SMOKELESS CITIES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9713, 8 February 1910, Page 4

SMOKELESS CITIES.

The smokeless city is coming in the very near future, says J. L. Coch • rane in the " American Review of Ke-

views. 5 ' "This is the belief of Go-

vernment scientists who are now pointing the way toward a country with an undefiled atmosphere. In the ultimate solution of the smoke problem in the United States there are several highly interesting factors that will play important parts, according to the Government scientists. One of these is the gas engine, or, as the engineers term it, "the internal combustion motor." This engine is absolutely smokeless —smokeless because it has no chimney. Its greater economy, it is declared, may cause it to displace the steam engine within a few years but this is not conceded by many engineers. Another factor is the establishment of central steam heating plants in the various cities to supply heat to the thousands of homes, and the great; steam power plants, many of which are now operating smokelessly and with far greater efficiency than ever ( before. Still another factor is the location of immense gas-producer plants at the coal mines and the turning of this gas into electric power for long-distance transmission or the piping of the gas to substations near the great [manufacturing districts

there to be burned in gas engines and alao to develop power and heat for the various industries. Professor R. Hey wood Pernald, consulting Engineer in charge of the gas producer investigations for the Government, has given much thought to the smoke problem. The general introl duction of the gas engine will, he says, in addition to making smokeless cities, eventually mean a saving of millions of dollars a year to the manufacturers of the country. Various estimates place this saving to the country's coal bill at from £20,000,000 to £40.000,000."