Scientific Treatise on Smoke Abatement

Abstract

IT is a little unfortunate that the term “scientific” should have been included in the title of this book, seeing that the author is clearly more familiar with the subject of mechanical engineering than with either physics or chemistry. Without a sound knowledge of at least the fundamental principles of these two sciences, the scientific treatment of smoke abatement is bound to suffer, and the result is that the scientific part, if it may be so called, is ill expressed and arranged, incomplete, and often incorrect. For example, the term “British Thermal Unit” is defined and used; but the method of estimating the calorific value of fuels is never mentioned, or its relation to temperature, though the two are frequently referred to together. The confusion between molecular and atomic weights (p. 16) is not perhaps a serious error, but the statement that at low temperatures “hydrogen and carbon in the coal partially combine, producing hydro-carbons causing smoke” (p. 15), cannot be passed over so lightly. The statement on p. 12 that excessive admission of air produces carbon monoxide must surely be an oversight.

Scientific Treatise on Smoke Abatement.

By H. Hamilton. Pp. xiii + 155. (Manchester: Sherratt and Hughes, 1917.) Price 5s. net.