474 



NA TURE 



[Ma^h 19, i9©§ 



from-.Gravescnd upward, providing for deep-water quays. 

 Less ambitious proposals are the docking of the River Lea 

 and. the provision of jetties at Canvey Island, and minor 

 alterations of the docks. All these are, however, matters 

 which should be dealt with by the Trust if one be 

 appointed. 



London's Atmosphere. 



Several causes have recently combined to direct atten- 

 tion to the question of London's atmosphere. The 

 memorandum issued last year by the First Commissioner 

 of Works relating to the damage done to vegetation in 

 the parks, the recent report by the L.C.C. upon the 

 regulation of the smoke nuisance, and the invention of 

 several smokeless fuels, have alike brought home to the 

 public the fact that we have as yet only touched the out- 

 skirts of the problem of smoke nuisance. Useful as the 

 various palliatives suggested may prove, consideration of 

 rhem must always ultimately lead to the fundamental 

 question. Why should any fuel be burned in London at 

 all? 



From its position in the Thames Valley, London will 

 probably always be subject to white fogs, and the presence 

 of six million' human beings and numerous animals must 

 .ilways be the cause of great pollution of the atmosphere. 

 There is all the more reason, therefore, for seeking some 

 way of reducing or removing the present consumption, 

 within the metropolitan area, of nearly fifteen million tons 

 of fuel annually. Regulations and the use of smokeless 

 fuels would undoubtedly be a move in the right direction, 

 and might to some extent reduce the amount of the visible 

 products of combustion. They would, however, hardly 

 affect that equally important side of the problem, the pro- 

 duction of carbonic and sulphurous acids. To do this to 

 any considerable extent means the ultimate abolition of the 

 consumption of fuel in the metropolitan area. Utopian 

 as such a step may appear at the present time, the evidence 

 tendered before Parliament during the past few years in 

 connection with the proposed supply of electric power 

 shows that the establishment of a large central system 

 would have undoubtedly tended in this direction. 



This result involves two steps : — 



First, the reduction, by the adoption of improved 

 methods, of the total quantity of coal burned to produce 

 the power required in the metropolitan area ; and, 

 secondly, the removal of the place of combustion to the 

 metropolitan limits.' 



These two results can only be secured by the general 

 substitution of electric power for other forms. 



Let us now consider to what extent it is to-day practic- 

 able for electricity to replace the direct combustion of coal 

 in various industries. 



Owing to the high price of electricity, the use of gas 

 for street lighting is in many cases still quite as cheap 

 as the electric light, while there are still many parts of 

 London where power derived from gas engines is even 

 cheaper than the supply of electric power at present avail- 

 able ; but the abolition of gas for lighting the streets and 

 for driving gas engines will certainly follow its abandon- 

 ment for lighting purposes in good private houses, if only 

 ihe price of electricity be reduced sufficiently low. The 

 flame arc lamp, containing as it does the necessary rays 

 for piercing a fog, removes the objections which apply 

 both to ordinary arc lamps and to incandescent mantles, 

 and is the most suitable system of lightmg for important 

 streets which one could have. If electricity were avail- 

 able in London at a maximum price of fd. a unit for 

 street lighting, there would be a great saving effected 

 over every other system of lighting now in use. At the 

 present time, however, interior electric lighting is chiefly 

 used in the West End and in large shops and offices where 

 the price is a secondary consideration, while public light- 

 ing is only .done widely where the municipality itself 

 provides the current. It cannot be said to have penetrated 



* So far as gas consumption goes this question of removal has partly taken 

 place already. In place cf the seventeen or eiehteen gas companies with 

 works scattered throughout London which are shown on the old Ordnance 

 maps, there are now practically three authorities, and by far the larger part 

 of the coal consumption to make gas for London is used on the Greenwich 

 Marsh or at Beckton. 



NO. 2003, VOL. 77] 



the poorer quarters in the way that gas has done by 

 means of penny-in-the-slot meters, which it was recently 

 stated bring in to the Gas Light and Coke Conipany 

 1,000,000/. per annum ; but at \\A. to 2i. per unit, electric 

 light would certainly be cheaper than any gas which is 

 being sold in the metropolitan area to-day. 



The adoption of electricity for suburban traffic is long 

 past the experimental stage, and provided power can be 

 obtained sufficiently cheaply, there is nothing to prevent 

 all the railways in London being driven electrically. The 

 experience already obtained on the North-Eastern Railway, 

 where the heavy suburban traffic is handled electrically, or 

 at Liverpool or on the Underground Railway, has shown 

 this. That the haulage of main-line trains by electricity 

 in suburban areas is also feasible is proved by the fact 

 that the two most important railway companies in New 

 York — the Pennsylvania and the New York Central Com- 

 panies — have arranged to haul the whole of their main- 

 line trains by electric locomotives while in the suburban 

 districts. 



Nearly half the cost of operating suburban services by 

 electricity is due to the cost of the power, while in many 

 cases the capital outlay on the generating station forms 

 half the total cost of the electrification. Thus the price of 

 electricity and the difference in capital outlay between the 

 erection of independent stations or its avoidance may 

 make all the difference between it being commercially 

 feasible to electrify or not ; but at the present time there is 

 no means by which the railway companies of London can 

 get a suitable supply except by putting up stations for them- 

 selves. The supplies which are at present in existence are 

 on too small a scale, and were primarily intended for light- 

 ing purposes. Moreover, as the law stands, the maiority 

 of the electric lighting authorities can only supply for use 

 in their own areas, so that the railway companies would 

 be obliged to purchase their supplies piecemeal along their 

 routes. As there are twenty-one different systems in 

 London, the impracticability of this, for this reason alone, 

 is obvious. The cost of electrification under these con- 

 ditions would, of course, be out of the question. In order 

 to be really satisfactory the price of power should be of 

 the order of \i. per unit. On the Tyne, the North- 

 Eastern Railway Company pays rather more than this, 

 but in London the higher cost of coal would be far more 

 counterbalanced by the enormous output. The average 

 consumption of locomotives at the present time is 4 lb. 

 to 5 lb per horse-power, as against 2 lb. per horse-power 

 in a central generating station. It has been estimated 

 that the total horse-power required for operating the 

 present suburban line traffic in the London district would 

 be 120,000, while the suburban traffic on main lines would 

 take another 30,000, and that an annual production in all 

 of some 600,000,000 Board of Trade units would be needed. 

 As a matter of fact, a larger output would probably be 

 required, because one of the chief objects of electrification 

 is to enable a more frequent service to be run ; but as the 

 total output of the London electric lighting stations last 

 year was of the order of 150,000,000 units, it is obvious 

 that one cannot look to them for a supply for this purpose 

 even if they were all united into one station and supplying 

 on one system, instead of supplying from more than fifty 

 stations with more than twenty systems. It is a question 

 of price, and the price is one the existing systems cannot 

 supply at. 



Coming now to the factories, it will be noted that these 

 account for nearly one-half of the coal consumption of 

 I^ondon, and probably for three-quarters of the smoke and 

 deleterious fumes ; yet these offer the best field for electric 

 power of any, for the possibility of driving factories 

 electrically has been conclusively demonstrated on the 

 Tvne, where, practically .speaking, every factory and ship- 

 yard on the north bank of the river obtains its supply from 

 the power company which is there in operation. Power 

 is applied to all kinds of purposes. The three-phase 

 electric motors, which contain no exposed electrical parts, 

 work without trouble in the most exposed conditions. 



Cranes, both stationary and travelling, are more con- 

 veniently operated by electric motors than by the old 

 vertical boilers and engines. In fact, there are practically 



