December 17, 1914] 



NATURE 



433 



ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION. 



AT the International Conference on Smoke Abate- 

 ment held in London in March, 1912, a com- 

 mittee representative of the Smoke Abatement 

 Societies and of the more progressive municipalities 

 of the United Kingdom was appointed, to promote 

 the systematic and scientific study of atmospheric 

 pollution, in the urban and industrial districts of this 

 country. Dr. W. N. Shaw, director of the Meteoro- 

 logical Office, was elected chairman of this committee. 

 Numerous meetings were held in London during 1912 

 and 1913, in order to select a standard method and 

 type of apparatus for collecting the impurities, and 

 also to make preliminary arrangements with the 

 various local authorities who had consented to take 

 part in the investigation. The actual obser\-ations 

 were commenced in twenty-two different cities and 

 towns in March of the present year, using the method 

 and standard form of soot- and dust-gauge recom- 

 mended by the committee. 



The principle of the method used is that of collect- 

 ing the soot and other impurities that fall by their 

 own weight, or are carried down by the rainfall in 



one month, in a large funnel of enamelled iron, with 

 a catchment area of four square feet. These soot and 

 dust gauges are placed in some central position of the 

 town or district on the ground-level, in open spaces 

 free from wind eddies and from abnormal soot and 

 dust. The collected water and deposit are removed 

 once a month, for measurement and examination by 

 the official city chemist, and the following constituents 

 of the rainfall and solid deposit are recorded : — Volume 

 of water collected, total solids, total soluble matter, 

 total insoluble matter, tarry matters, non-tarry car- 

 bonaceous matter, sulphates, chlorides, ammonia and 

 lime. The relationship between the amount of tarry 

 matter and the total carbonaceous matter enables 

 one to judge how far the domestic chimney is re- 

 sponsible for the soot-fall in each locality. Factory 

 furnaces and factory chimneys produce under normal 

 conditions little tarry vapour, for the temperature of 

 the furnaces is sufficiently high to ignite and burn 

 these vapours before they escape into the atmosphere. 

 The greater portion of the tar in town and city smoke 

 comes, therefore, from the coal used for domestic 

 heating and cooking purposes. 



The standard gauge is shown in Figs, i and 2. It 



NO. 2355, VOL. 94] 



consists of a circular open-topped vessel of enamelled 

 iron, supported in a heavy galvanised iron frame, and 

 is provided, as shown, with bottles for holding the 

 month's fall of soot- and dust-laden rain-water. On 

 the first or last day of each month the soot and 

 other solid matter deposited on the interior of the- 

 vessel is rinsed down with some of the collected water, 

 and a new set of bottles are placed in position to 

 receive the new month's rainfall. 



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F:g. 2. — Section of Standard Soot Gange. 



The health authorities of the following towns and 

 cities are joining in the observations : — .Aberdeen,. 

 Ayr, Birmingham, Coatbridge, Exeter, Glasgow, 

 Greenock, Hull, Liverpool, Leith, London (County 

 Council), London (City Corporation), London (Meteoro- 

 logical Office), Malvern. Manchester, Newcastle-on- 

 Tyne, Oldham, Paisley, Plymouth, Sheffield, Stirling, 

 Wishaw, and York. In many cases two or three 

 gauges will be installed at different centres, but at 

 present London is the only city from which returns 



Fig. 3- — Soot Gauge _ used for Lance 

 observaiioofc 



have been published where more than one gauge is 

 in use. 



The committee, which is now receiving and co- 

 ordinating the results, has just published the figures 

 obtained in thirteen of the above observation centres 

 in April and May of this year. Although these are 

 incomplete, owing to the absence of results from 

 Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle, 

 and other important manufacturing towns, the figures. 



