Popular Science Monthly 



899 



1912 



cause an annual waste and 

 damage of half a billion 

 dollars in this country alone. 

 Yet dollars — not to mention 

 health — continue to go up in 

 smoke. 



Pittsburgh's Record of 

 Smoky Extravagance 



Things are improving, 

 however; partly owing to 

 the increased use of gas and 

 electricity in place of coal, 

 and partly to better applian- 

 ces for burning coal. Pitts- 

 burgh furnishes an example 

 not only of the smoke evil at 

 its worst, but also of what 

 may be done to mitigate it. 

 Exhaustive studies of the 

 subject were made in that 

 city by the Mellon Institute 

 of Industrial Research. Ac- 

 cording to data published in 

 that connection the smoke 

 evil was then costing Pitts- 

 burgh $9,944,740 per annum, 

 not including depreciation in 

 the value of property, ab- 

 sence of various industries 

 which cannot flourish in a 

 smoky atmosphere, and in- 

 jury to human health. The smoke makers 

 themselves were losing $1,520,740, which 

 might have been saved by more perfect 

 combustion of fuel. The laundry bills of 

 the people of Pittsburgh were $1,500,000 

 bigger than they would have been with a 

 clean atmosphere, and their dry cleaning 

 bills $750,000 bigger. Yet the city has a 

 large population of unskilled laborers who 

 have little use for laundries, and Hght- 



J9I3 



ll/^e Smoke 



191-1 



1015 



19IG 



93 OAYS 



&5 DAYS 



f.3 DA'iS 



59 DAYS 



50DA^5- 



mm^. 



The smoke abatement results in Pittsburgh for the first 

 months of the years 1912 to 1916 inclusive, as contained in 

 the United States weather reports. Until three years ago the 

 smoke evil was costing Pittsburgh ten million dollars g^nnually 



colored clothing is such a rarity in Pitts- 

 burgh that the city has been called "the 

 mourning town." Houses in Pittsburgh 

 were, on an average, painted every three 

 years, as compared with every six or eight 

 years in other cities. The sheet metal of 

 roofs, gutters, spouts, etc., deteriorated 

 twice as fast in the smoky atmosphere of 

 Pittsburgh as in an average large city, and 

 needed painting twice as often. Pittsburgh 





Smoke generated with part of the plant idle. 

 On a busy day it seemed a veritable volcano 



The plant as it looks today, with every fur- 

 nace working. Smoke is hardly noticeable 



