670 
NATURE 
[OcToBER 30, 1902 
Inctdental Advantages. 
A system such as that indicated would have some incidental 
advantages. It would provide a persistent and calculable system 
of ventilation that would enable hot water or steam pipes to be 
used advantageously much more generally than they can be at 
present, and afford other facilities corresponding to those of an 
efficient system of drainage with a copious water supply. 
Contribution of Local Authorities to the Solution of the 
Problem. 
Hitherto the powers of local authorities have been restricted 
to fining conspicuous offenders, and the system of penalties for 
conspicuous failure is not fully effective; it might be replaced 
advantageously by a system of rewards for success. For the 
sake of definiteness, I have set down the contribution of the local 
authority as equivalent to a tenpenny rate, though it would not 
seem practicable for it to contribute in the same way as it does 
to the solution of the sewage question by maintaining a single 
municipal system. It might contribute effectively by allowing 
a specific eduction of rate on those properties within its area 
which were so arranged as not to add to the pollution of the 
atmosphere by smoke. 
If the questions which I have mentioned are to be asked, it 
is essential that they should be put in such a manner that 
practical men of science may be encouraged to work out effective 
answers, and for that purpose they must make experiments. In 
the practical applications of science on the large scale, experi- 
ments are very expensive, and the only way of getting them 
performed is to take care that they are remunerative to some- 
body if successful. In this matter the local authorities could be 
of great assistance if they were willing to adjust their rating in 
what seems to me a reasonable manner. At present the in- 
cidence of rating is such as to discourage all experiments of this 
kind. If an enterprising architect were to erect a block of 
buildings and provide it with means of delivering its used air free 
of smoke at a substantial outlay, I presume the local authority 
would increase the rateable value of the property on account of 
the outlay, and thus fine the owner some considerable sum per 
annum for his enterprise. The owner would also be placed in 
the unfortunate position that whereas by avoiding smoke he 
had conferred as much benefit upon all his neighbours as upon 
himself, he would have to pay the whole fine of increased 
ratal himself, and would still have all the disadvantages of his 
neighbours’ smoke. 
I would suggest that instead of pursuing so unreasonable a 
course, the local authorities might recognise public spirit of this 
kind by reducing the assessment of a property that, to the satis- 
faction of its neighbours as well as of a surveyor or inspector, 
produced no smoke, so that the rates upon such a property 
should be decreased by, say, 6d. or Is. in the pound instead of 
being increased. This would afford direct encouragement to 
practical men of science to design and keep inaction means for 
the prevention of smoke, and would lead to gradual improve- 
ment. 
It would naturally appeal with the greatest force in those 
quarters where rateable value is high and the advantage of open 
fires relatively small, and in such places it would be really 
worth while for practical men to make a serious effort to qualify 
for the reduction of rate. In the City of London, for example, 
there must be many properties with very high rateable value the 
facilities of which for contributing smoky air are already limited 
to one hot-water furnace and a few open fires. For such estab- 
lishments it would be an experiment on a very small scale to 
arrange matters to obviate smoke altogether and satisfy the 
surveyor or inspector that the property was smokeless, and thus 
secure the reduction of rate. There might be some difficulty at 
first in establishing a qualification, but it could not be greater 
than the difficulty of establishing a right toa parliamentary vote. 
In the course of time, the smoke producers would be a few ex- 
ceptional persons paying exceptionally high rates, a very rational 
state of affairs; and when the City of London had by the 
gradual extension of such experiments freed itself from its own 
smoke, I think we might safely rely upon the citizens to take 
care that the indirect economies to which they would be legiti- 
mately entitled by their public spirit were not destroyed by the 
unrestricted smoke production of the surrounding boroughs. 
I have made the system of the general collection of smoke 
by mechanical means for the purpose of treatment the basis of 
my remarks, but I have already disclaimed any desire for exclu- 
Sive privileges for that particular form of experiment in the purifi- 
NO. 1722, VOL. 66] 
cation of smoky air. If it be feasible on the commercial scale, 
it has the advantage in an especial manner of making successive 
improvements possible. The smoky air of London is injurious, 
not only on account of its visible soot, but also on account of 
the sulphurous acid and other invisible products of combustion 
which accompany the soot in the first instance. If it be found 
possible in the first place to deposit the soot particles, attention 
might next be turned to some means of dealing with the noxious 
acid fumes, at least, in those cases where they are specially 
abundant. 
Such a system would thus be, in the first instance, a direct 
encouragement to progressive experiments, and in the end 
would enlist the active support of all those possessing arrange- 
ments for avoiding smoke in favour of effective compulsion for 
those who had not. 
To put the questions I have indicated to men of science in 
this way would be merely a matter of business, and if the ques- 
tions were so put, the science of the twentieth century would 
probably give as satisfactory an answer to the question of the 
treatment of smoke as the science of the nineteenth has given 
to the question of the treatment of sewage. 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
CAMBRIDGE.—The Hon. C. A. Parsons, M.A., F.R.S., 
whose scientific work in connection with the development of the 
steam turbine has excited much interest, has been elected to an 
honorary fellowship at St. John’s College, of which he was 
formerly a scholar. 
Mr. L. Doncaster, King’s, has been appointed to work at the 
University table in the Naples Zoological Station. 
A conference on the training of teachers for secondary 
schools for boys will take place in Cambridge, under the 
presidency of the Vice-chancellor, in November. 
The Gedge prize for research in physiology has been awarded 
to Mr, S. W. Cole, King’s. 
ON Wednesday, October 22, Mr. Andrew Carnegie was formally 
installed to the rectorship of St. Andrew’s University. In his 
rectorial address, Mr. Carnegie dealt with the economic changes 
in the relative position and power of nations which either have 
taken place or are impending. Among honorary degrees con- 
ferred on the occasion was one bestowed on Mr, Alexander 
Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. 
WHILE agricultural education is in a flourishing condition in 
the colleges of the United States, it is not yet doing as much for 
the welfare of the American farmer as is desirable. This, at 
least, we infer from the vigorous address delivered by the Secre- 
tary of Agriculture before the National Educational Association, 
which is briefly referred to in an editorial article in vol. xiv. 
parti. of the ‘‘U.S. Experiment Station Record.” Mr. Wilson 
pleads not so much for technical instruction in agriculture as 
for the education of ‘‘half the people under our flag, who till 
the soil and furnish 65 per cent. of our exports.” The im- 
portance of this class warrants the special adaptation of the 
educational system to its needs. ‘‘ The four-year college course 
does not begin soon enough nor continue long enough to meet 
the requirements of ourday.” Study should begin in the primary 
school and continue through life. Teachers and the organisers 
of education in rural districts should understand the farmer's re- 
quirements, should themselves know something of agricultural 
science, and to this end Mr. Wilson recommends that teachers 
in primary and secondary schools should be sent to agricultural 
colleges at State expense to get the necessary knowledge. 
While much might be done to awaken the interest of the rising 
generation in agriculture were the teachers in elementary schools 
possessed of an agricultural bias, it is doubtful if any such 
“entirely new ” system as Mr. Wilson refers to in the following 
sentence would be practicable or desirable. ‘‘ Five thousand 
students attend agricultural colieges, but these colleges are feel- 
ing their way in the dark along untravelled paths. . . They 
will at last forge out a system that will meet the requirements of 
producers and be entirely new and suitable to our conditions as 
a people.” 
In the North British Agriculturist of October 22, a different 
and more direct method of awakening the interest of the young 
farmer in his work is described. Under the auspices of the 
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