6 



NEW SMOKE-CONSUMING AND FUEL-SAVING FIRE-PLACE. 



[1854. 



the induction around the wire. The idea of intensity, or the 

 power of overcoming resistance, is as necessary to that of elec- 

 tricity, either static or current, as the idea of pressure is to steam 

 in a boiler, or to air passing througli apertures or tubes ; and 

 we must have language comjjetent to express these conditions 

 and these ideas. 



In conclusion, I trust that a cable may be laid across the 

 briny deep, and I am happy to find the matter taken hold of 

 by intelligent and scientitic telegraphic engineers, and its com- 

 pletion will be one of the wonders of the age. I have been re- 

 cently informed that a company has been organized, styled the 

 New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company, 

 whose object is the establishment of a submarine telegraph, to 

 connect Newfoundland with Ireland. Peter Cooper, Esq., a 

 telegraph wire merchant of New York, is the Pr.esident, and 

 Professor S. F. B. Morse is the Vice-President, with a number 

 of Directors. One of the most active is Tal. P. Shaffner, Esq., 

 a gentleman who has had considerable experience in submarine 

 telegraph lines during the past five years, and who employed 

 the following language in regard to the enterprise in the first 

 number of a Journal of which he is editor: — "Tides may ebb 

 and flow ; the billows may surge with mighty power ; the ice- 

 bergs may tower their white mantled forms high in the skies, 

 and sink deep in the briny sea; the heavens may let loose the 

 loud rolling thunder, and the earth heave up its fiery lava ; but 

 just as sure as these elements of nature exist, and worlds re- 

 volve, America and Europe will be connected by an electric 

 cord." 



On a New Smoke-Consuming and Fuel-Saving Fire-PIace, 



With Accessaries Ensuring the Healthful Warmiiir/ and Ventilation 

 of Souses. 



BY NEIL ARNOTT, M.D., F.R.S. 



The great evils connected with the common coal fires are : — 



1. Prodnction of Smoke. 



2. Waste of Fuel. 



3. Defective Warming and Ventilation of Rooms. 

 We shall consider these in order : — 



I. OF SMOKE IN THE INTERIOR OF HOUSES AND IN THE 

 EXTERNAL ATMOSPHERE. 



The proverb which declares a smoky chimney to be one of 

 the greatest troubles of life, may suiice in relation to the in- 

 teriors ; in regard to the exterior, many particulars have to be 

 noted. Examination of the question has ascertained that in 

 London alone, on account of its smoke-loaded atmosphere, the 

 cost of washing the clothes of the inhabitants is greater by two 

 millions and a half sterling a year (that is, twenty-five times 

 . one hundred thousand pounds,) than for the same number of 

 families residing in the country ; and this is seen to be but a small 

 part of the expense when we consider the rapid destniction of 

 all farniture in houses, as of carpets and curtains, of articles 

 of female apparel, of books and paintings, of the internal deco- 

 rations, and even of the external surface of the stones of which 

 edifices are built. For personal cleanliness it is )iecessary to 

 be almost constantly washing the hands and' face. Flowering 

 shrubs and many trees cannot live in the London atmosphere, 

 so that the charm of a gaixlen, even at considerable distances 

 from town, has almost ceased with the extension of the build- 

 iirgs and increase of smoke. A growing flower, if exposed to 



the atmcsphere, is always covered with blacks or sooty dust, 

 and defiles the hand which plucks or touches it. Sheep from 

 the country, placed for a few days to graze in any of the jjarks, 

 have soon a dingy fleece, strikingly apparent when others 

 newly arrived are mixed with them. And this atmosphere, so 

 damaging to inanimate things and to vegetable life, is inimical 

 also to the health of man, as proved by numerous facts recorded 

 in the bills of mortality. Many persons, with certain kinds 

 of chest weakness, cannot live here. Many children brought 

 from the country are seen soon not to be thriving. The coal- 

 smoke then, may be called the great nuisance and opprobrium 

 of the English capital. 



II. OF WASTE OF FUEL. 



Count Paimford, a writer of great authority in such matters, 

 after making many elaborate experiments, declared that five- 

 sixths of the whole heat produced in an ordinary English fire 

 goes up the ohimaey with the smoke, to waste. This estimate 

 is borne out by the facts observed in countries where fuel is 

 scarce and dear, as in parts of Continental Europe, where it 

 is burned in close stoves, that prevents the waste. With 

 these a fourth part of what would be consumed in an open fii-e, 

 suffices to maintain the desired temperature. I have myself 

 made experiments here in London with like results. To save 

 a third part of the coal burned in London alone, would save 

 more than a million sterling a-yearj and when coal is very 

 dear, as during last winter, the saving would be much 

 greater. 



Then it is to be considered that coal is a part of our national 

 wealth, of which, whatever is once used can never, like corn 

 or any produce of industry, be renewed or replaced. The coal 

 mines of Britain may truly be regarded as among the most 

 precious possessions of the inhabitants, and without which they 

 could never have attained to the importance in the world which 

 the extraordinary developement of their mental and bodily 

 faculties has now given them. It is enough to say that without 

 coal they would not have had or used the steam-engine. To 

 consume coal wastefully or unnecessarily, then, is not merely 

 improvidence, but is a serious crime committed against ftiture 

 generations. 



III. 



OF DEFECTIVE HEATING AND VENTILATING IN 

 DWELLINGS. 



Calling a thousand a week the average rate of mortality in 

 London alone, it was found in the middle of last winter, that 

 nearly 700 additional deaths occurred owing to the intense 

 cold which then prevailed, and against which, evidently, the 

 existing arrangements for warming and ventilating were in- 

 sufficient. Not a little of the premature mortality at all times, 

 and of the spread of epidemics, and of the low condition of 

 health among the people, is, doubtless, owing to the same 

 cause. 



We shall now incpiire whether it be or be not possible in a 

 great measure to avoid the three great evils above described, 

 and at the same time to secure other advantages. 



I. SMOKE. 



Is it possible to avoid or to consume smoke — in other words, 

 to ijroduce a smokeless coal fire ? 



Common coal is known to consist of carbon and bitumen or 

 pitch, of which pitch again the elements are still chiefly carbon 

 and hydrogen, a substance which, when separate, exists as an 

 air or a'as. 



