THE SMOKE EVIL.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1364, 15 February 1912, Page 6

THE SMOKE EVIL.

SOME OBJECT LESSONS.

THE TRAINING OF STOKER?,

A movement directed primarily towards the abatement of the smoke nuisance— and through (hat to the salvation of property and improvement of public healthhas recently been receiving a large amount of attention in England. fn the >orth of England, where, a smokeiiden atmosphere in conjunction with leaden skies, is calculated to add materially lo the death rote, they have got as tar as holding a. ".-moke abatement exhibition." There .was an interesting display nf appliances, and at tho opening ceremony held in the Manchester City Ilull on November 10 some particularly instructive speeches were delivered. What the evil means fo some of the English, cities may be surmi-rd from the statement, of the Lord Mayor uf Manchester . that "(.ho smoke oo.«ls Greater Manchester ,£1,000,000 a yoar." This is the estimate of the. lo'r.s to property. Lather more significant is the statement that in the neighbouring manufacturing town of Salford, the death rate in 19(10 was 2.i.3 per thousand, where in l!) 10 it had beon reduced to 16.2 per thousand— and that owingto improved hygienic conditions,'of which the purification of the atmosphere was one. of the chief.

This Manchester and Salford exhibition (<ays an exchange) is a valuable obto every manufacturing {own. Apart from the display itself, certain facts were impressed, ' by means of speeches and pamphlets, on' the minds of the people. They were reminded, for example, that smoke is the direct cause of enormous damage to fabrics of every description; that the acids it deposits cause tho decay of buildings, of works of art, and of other property; that it robs the city of a share of sunshine, bringing instead fogs, grime and disea.-.c; and that it prevents flowers from blooming and trees and plants from growing. Statistics were quoted to show that not merely I the manufacturer, but the Tiouseliolder, was to blame for the prevalence of the evil, and some home truths were told for the benefit of the latter, in Manchester the ordinary coal fire was raid to be responsible for' nearly 60 per cent, of the total smoke poured out over the city, and the citizens were told that unless they could interest themselves sufficiently to ask for something better than this no real mitigation could be expected. The susrgfsted remedies for "homemade smoke" included the use of gas, electricity, and smokeless solid fuels, assisted in the last-named case by slow combustion grates. The great feature of the English display was the number and variety of mechanical stokers on view. There is a I general impression that if a man can do nothing else he can at least stoke a furnace—supposing he has the. physical strength and endurance. As a matter of fact, such is not the case. There are good stokers and bad stokers; and the general prevalence of bad stokers is re-

sponsible for a brge amount of unnecessary smoke. In "firing" <i boiler the problem is to ke?p the coal always burning brightly, and to keep the temperature so high that everything is burnt completely instead of being half burnt and partially'wasted. The mechanical stoker'attends to these and other matters. It flings a. little coal at frequent intervals on to the (Ire. Moreover, it flings it all over the firo, with far greater uniformity than even the best firsman does it. and no door is opened during the | operation. This opening of doors, as one can readily perccivoi is liable to be fraught with mischievous consemienres, as it lets in the cold air, lowers the temperature, and by retarding combustion causes :the volume of' smoke to be magnified. ..■■■■ What the visitors to Manchester were shown was a variety of these machines actually at work, feeding the bailers, minimising waste, supplying coal to the furnaces in a manner to keep up heat of combustion, and actually doing away with the smoke nuisance altogether. One of the bast established types of stoker in the North of England is known as th? coking stoker. In connection wilh this there is a mechanical' arrangement to take away the ashes,'instead of leaving this unskilled, and often exhaustive, work 'j\ a fireman who might be better employed. The "coking stoker" puts the coal on at the front of the fire, and allows it to enke there; in other- words,. it heats up and gives off the gases which are. burned completelv a-s they pass over the bright hot fire "further back. As each fresh supply of coal is put on at the front the last charge, partly burned, is pushed further back, and the movement is timed so that the complete burning of the coal coincides with its arrival at the back of the grate, where the ash collecting mechanism receives it, and takes it away. \nother kind of stoker is the under feed" type, which, as the name implies, forces the coal up from below on to the ■rate These two, together with the "sprinkler" type already referred to, have the merit of doing systematically and correctly what no human hand can do so continuously or so well. The effect of one'and all of them is to abate the smoke nuisance, while they have tho further enormous advantage that ■ they fet tree human labour from an exhausting and unprofitable occupation, and malce it 1 available elsewhere.