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Show WHY 'SMOKE ABATEMENT' FAILS IS TOLD BY CHEMICAL ENGINEER John Stewart of Salt Lake Declares Public Responsible; Re-sponsible; History of Fight Against Nuisance Traced From Century Ago Ty John Stewart, Chemical RngineCT M.V4I8 Dooly IllrxJi. gall Ialu Active community efforts nt "9moke abatement" commenced mere than a century ago. in the beginning of the fourteenth century, in fact, n man wax executed In London for creating a moke nuisance by burning coal This eliminated the nuisance for some time, but we hear of it again In the flf-teenth flf-teenth century In isio the British parliament appointed a committee to Investigate tho means which might be used to reduce the smoke nuisance of London. Since that time such efforts have lulled nnl lagged but never real- 1 y ceased; and during the past half i century they havs been practically I continuously and rather vigorously I applied. These all represent efforts j to abolish the smoke nuisance by the I application of civil law. which is In accordance with the physical fac t thai people generally have their practices, whether Rood or bad, thrust upon them. BOMBI hin. REMAINS, During more than 1 HO years past a ;reat many scientific and industrial workers and Inventor have established estab-lished many factn and devised apparatus appar-atus parts Of which will be Incorporated Incorpor-ated ID the final solution of the smoke problem -.i solution which now. no doubt, near at hand, lor our predecessors predeces-sors have already finished most of the work necessary tor discovering a solution of the problem. isui m, (ltd 0r Ideas ntlal to th- com-pleto com-pleto rolutlon of the problem still remain re-main undiscovered or unknown, and this is why "smoke abatement" falls to completely eliminate tits moke nuisanCS. Much has been done. Inn there remain yet sometlilnK more to do Why Is this residue of achievement achieve-ment seemingly so long delayed? To answer this question let mo call attention to two important fact? both of w hich reveal a condition or attl-. tude of sncien which largely ouns ( for the continued existence of BUCn problems. One of Huso facts relates o tho present, and Is ....own by the following quotations front .Wjncj The Other relates to a period of nearly two Thousand years ago. and In a tew paragraphs below relating t00?Aprll SO. 1020. there wa, Pun-! Ilehed Science an article entl U d inventions and Patents," whi h written bv Dr Andrew Stewart Of t V S bureau of mines. I quote from this article several statements, as fol- j l0"Dut many contributions to knowledge knowl-edge ami a whole mass of "clc-ntiflc facts and prm IpleS dew.oped in the course of numerous and varied lne9 ligations carried on ment have failed to reach and benefit the general public, because of a lack of means of translating them Into actual, ac-tual, practical service. VIlWs OS I'VITM Various views have been held by government officials concerning the legal status of patents and patentAOle inventions dev. loped by government employes In the course or as a result I of their regular dutlev It is i a fact however, thai the law in re- gard to the ownership of patents by j govornmont employes excepting employes em-ployes of the patent office Is exactly exact-ly the same as It Is for employes nt p'rlvate individuals or corporations. "Thus In certain bureaus of the service ser-vice employes are required to dedicate dedi-cate thulr inventions or patents to the government outright, even in the absence ab-sence of legal authority for the procedure; pro-cedure; In others they are prohibited from taking out patents at all; in others. oth-ers. If they take them out. they must dedicate them to the public; In others again, the employe may retain title , to the patent und n ake what profit I he can with It In tho opvn market, but the government reserves the right of free license therennorr. In some cases this free license Is restricted to only the bureau In which the Invention Inven-tion originated. "The tendoncy of the generally unsatisfactory un-satisfactory situation here outlined has been to discourage Inventiveness among government workers. IX)OKINC. HAvKW AKI). Iet us now look backward through nearly 20 centurlt-s of time and direct di-rect our attention on Italy. n Aug- ust the 24. In the year "f of the first century of the Christian Era, Mount Vesuvius broke into extremsly vio-1 len eruption; and during the succeed ing three days tne cu oi t uihu city of about 86,000 Inhabitants situated situat-ed at tho fool of Vesuvius disappeared disap-peared beneath a shower of volcanic ash and mud which covered th city to a depth of 20 to 70 feet. Time passed, the