The Money That Goes Up the Chimney 



What smoke costs the cities of the world 

 Illustrations by Bureau of Smoke Regulations of the City of Pittsburgh 



Smoke issuing from the plant of a great 

 steel company. This was a daily occurrence 



"'' I ^HERE was a time," said the great 

 I German chemist, Dr. Otto N. Witt, 

 in the course of an address a few years 

 ago, "when smoke was considered a neces- 

 sary evil, which had to be endured. After a 

 while smoke began to be looked upon as a 

 nuisance, and war was declared against it 

 by those who suffered from its disagreeable 

 properties; but now we know that smoke is 

 a waste, and that nobody has better cause 

 to wage war against it than the man who 

 produces it. 



"Smoking chimneys are thieves, and 

 their misdeeds should not rise unavenged 

 to Heaven. It is, perhaps, not too much to 

 say that the saving of national wealth 

 effected by regenerative gas heating may 

 amount to a sum sufficient to pay the 

 aggregate national debts of all civilized 

 nations." With the cost of the nuisance thus 

 emphasized the producer grows thoughtful. 



The same plant as it looks today after strict 

 adherence to smoke-abatement ordinances 



The smoke problem is no novelty. The 

 smoke of London was a cause of complaint 

 in the Middle Ages, and a man was executed 

 in that city early in the fourteenth century 

 for burning "sea coal." The first smoke- 

 abatement invention was patented by 

 James Watt in 1785. 



In recent times the war against smoke has 

 been carried on by numerous societies in 

 Europe and America; it has included the 

 adoption of a great many laws and ordinan- 

 ces, which, for one reason or another, have 

 not generally been effective; it has been the 

 occasion of international conferences and 

 national expositions; and its literature is so 

 voluminous that an incomplete list of the 

 books and papers on the subject, published 

 by the Mellon Institute, of Pittsburgh, Pa., 

 fills 164 pages. The facts and figures ad- 

 duced in the arraignment of this evil are stu- 

 pendous. It has been said, for example, to 





Dense smoke issuing from the numerous stacks 

 before air was admitted above the arches 



The same plant after arrangements were made 

 for the admission of a regulated air supply 



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