The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1906-04-27
bAG-H0USES WILL
PREVENT DAMAGE
Smelling Companies Being Sued
Are Spending Vast Sums
for Relief.
IMPROVEMENTS ARE
ADDED QUIETLY
Enormous Saving of Values Ad-
ditiOnal Virtue of the
Method Adopted.

Out OF tho famous suits against the
four smeltcr companies. a course OF litl-
cation that has been occupying the at
tcntion of the State and Nation for six
months. no developments show more
interestingly than the expensive expert
ments being made by the companies to
reduce the damage resulting from tho
escaping gases and metals into the open
mir. The smclter companies arc sparlng
no effort or expense to relieve the con-
ditionS that arc complained OF, as Is
shown by the evidence that is being In
troduced before the Master In Chancery
hearing the case,
Companies Build Bag Houses.
Tho American Smelling and Refining
company has been shown TO be now con-
structing an expensive playhouse, inyov-
Ing the expenditure of from $4,000 TO
$lUo0lp. In which will be collected all the
lead and arsenical fumes from tho lead
stacks of this smelling company. The
United States Smelling, Refining and Mi
ming company also is shown To have per-
fected plans and to have started con-
struction of O aghoUse in connection
with Its large plant
Large Sums Expended.
The Bingham Consolidated and United
States companies have expended largo
sums OF money In lengthenlng and on
lareing their fue-dust chambers in con-
nectlon with their plants, and they are
succeeding In saving all the coarse fue-
dust and practically oil the fine flue-dust
il has been stated that flue-dust as fine
white flour was being saved by these
TWO companies.
Will Remove the Damage.
Testimony given by several OF the ex-
perts tends to show that the saving of
fiuc-dust and percentage OF gases would
greatly alleviate, II not remove entirely.
surrounding farms by the plants
operating nearby, by the adoption OF the
playhouse method. 1t is stated that the
Bingham Consolidated has expended the
sum OF $4,000. and the United States
company q large sum also.
Description Of Bag House.
The playhouse is structure consisting
OF two floors, being the usual steel
floor at the bottom and an intermediate
floor perforated with numerous holes
the rims of these holes are fastened by
rings Of metal the openings of long tubu-
lar bags of good quality of brown sheet
ing and the gases containing the
solids forced into the bags and
through the minute meshes Of cloth, and
all the solid particles are thereby filtered
out of the gases and retained on the inner
surface OF the cloth,
Great Saving Effected.
These bags are detached and shaken
at stated intervals, and the solids con-
taining valuable metallic contents are re-
smelted. This method, while doing
away largely with the usual damage to
surrounding vegetation, results in q
source of material profit to the smelling
company. 1t is said by those familiar
with tho process that the Tacoma sMelter
saved more than $4,000 in one year by the
use OF the baG-houses.
Watched With Much Interest.
Experience elsewhere has strengthened
the belief that the installation OF these
bag houses in this State will obyiatc any
probability OF lead or arscnical particles
being sent out upon the vegetation OF
the surrounding farms, and this outcome
tcrested.