The Sun.
London, England, 1853-11-16 00:00:00

FACTS AND FALLACIES ABOUT. SMOKE.

Remaining without any communication from Messrs.
Calvert and Co., Messrs. Easton and Amos, or Samuel
Hall, relative to our observations of the 29th ult., we
are warranted in assuming that we were correct in the
inferences we had formed from the reported proceedings
before the Commissioners of Sewers for the City of
London, on the 18th of the same month ; being to the
effect that the invention of the last-mentioned gentle.
man, recommended to Messrs. Calvert and Co. for trial
by their engineers, was the furnace particularly referred
to as included in the failure and expenditure that had •
been fruitlessly made ; and the silence maintained by
all the parties named leaves us no option for the further
assumption that no other patented furnace was com-
prised in an experiment so costly and unfortunate, and
that no difference of opinion exists between them a
regards the results. It would have been more satis-
factory to us if the parties, respectively engaged in a
practical illustration so important to our readers had
put us in possession of the particulars ; but:in the ab-
sence of any such courtesy, we must be content to
accept the conclusions, in rejection of any otherwise
supposed fallacies, as undoubtedly belonging to our
ascertained or admitted facts. Nevertheless, there re-
mains one inquiry to be satisfied which is this—upon
what grounds have Messrs. Calvert and Co., and
Messrs. Easton and Amos, arrived at the assumption,
because two moveable bar systems have failed in this
instance (supposing Juckes's to have preceded Hall's),
that there is no plan, complex or simple, for approxi-
mately pe..fect combustion, which cannot be brought
into successful operation without the extravagant expen-
diture of thousands of pounds fur the purpose of adapt-
ing the premises to some exclusive description of furnace ;
instead of trying other patented inventions that have
already, more or less, something like established reputa-
tion ? We quarrel not with the preference shown by
engineers who manufacture them for Jukes's furnaces,
nor are we disposed to make other than honourable
mention of Messrs. Truman, Hanbury, and Co., for up-
holding the credit of an invention peculiarly appropriate
to their brewery arrangements, when we declare our
own opinion that too much and too favourable considera-
tion appears to be given to an invention, as the ne plus
ultra, whatever constructive talent it may evince, which
is avowedly inapplicable to four out of every five boilers
on land, and has never yet, to our knowledge, succeeded
on board any steam-vessel. That where it can be used
it gets rid of the smoke nuisance we readily concede ;
but we as firmly believe that, unless where slow com-
bustion, and consequently limited, although regular,
production of steam is all that is desired, Jukes's fur-
nace tends to decrease the evaporate power of the boiler
very materially. To see where the truth lies in such
a view of the matter, let us ask another first-rate manu-
facturing concern, and another eminent engineering
firm, to assist in the elucidation. We are informed, by
a civil engineer, who, as a practical boiler setter and
furnace constructor., of about 30 years' standing, and as
an established authority on such subjects has attained
well-earned celebrity both in manufacturing districts
and the metropolis, that when the City Flour Mills, in
Earl-street, Blackfriars, commenced grinding, four
boilers, each with an ordinary furnace, enabled the
engines to drive 32 pair of stones, but when six boilers
were subsequently employed, four of which were sup-
plied with Jukes's furnaces, no more work could be
performed ; indeed, less became the rule. Whether or
not, as our informant shrewdly suggests, now that to
the asserted decadence of power consequent upon
the said use of the slow combustion principle, there is
also added another resuscitation of a system tried and
abandoned over and over again since Mr. W. Losh's
patent of 1814—say, during nearly 40 years—namely,
turning off the smoke from one furnace into another, by
means of a series of dampers ; or, in other words, now
that the draught is cut off, and the effective heat from
the furnaces is proportionately and frequently suspended
to give the smoke a chance of being burnt (?)—whether
or not, our informant propounds, it will be worth while,
under this new phase of the affair, to ascertain what is
the effect observable on the capability of the engines ?
The fair solution of each question involved is of the
utmost importance ; first, to the proprietors of the
mills, at whose expense it is only reasonable to infer
these repetitions of exploded experiments are made (and
explosive they have been, literally, in instances that can
be verified) ; next, to the entire manufacturing com-
munity, anxiously awaiting the clearest perception of
what touches them so nearly; and scarcely of less con-
sideration than either of them, to the public at large.
We, therefore, respectfully submit to Messrs. White,
Ponsford, and Co., the proprietors of the mills, and to
Messrs. Swayne and Bevil], their engineers, that it may
be of as much interest to them to inquire, as to others
to have ascertained, in which of the two catagories these
remarks should be placed—among the facts or the fal-
lacies ? Are our premised data, are our deductions
right or wrong, and wherein, and how far ? And we
earnestly assure them that in thus requesting to become
the medium of such communications with the public, we
are solely actuated by a desire to promote the advance-
ment of the practical sciences by every honourable means
in our power.—Mining Journal.