decades increased Into centuries cen-turies and Pompeii was forgotten Now generations of men tilled the soil at the foot of Vesuvlue for csnturiss without knowing 01 suspecting that a buried city lay beneath their farm." ime day in tho eighteenth century i peasant discovered some antique household article on his farm above tho buried city, and curiosity led to excavation Scientific expeditions carried on the excavations iuul I'om-psll, I'om-psll, after resting In the grave for seventeen sev-enteen centuries, stood revealed to the curious and In" t . M-.1 u- et' th- people peo-ple of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Thus w.i: reveah-d much of tho life and customs of a highly civilized community of about two thousand yearn ago. A large volume ntltled -Mus'-'iui . Antiquity, written by W. iTagg and T. j Haines way publish" d In I ' In which considerable space was givi n to a description and discussion of what Pompeii revealed. Among the many other things described, there la a description and photograph of a bakery tound at Pompeii, which contained con-tained four stone flour mills, and r. -vealed the fuet that flour was not made In those days as easily as It Is now. The stone mills of those days were run hv human power, and the difficulty of' tho task ha been immortalized immor-talized In the proverb. "He is tied to a millstone." or 'He has a millstone about his nock." After describing these flour mills tho authors express themselves as follows: DlSORIBE MACHINES. "These machines aro about six feet high in the whole, made of a rough gray volcunlo stono. full of large crs-talfl crs-talfl of leuclte. Thus rude. In a period of high refinement and luxury, was one of tho commonest and most necessary neces-sary machines thus carelesB were the Romans of the amount of labor wasted In preparing n article of daily and universal consumption. This, probably, arose in chief from the em-j ployment of slaves, the hardness of whose task was little cared for, while the profit and encouragement to enterprise en-terprise on tbo part of tho professional bakor was proportionately diminished, since every family of wealth probably prepared its bread at home. But tho same Inattention to the useful arts runs through everything they did. Their skill In working metals as qusl to ours; nothing can bs more beautiful than the execution of tri pods, lamps and vases, nothing coarser coars-er than their locks, while at the same time the door handles, bolts, etc, which were seen were exqulsltoly WTOUght, To what cause can tills slug glahneSS be referred? At present we seo that a material Improvement In any article, though so trifling as a corkscrew or a pencil case. Is pretty sure to piake th fortune nf some man. though unfortunately that man ISTsry often not tho Inventor. Had the encouragement en-couragement to Industry been the MUIIC (In those early times as It Is now i, the result would have been the same ithen as now)." In the above quotations I have emphasized em-phasized certain parts which reveal that there was practically no reward at all In the most civilized society Of two thousand years ago for Inventive Inven-tive thought applied to the practical affairs of life a fact which, by the way, had a profound Influence on the "Fall of the Roman Empire ), end that In the society of the present time there aro large rewards for Invention, Inven-tion, hut that the Inventor genernlly does rtoi irrei. the rewards This, then is one of the most important reasons rea-sons why uch problems as the smoke problem drag on through the centuries of tlnv There Is not hi present, and much less so In earlier times, any adequate nonius ,.f iranslatlng inventions inven-tions into practical use to the proper mutual advantage 0f the Inventor and the public. PKOPLE LOSERS. The people are the great losers by virtue of this condition, for good useful Inventions produce such enor-mous enor-mous and long continued benefit- to the public that It is a practical impossibility im-possibility for the inventor to reap more than a very small part of the benefits, even when he becomes Immensely Im-mensely wealthy For example. Rr-mer Rr-mer maintained control of his steel $i . ooo ooo on them Kelley, the original Inventor of the Bsesemsr pro-eess pro-eess of making steel, sold th.. controlling control-ling Interest In his American pate, I500.0U0 Mushet, the inventor of an rnpor ant Improvement on the original orig-inal Hessemer process, failed to pav the patent fees and. hence, got no nat-ent nat-ent and received no pfofits? BeSS: 'mo Tr- rr01 the Importance Import-ance of his achievement, (are him a ''""3," uf Per year In his old - n- U: 8- StccI corporation. "ing these inventions after the inventors in-ventors are .lend. Is making nnual net profits of about 193.000,000 in 1-1 and of J176.00y,ooo in in20 and he public Is getting steel now for afout J,0 per ton end for about $30 per ton a few years ago; whereas, before be-fore Bessemer steel came on tho market, mar-ket, steel was selling for about SfioO per ton. The proper burning of conl may reasonably be expected to save more than in per cent of the people's coal bill, this being less than one-fourth of what Is now wasted For the I 'nited States such a sa ing would amount to 50.000. 