TRANSACTIONS: OF THE SECTIONS. 219 
People have a strong tendency to require that such things as these should be con- 
cealed from view. In this case, however, special care should be taken against 
rashly placing them among the woodwork between the ceiling of the apartment 
and the floor of the room aboye, or otherwise placing them in unsafe proximity 
to combustible materials. In many cases it would be better to place the flue 
exposed to view underneath the ceiling, and, by introducing some accompanying 
cpnamentation, to let the flue be regarded as a beneficent object not unpleasing to 
the eye. 
The atmosphere of our large towns, where people live by hundreds of thousands 
all the year round, is not yet guarded against needless pollution by smoke, 
jealously, as it ought to be. Many of the wealthier inhabitants take refuge in 
living in the country or in the suburbs of the town, as far away as they can from 
the most densely built and most smoky districts; but the great masses of the people, 
including many of all ranks, must live near their work, and for them, at least, greater 
exertions are due than have yet been made towards maintaining and improying the 
salubrity and the amenities of our towns. As to the abatement or prevention of 
smoke from the furnaces of steam-engines, the main requisites have long been very 
well known; but sufficient energy and determination have not yet been manifested. 
towards securing their due application in practice. In too many cases futile plans 
have been tried, and on being soon abandoned have left a strong impression against 
the trying of more experiments ; and this may account in part for the introduction 
of real Hamre veRents haying been so slow. Smoke occurs when fresh coal is 
thrown suddenly, in too large quantity at once, on a hot fire. By extreme 
care a fireman may throw coal into his furnace so gradually as to make very little 
smoke; but mechanical arrangements for introducing constantly and uniformly the 
new supply of fresh coal have been devised, and several of these have been such as 
to reduce the smoke emitted to almost nothing. I have seen in the neighbourhood of 
Glasgow, at a large manufacturing establishment at Thornliebank, one method which 
is applied to about thirty ordinary 40 horse-power boilers, in which upwards of 100 tons 
of coal are daily burned, and from the chimneys of which not more smoke is emitted 
than from many a kitchen fixe. This method is under the patent of Messrs. Vicars, of 
Liverpool, and it seems to work very well. It has been about two years in work there. 
It was introduced at a time when coal was exceedingly high in price, as much to effect 
economy in fuel as to prevent smoke; and although the first cost was somewhere about 
£130 per boiler, the proprietor considers himself to be already more than recouped for his 
outlay, as a saying of fully 12 per cent. in the fuel consumed was effected. At the same 
works I have also seen in operation the method of Messrs. Haworth and Horsfall, of 
Todmorden, which has, I am told, in certain circumstances, some advantages over 
the other. In this, as in the other, the coal is fed in uniformly by mechanical 
arrangements. The mechanism is different in the two cases, but the result in the 
motion communicated to the coals is very much alike in both. The bed of coal, 
which is gradually supplied in front, is caused to travel along the bars towards the 
inner end of the furnace, and the combustion Pepesede in a yery uniform manner in 
conditions highly fayourable to economy of fuel, and without the emission of 
almost any visible smoke. 
These two methods I haye mentioned because they appent both to work very 
successfully in practice, while they both bring into effect the principle of action of 
the fuel which has long appeared to me to be the best that can be adopted for 
ordinary cases of steam-engine boilers. 
Having now occupied, I think, enough of your time, I will conclude. I have 
endeayoured to select out of the wide range of subjects which fall within the 
scope of the Mechanical Section of the British Association a few which have come 
more particularly under my own notice, and on which I thought it was in my 
power to give intelligence that might be interesting as to past progress, and sug- 
gestions that might be useful towards extension of improvements in the future. 
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