for effecting this pur- 

 pose, with regard to steam-boilers and other large furnaces, very few are sufficiently 

 economical or effective. The first person who investigated this subject in a truly 



S'lilosophical manner was Mr. Charles Wye Williams, managing director of tho 

 ublin and Liverpool Steam Navigation Company, and he also has had tho merit of 

 constructing many furnaces, both for marine and land steam-engines, which thoroughly 

 prevent the production of smoke, with increased energy of combustion, and a more or 

 less considerable saving of fuel, according to the care of the stoker. The specific 

 invention, for which he obtained a patent in 1840, consists in the introduction of a 

 proper quantity of atmospheric air to the bridges and flame-beds of the furnaces, 

 through a greater number of small orifices, connected with a common pipe or canal, 

 whose area can be increased or diminished according as the circumstances of complete 

 combustion may require, by means of an external valve. The operation of the air 

 thus passed in small jets into the half-burned carburetted hydrogen gases over tho 

 fires, is their perfect combustion, the development of all tho heat which they can 

 produce, and the entire prevention of smoke. One of the many ingenious methods 

 in which Mr. Williams has carried out the principles of what he justly calls his 

 Argand furnace, is represented by fig. 1854, where a is the ash-pit of a steam-boiler 