000 tons annually at present, bai Ing a value of about MOO -000,000 Besides this the damages caused by smoke arc generally considered con-sidered to be more costly to the people peo-ple than are the losses due to wasted coal. With the smoke problem thus costing the people hundreds of millions mil-lions of dollars annually no one who knows and respects the facts will contend con-tend that the inventor of a means of burning conl smokclesslv Is more concerned In Its successful use than the public is. PI BUfC BENEFITS The public is the principal beneficiary bene-ficiary of Inventive thought, as every-1 one ith an adequate knowledge of history knows. if It wishes to ron- 1 tlnue In that role, it must give moie' adequate protection to the rights or inventors and provide more adequate means of doing its part In translating Inventions into practical use. uthcr-wlse uthcr-wlse Invention w ill cease, not only will new Invention owe, hut the Inventions Inven-tions which we now ha e w ill bo forgotten. for-gotten. Such things have occurred before in tho history of man, and the present civilization will go the way of Its predecessors unloss sreater justice jus-tice is Incorporated Into the dealings Q f men The proper encouragement, support and reward of Invention by society is a much more Important consideration considera-tion than the public generally realises. There can be no better proof of this than rlvif ptvtin hv lhi lllutnrv rf TTn- rope during the past two thousand years. After Galen, a Roman physician physi-cian who lived In the second century of the Christian Era, initiative and Inventive In-ventive thought seemed to disappear from Europe. Tho Roman civilisation civilisa-tion decaved. disappeared and was forgotten. for-gotten. For thousand years after I cialen no new tools or Inventions wore produced In all Christendom; and b;,- Ithe tenth century Europe had become a place of practically no cities, almost 1 no roads, no bridges, no wagons, no . i rrlaw - ri" a iitomoblles.. . no "rubber "rub-ber neck cars," no trolleys, no rall-roads, rall-roads, no tourists, little or no commerce, com-merce, no telephone, no telegraph, no J I ks, no schools 1 , 1 1 f monasteries, '" 1 'teachers hut the clergy, no new-I papers, no photography, no movies. no electrli or gas lights, no stoves, no chimneys to the houses, no clocks, no1 textllo mills but household spindles and looms, no sugar factories, no steel I mills, no lawyers, no doctors, no den-j tlsts, no scientists, no science, no 1 n 1 - tlatlve or Invention Life in Europe In those days was a hard struggle for' existence; the nobility of that time ! lived a life which would be called one of extreme povertj todav Farming Farm-ing was almost the only Industry; and theology and robbery almost the only professions EUROPE AROUSES. I The crusades In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were the first visible vis-ible awakening of European thought Horn a Bleep of more than a thousand I years. Then came the Magna Charta, ihe Rennalssance, the Reformation and the French Revolution. Rrlnt-. Ing was invented in tho middle of th i fifteenth century, paper soon there- after, the steam engine In tho .seven- ( tesnth century, nearly 1800 years af-tar af-tar It had first been Invented and forgotten, for-gotten, and Innumerable scientific achievements and practical Inventions have followed, our present luxurious civilization Is based upon and Is tho culmination of more than five centuries cen-turies or inventive thoufcht translated translat-ed Into practice. Without such thought we would now be living in the tenth century conditions or worse, Tho twentieth century people would not knowingly vn: for a return of such conditions, but robbery masquerading under the name of business will bring about a return of such conditions unless un-less tho people distinguish bstween robbery and business and punish the ono and patronize and protect the other. The smoke problem Is the peoples' problem. It 1a not an aset a somo people seem to assume, but Is a liability lia-bility as ererj ans knows, rt .