A ir of Manchester 6 1 



were smaller and more confined in those days, but there 

 is at present far too much fear of the presence of close air 

 for limited periods. People forget the meaning of its 

 occasional use and its constant use. They will starve them- 

 selves in a railway carriage in order to avoid what they 

 suppose to be analogous to fever, but they forget that close 

 air may take years to injure whilst cold air draughts kill 

 with a blow. We can all give illustrations of this in every 

 family, but we are nevertheless driven on by wild enthusiasts 

 that break our windows in cold nights and send us supper- 

 less to bed in the wind. 



It is a little amusing to listen to Dr. Percival's complaint 

 of 300 tons of coal being burnt every day in Manchester, or 

 about 90,000 tons in a year. Now, surely we must burn 

 3,000,000 per annum, but what a result : still not in pro- 

 portion to the amount, as we do burn with a little, not much 

 less smoke. However, the fogs at certain seasons are now 

 so frightful, that we may use words stronger than Percival's 

 oreven John Evelyn's. There have been many plans formed 

 of burning the carbon so as to prevent fogs in London and 

 elsewhere. It is easy to prevent black smoke when machi- 

 nery can be used ; the evil of fogs lies more in the sulphur 

 than the smoke ; but again we may say that the black part 

 of the smoke is not carbon merely, although there is carbon 

 in it. We require to remove the sulphur before we obtain 

 pure air or wholesome fogs, but the removal of the carbon 

 is of course a great improvement. In the fifteenth and 

 sixteenth reports of proceedings under the Alkali Act, 

 mention was made of the enormous value of the ammonia 

 alone obtainable from the 15,000,000 tons of coal made 

 now into coke ; if the process said to be so successful at 

 Besseges should be found successful here, it would save 



