T884.J 
Analyses of Books. 
6 77 
partial measure of relief. If our anonymous friend could induce 
the public to substitute German stoves (made of earthenware) 
for the present open fire-ranges the diminution of smoke would 
be probably still greater. 
It must further be remembered that though the quantity of 
coal has vastly increased since A.D. 1800, yet as far as factories 
are concerned, at least, the increase of smoke has not been in 
the same ratio. There is the Smoke Consumption Adt, which 
in practice effedts the combustion and utilisation of a great part 
of what was formerly dissipated as smoke. The saving thus 
effedted reaches, under careful management, 20 per cent. This 
Adt, we know, applies only to steam-boilers. But the improve- 
ments with which the name of Siemens is connedted realise also 
a great decrease of waste in our metallurgical works. Next, 
too, whilst the volatile produdts from coke burning were formerly 
let escape into the atmosphere, they are now more and more 
generally colledted and sent to market. 
It may seem a digression, but we cannot help here turning 
back to one of the benefits to be earned by “ ceasing your fac- 
tories.” “ You will be released from the burden of the poor.” 
Now whenever a few fadtories have to stop for a short time, 
whether from a strike, a lock-out, a scarcity of raw materials (as 
in the great cotton famine), or a financial crisis, the very, first 
consequence is an increase in the burden of the poor. Local 
taxation runs up, private benevolence is heavily strained, and 
shopkeepers are crushed with bad debts. We cannot, surely, 
conceive that the consequences would be less severe if the 
stoppage, instead of being confined to a county or two, extended 
to the entire kingdom, or to the whole civilised world. 
As to the author’s Physics and Chemistry, they are, we frankly 
admit, beyond our understanding. As instances we quote the 
following didta : — “ These doubtless [thunderstorms and heavy 
rains] were due to masses of smoke-hydrogen which the Sun 
finding in its way, in striving to get down to the Earth, had then 
power to ignite by violent shocks and in large masses. This, 
again, proves how cold is associated with carbonic dioxide ; for 
when first brought down its first effedt was to cause very severe 
winters. Owing to the then hardness of the oxygenised earth, 
the carbonic dioxide could not penetrate far down, but displayed 
itself in large masses of snow and ice. . . . The wind-influ- 
ences, coming in contadt with weighty hydrogen masses 
We did not then recognise that our enormous quantities of rain 
were all due to these immense masses of the heaviest [sic /] hy- 
drogen. . . . When the hydrogen commences to re-assert its 
power over the rarefied oxygen of the atmosphere, the nitrogen 
quits it, and under the Sun’s presence, flies upwards to the Sun 
itself The italics, we remark, are the author’s own. A note 
in continuation of the last sentence adds — “ Weighted with a 
little of this hydrogen. The Sun is attracted by the tiniest 
