SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, i{ 



GARBAGE-CREMATION. 



If we may judge from the discussions of the American PubHc 

 Health Association for the past two years at its annual meetings, 

 the most important practical sanitary problem of the time is how 

 to dispose of the garbage and night-soil of populous communities. 

 For cities situated on the seaboard this question is not such a press- 

 ing one, as the refuse can be transported by water sufficiently far 

 from the shore, and deposited in the ocean. If it returns on the 

 incoming tide, and is cast on the beach, this may in the future be 

 avoided by carrying it still farther. But to inland towns and cities 

 no such method is available. For years many of these have cast 

 heir waste into the river, if such ran near them, or to a general 



ucts from the substances being cremated complete the process of 

 burning, the substance thus in great part supplying the fuel for its 

 own destruction. 



The following description and cut of the garbage-furnace which 

 was erected at Ues IVIoines, lo., will make clear the method by 

 which Mr. Engle adapts this principle to practice. The cut pre- 

 sents a vertical longitudinal section of the furnace, showing its for- 

 ward end toward the left. The upper door shown in the left-hand 

 end opens into the fireplace, and the door immediately below opens 

 into the ash-pit thereunder. The five larger openings shown on 

 the side of the furnace midway of its length open into the ash-pit 

 under the grate, which supports the garbage and other wet and 

 offensive substances which are being burned. Five smaller doors 

 above open into the garbage fireplace in order to give easy access 

 thereto, in case it becomes expedient to stir or otherwise move the 



VERTICAL LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF THE DES MOINBS GARBAGE-FURNACE. 



duinping-place near by, and were content to know that they at 

 least were relieved of the burden, caring little that their sister 

 cities, situated farther down the river, were injuriously affected. 

 Not until a direct detriment either to a city's health or financial 

 prosperity can be traced to such methods, is there a disposition to 

 invoke the aid of sanitary science and the ingenuity of the inventor. 

 The rapid growth of interior towns in the United States has made 

 some radical method of the disposition of such material an absolute 

 necessity, and, by the common consent of all sanitarians, no meth- 

 od offers such advantages as its destruction by cremation. 



Of the many devices which have been invented for the conversion 

 of noxious waste into a harmless residue through the instrumental- 

 ity of fire, none seeins to have more effectually accomplished the 

 object than the Engle cremator. The principle involved in the in- 

 vention resides in the use of two fires at the opposite ends or sides 

 of the garbage or other substances to be burned ; and in managing 

 the fires so that one of them operates to volatilize the liquid con- 

 stituents of the substances, while the other operates to burn the 

 steam and other gases which arise from the volatilization ; and 

 then in so managing the fires as to complete the process of burning 

 the dr\' residuum, or reducing it to a fertilizer, if so desired. The 

 economy of the process, aside from the simplicity and low cost of 

 the furnaces, lies in the fact that comparatively little coal or other 

 fuel is required to start the two fires. The gases and other prod- 



garbage in the fireplace while it is being consumed. There are 

 also openings into the rear fireplace, and into the pit under it. 

 Three angular valve-handles operate the three valves which appear 

 in the figure to the left of the rear fireplace. The two valves 

 which appear in the figure give egress into the chimney from the 

 first fireplace and the second fireplace respectively. The three 

 covers on the top of the furnace close the downward openings in 

 the top of the furnace, through which the matter may be dumped 

 upon the grate. 



The mode of operation is as follows : The garbage and matter to 

 be consumed are dumped upon the garbage-grate, and a fire of 

 coal is made in each of the two fireplaces at the respective ends of 

 the furnace. The flames from the rear fireplace pass over the 

 garbage, driving before them the steam and other gases arising 

 therefrom into the flames above the forward fireplace, where the 

 flames from the two furnaces meet and mingle. .As those mingled 

 flames pass backward toward the chimney, they intensely heat the 

 iron floor of the garbage ash-pit, and that floor conducts heat up- 

 ward toward the garbage above it. and thus aids in volatilizing the 

 liquid constituents thereof. This operation continues until the 

 substances on the garbage-grate are reduced to a dried condition, 

 when the lower chimney-valve may be closed and the upper chim- 

 ney-valve opened ; and thereupon the flames will pass from the for- 

 ward fireplace above the garbage-grate, and ignite the dried sub- 



