September 19, 1912] 



NATURE 



8s 



before the motor-car came into being, but the demand 

 that is being forced upon the engineer to eliminate 

 thib nuisance is leading to an improvement ot our 

 roads for all users. The inventors of the automobile 

 will vet merit the thanks even of those who, bemoan- 

 ing the blatant intrusion of science into our lives, 

 may discard the railway train and the motor-car and 

 take to the stage-coach of their grandfathers with a 

 view to the recovery of some of the lost repose. 



Again, 'the combustion of fuel does little harm to 

 anvone; it is the imperfection of the combustion that 

 is the main cause, almost the sole cause, of injury 

 to health, to property, and to the amenity of populous 

 centres. Of course, one knows that smokeless com- 

 bustion is not necessarily, nor always, the most 

 economical, but that is only because we have not yet 

 learned how to use fuel in anything like a perfect 

 manner. But all the tendencies at the present time 

 are towards improvement, and the more attention we 

 pay to the elimination of the smoke nuisance the more 

 rapid will be our progress in the economical use of 

 one of the most valuable of our inheritances. It is 

 therefore clearly the duty of every engineer who has 

 to do with cower or heat production — for the credit 

 of his profession and even in the interests of his 

 immediate clients — to consider the use and convenience 

 of all who can be affected by the work for which he is 

 responsible. The time is not far distant when the 

 direct burning of bituminous coal in open grates will 

 be looked upon as not only a source of serious harm 

 but as a culpably wasteful practice. Great progress 

 has been made in processes for the partial distillation 

 of coal by which a free-burning and quite smokeless 

 fuel is prepared and valuable by-products (so-called) 

 are conserved. If all engineers concerned with the 

 design and application of plants in which coal is used 

 had a due sense of their responsibilities to the com- 

 munity, progress would have been, and would to-day 

 be, much more rapid ; and economies would be effected 

 that would, in themselves, amply justify the applica- 

 tion of more scientific methods of utilising the con- 

 stituents of a verv complex material, which we are 

 too apt to look upon as merely a convenient source 

 of heat— plentiful enough and cheap enough, as yet, 

 to be used in a most wasteful manner. It will not be 

 to the oredit of our profession if it should require 

 restrictive legislation not only to prevent a gross inter- 

 ference with the health and comfort of the community 

 and the amenities of our centres of industry or of 

 population, but to effect economies in the utilisation of 

 the chief of the sources of power which it is our 

 function to direct to the best advantage of all con- 

 cerned. 



In other directions also we see that progress 

 towards economv is leading to a reduction, and pos- 

 sibly to the entire elimination, of all the nuisances 

 associated with the older methods of power and heat 

 production. The great improvements that have re- 

 centlv been made in producer plants and gas engines 

 have' rendered out of date, as regards economy, at 

 least the smaller sizes of steam plants which are so 

 fruitful a source of injury and inconvenience to the 

 community; and we now have engines of the Diesel, 

 and the so-called semi-Diesel, types that can utilise 

 natural oils, and oils obtained in the distillation or 

 partial distillation of coal, not only with an efficiency 

 hitherto unattained in heat-engines, but "without 

 injurv or damasre to any one singrle person " — except 

 possiblv the maker of inferior - plants. 



Present indications point to the coming of a time, 



2 NTy tjTjist in tran'^cribinc a rather illegible draft of this passage substi- 

 tuted for the adjective I have here used the less rpstrained, but perhaps 

 e<iually appropriaie one. " infernal," but I noticed this in time to amend the 

 emendation. 1 had no intention to speak so candidly of any of the works of 

 members of my own profe 



NO. 2238, VOL. go] 



in the near future, when the power and heat required 

 for industrial and domestic purposes will be distributed 

 electrically, in a perfectly inolfensive manner, Jroni 

 large central stations ; and even at these stations there 

 will be no pollution of the atmosphere that could give 

 the most sensitive of critics any just grounds of com- 

 plaint against the intrusion of science into our lives. 

 In his presidential address to the Institution of Elec- 

 trical Engineers in November, 1910, Mr. Ferranti 

 dealt in a most masterly way with this, which is 

 undoubtedly the greatest of the many schemes at pre- 

 sent before the engineering profession. That address 

 reads like a chapter from a romance of Utopia, but 

 unlike most of the forecasts that have been presented 

 to us of ideal conditions in a world of the future, the 

 svstem which Mr. Ferranti sketches out, and advo- 

 cates with so much knowledge and convincing argu- 

 ment, does not depend for its reasonableness on the 

 postulation of a perfected humanity. It would not 

 only provide vastly improved conditions of life for the 

 community as a whole, but it would satisfy the more 

 selfish aims of the users of power and the makers 

 of machinery, by increasing the economy of production 

 and stimulating the demand for mechanical appli- 

 ances. No doubt there may be some who will hold 

 that to commend any worthy scheme, to those who 

 might carry it out, by an appeal to their selfish in- 

 terests is an altogether immoral kind of argument. I 

 do not think so. Advancement of the race through 

 benefits to the individual is, at least, not inconsistent 

 with nature's method of securing progress. However 

 much we may desire to develop a purely altruistic 

 spirit in men of all classes, we must meantime make 

 the best of human nature as it is, and recognise that 

 the rapidity of our progress toward better conditions 

 of life will be in proportion to the advantages that 

 each advance can promise to those who would be 

 immediately concerned in its realisation. 



It is just a hundred years since passengers were 

 first carried on the Clyde in a mechanically-propelled 

 ship, and to-day — when they are not too completely 

 obscured by smoke — we can see the successors of the 

 Comet plying on that river with power plants of 

 greatly superior overall efficiency but showing little 

 advance in regard to the combustion of the fuel. Had 

 the emission of smoke from river craft been pro- 

 hibited years ago, there is little doubt that engineers 

 would have let few days pass without arriving at 

 some solution of the problem of inoffensive power 

 production, and the demand for economy would have 

 looked after itself. How much better it would be 

 were engineers to take the wider view of their duties 

 and responsibilities to which I have referred, and 

 realise that they are acting contrary to the true spirit 

 of their profession when they produce appliances that 

 pollute the atmosphere for miles around to the hurt 

 and inconvenience of those whose "use" they are 

 intended to serve. But this year a ship has left the 

 Clyde that we hope may be the forerunner of a new- 

 race which will attain a higher efficiency than any of 

 the direct descendants of the Comet, and that will ply 

 their trade without inconvenience to man or beast, 

 who can claim some right to be permitted to enjoy 

 an unpolluted atmosphere and the measure of sun- 

 shine which nature — sparingly enough in those regions 

 — intended to provide. 



But there are injuries which we may inflict upon 

 the community other than those to health and physical 

 comfort. Everyone, even the least cultured, has some 

 sense of the beautiful and the comely, and is affected 

 by the aspects of his environment more than he him- 

 self can realise. The engineer, then, whose works 

 needlessly offend even the most fastidious taste is act- 

 ing contrary to the spirit of his profession, at its best. 



