THE "CONSUMPTION OF SMOKE." 327 



I have no doubt that ultimately gas will altogether su- 

 persede coal for cooking ; but this and all other scientific 

 improvements in domestic comfort and economy must be 

 impossible with the present generation of uneducated do- 

 mestics, whose brains (with few exceptions) have become 

 torpid and wooden from lack of systematic exercise during 

 their period of growth. 



THE " CONSUMPTION OF SMOKE." 



A GREAT deal has been spoken and written on this sub- 

 ject, but practically nothing has been done At one time 

 I shared the general belief in its possibility, and accord- 

 ingly examined a multitude of devices for smoke-consum- 

 ing, and tried several of the most promising, chiefly in 

 furnaces for metallurgical work, for steam boilers and stills. 

 None of them proved satisfactory, and I was driven to the 

 conclusion that smoke-consumption is a delusion, and fur- 

 ther, that economical consumption of smoke is practically 

 impossible. When smoke is once formed, the cost of burn- 

 ing it far exceeds the value of the heat that is produced by 

 the combustion of its very flimsy flocculi of carbon. It is 

 a fiend that once raised cannot be exorcised, a Frankenstein 

 that haunts its maker, and will not be appeased. 



To describe in detail the many ingenious devices that 

 have been proposed and expensively patented and adver- 

 tised for this object, would carry me far beyond the in- 

 tended limits of this paper. I must not even attempt this 

 for a selected few, as even among them there is none that 

 can be pronounced satisfactory. 



The common idea is that if the smoke be carried back to 

 the fire that produced it, and made to pass through it 

 again, a recombustion or consumption of the smoke will 

 take place. This is a mistake, as a little reflection will 

 show. First, let us ask why did this particular fire pro- 

 duce such smoke? Everybody now-a-days can answer this 

 question, as we all know that smoke is a result of imper- 