-n not be solved except by the cxpendl-; cxpendl-; turo of time and money by some one ! After it is solved tho solution can not 1 be demonstrated to the public except J by the expenditure of niore time and money, nnd the public can not be ! taught to appreciate the solution without with-out the expenditure of more time and money, and It can net be Induced to adopt an Improved apparatus or to practice new methods without the expenditure of more time and money Somo one has to spend time and money In this way or Invention ceases land learning and luxury disappeai from the earth. Uefddes, the chafl and husks of knowledge have to be paid for the meaty kernel can not bo ' produced alone. Why expect the In- Ventors to aaaume all this burden, and i tlo-n, as generally but not always, be thrut aside as the profit bearing j stage arrives? Good Inventions would ' got Into uso much faster thun they do, md would be produced much sooner than they nosv are. after their need ariose, it the public would provide ade-qunte ade-qunte machinery for translating them into use to the mutual benefit of the Inventor and the public "Smoke abatement" is an institution institu-tion developed mainly by mechanical engineers, lawyers politicians and busines men. The profession ot engineering, en-gineering, using the facts of physics nnd chemistry, adds thereto a ' factor Of safety, and then applies them to the Industrial affairs Of men Business Busi-ness men operate on a 'factor of safe- j ty." or "go broke " Chemists, physic- j ists .md inventors hae no "fn-tor of lafety," and are genernlly "broke ." There "r1' no "factors of safety" at- I rached to fsct". The truth Is not adaptive It hews to th line Irrespective Irrespec-tive of tho "Interests" of men If men do n"' know how' to avoid the chips nnd smoke, the chips fall upon them and the smoke enshrouds them. The laws of nature can not be repealed i by the laws of Kentucky. V ( TS IvSTABIilSIlED. Physics and chemistry have hereto- i fore sstablishsd most of the facts upon up-on which tho solution of tho smoko I problem u".pendc. "The wind blow eth whither it listeth", but physics. 'has demonstrated tnat it always nsi-leth" nsi-leth" toward the point of lOWSSl pi I sure. If the place of lowest p: -esure Is insldo a chimney the wind blOWl into the chimney In 177.".. the Trench chemist, iivoisicr. explained what happens during combustion of fuel, and a mystery of all the ages was thus cleared up In 1784. the Swiss chemist. chem-ist. Argand, applying Lavoisier's theory the-ory of combustion to the burning of oil. Invented tho Argant lamp (generally (gen-erally known st present as the stu-donta' stu-donta' lamp), and the smoky, malodorous malodor-ous oil lamp In uso for thousands of years disappeared, anil has been for-gotton for-gotton by the later generations of men. Tho first chemists who made coal gas burned it mokelessly In a gas Jet inu.de by the prick of a pin. i ver a century and D quarter Murdock, using as for industrial lighting, want-ied want-ied a larger flame, and he got one by having the gus Issue from a tube of larger diameter, but his flame was a smoky one. He made the flame smokeless again by flattening It as seen In tho modern gas Jet light. Then, in 1835, the chemist Bunson Invented tho Bunsen gas burner, whereby a large, smokeless '"as flame couid be produced. Thus the burning of oil and gas. the smokiest fuels there are, has been made amokeloss. In ever case this result has been accomplished by an adequate mixing of air with the combustible at a high enough temperature. temper-ature. Coal smoke will disappear hen the users of coal burn It w 1th an adequate mixture of air at a high enough temperature. tem-perature. This adequate mixture with air has not been attained yet in ordl- i nary practice and can not be prae- j tioally attained In the coal burning j apparatus now in imo. The "smoko problem" ln Its present stage is, therefore, primarily a problem ln Invention, In-vention, and not a problem In engi- ! neerlng or civil law. lnentlon, however, how-ever, requires thinking. accurate thinking, thinking without any "factor "fac-tor of safoty". and such thinking le not Indulged In as much as It should be if the best Interests of society were to be sorved. The human factor In the creation of luxuries and wealth ! are thought and work, and the greater great-er of these factors i. thought a. fact which will be adequatelv revealed to him who will compare the tenth century cen-tury conditions with the twentieth century conditions in Europe, und trace through tho centuries the forces which have produced the change Thought Is the most powerful human factor in the affairs of man. oo Stick insect of Borneo Is the largest larg-est known. |
