No. 168.

Contents.

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OUR

THE END OF SMOKE.

Vol. VII.

UR readers. perhaps, will be delighted to hear that smoke is to be mended and ended, that our great manufacturing industries are to be conducted in the future with no more noxious emanation than a little luminiferous ether, that our factory chimneys are to be carefully taken down and used for grottos and garden walls, and we are to become even as the children of sweetness and light. We think we have heard something of this before.

The smoke problem is said to be solved. Mr. Elliott, of Newbury, has been describing an improved machine whereby all the smoke from boiler furnaces can be washed white, and the gases emitted at a much lower level than heretofore without producing any nuisance. It appears that this gentleman has become somewhat tired of being fined some four times a day for emitting black smoke, and has exercised his ingenuity in such a manner as to deprive the local authorities of some important part of their revenue. We have noticed in several newspapers an account of the machine which is supposed to annihilate all the evils under which we are at present suffering. But the world is large, and inventors are too apt to neglect the labours of those who have gone before them. Manchester people will recollect that about the year 1879 much ado was made of a machine for effecting the foregoing purpose. We now allude to Johnson's Smoke and Fume Washer, as arranged by Mr. Benjamin Goodfellow, of Hyde. There was erected a very simple machine for washing smoke. It was an adaptation of the well-known "Porion Evaporator," which we, on several occasions previous to this, had recommended to manufacturers as a means whereby the carbon and a great portion of the sulphurous acid could be washed out of coal smoke. In the same year, Wilson and French's "Fume Condenser " was working at Sheffield, and the writer, in conjunction with the late Dr. Angus Smith, went to inspect both of these machines. Where are they now? Have they been consigned to the limbo of forgotten things, and do they only exist in spirit in the 16th annual report of the Alkali Act Inspector?-It is useless to say Mr. Elliott's machine has anything new except perhaps in so far as he proposes to use mechanical power to draw the gases into his washing machine, when they would go there without being drawn at all. Such an appliance as Mr. Elliott's may possibly be useful in connection with boilers heated by sawdust and shavings, which, we understand, are employed by him in his works, but there are many things in connection with the combustion of coal which seem to have been forgotten, though they will probably be found out during a lengthened trial of the machine when put up for treating coal smoke. We notice from the report of Professor Heaton that the water from the washer is browned from tarry matter and faintly acid. This has been the weak point in all smoke washers. Sulphurous acid becomes converted into sulphuric acid, and eats away shafting and fanners and paddles, and everything, in fact, which comes in contact with it. We have had much experience with these machines, and as we reported

to a firm of manufacturers in 1878, there is no better smoke-washer extant than the Porion Evaporator. While the Royal Commission was sitting upon the revision of the Alkali Acts, many experiments were made with a view to bring smoke-washing to a practical issue if it were possible, but the only outcome was, that the process would not pay, but involved an expenditure for which there was no possibility of any return. It is true that Mr. Estcourt, the city analyst, of Manchester, who made many experiments with the washer at Messrs. Goodfellows' Works, endeavoured to produce a crude sulphite of lime, for which, in his opinion, many uses could be found, but we believe he was not successful in introducing the material into the market, and, like all other smoke-washing schemes, the process was abandoned. Since then, however, a great demand has sprung up for sulphites. Sulphite of lime, in the form of bi-sulphite is largely employed in paper works for the manufacture of pulp from wood, and it is more than probable that something might be done now in the way of smoke-washing, rendering at the same time the sulphite of lime, formed during the operation, available for commerce. We have many times in these pages endeavoured to prove to our readers that the carbon in the black smoke is not the injurious ingredient. Residents in the vicinity of Higher Broughton, a district over which most of the Manchester smoke is continually blowing, have noticed that in recent years the shrubs and trees and household effects are not coated with carbon in the way they formerly were. But there has been no diminution in the evils resulting from the invisible sulphurous acid accompanying the smoke. It is now more difficult to grow flowers and trees in the neighbourhood of large towns, than it was before, and yet there has been smoke suppression, vigilantly conducted, for a long period. Until the authorities, smoke-washers, manufacturers, and sanitators generally, appreciate that it is the sulphurous acid that has to be dealt with, we have no hope that our chimneys will be pulled down for grotto building, or that they will be permanently superfluous.

THE MCKINLEY BILL. (Concluded from page 63.)

GLASS AND GLASSWARE.

107. Green, and coloured, and flint, and lime glass bottles, holding more than one quart, and demijohns, and carboys (covered or uncovered), and other plain, moulded, or pressed green, and coloured, and flint, and lime glassware, not specially provided for in this act, one cent per pound; if holding one pint, and not more than one quart, one and onequarter cents per pound; if holding less than one pint, and not less than one-quarter of a pint, one and one-half cents per pound; if holding less than one-quarter of a pint, fifty cents per gross. 108. All articles enumerated in the preceding paragraph, if filled, and not otherwise provided for in this act, and the contents are subject to an ad valorem rate of duty, or to a rate of duty based upon the value, the value of such bottles, vials, or other vessels shall be added to the value of the contents for the ascertainment of the dutiable value of the latter; but if filled, and not otherwise provided for in this act, and the contents are not subject to an ad valorem rate of duty, or to rate of duty based on the value, or are free of duty, such bottles, vials, or other vessels shall pay, in addition to the duty, if any, on their contents, the rates of duty prescribed in the preceding paragraph: Provided, That no article manufactured from glass described in the preceding paragraph shall pay a less rate of duty than forty per centum ad valorem.

III.

112.

Chemical glassware for use in laboratory, and not otherwise provided for in this act, forty-five per centum ad valorem. Thin-blown glass, blown with or without a mould, and all other manufactures of glass, or of which glass shall be the

component material of chief value, not specially provided for in this act, ten cents per dozen and forty per centum ad valorem.

113. Heavy-blown glass, blown with or without a mould, not cut or decorated, finished or unfinished, five cents per pound and forty per centum ad valorem.

SCHEDULE C.-METALS AND MANUFACTURES OF
IRON AND STEEL.

136. Chromate of iron, or chromic ore, fifteen per centum ad valorem.

137. Iron ore, including manganiferous iron ore, also the dross or residuum from burnt pyrites, seventy-five cents per ton. Sulphur ore, as pyrites, or sulphuret of iron in its natural state, containing not more than three and one-half per centum of copper, seventy-five cents per ton: Provided, That ore containing more than two per centum of copper, shall pay, in addition thereto, one and one-fourth cents per pound for the copper contained therein: Provided, also, That sulphur ore as pyrites or sulphuret of iron in its natural state, containing in excess of twenty-five per centum of sulphur, shall be free of duty, except on the copper contained therein, as above provided: And provided further, That in levying and collecting the duty on iron ore no deduction shall be made from the weight of the ore on account of moisture which may be chemically or physically combined therewith. 138. Iron in pigs, iron kentledge, spiegeleisen, ferro-manganese, ferro-silicon, wrought and cast scrap iron, and scrap steel, three-tenths of one cent per pound; but nothing shall be deemed scrap iron or scrap steel except waste or refuse iron or steel fit only to be remanufacturedby resmelting or rerolling.

175. Iron or steel sheets, plates, wares, or articles, enamelled or glazed with vitreous glasses, forty-five per centum ad valorem. 191. Antimony, as regulus or metal, three-fourths of one cent per pound. 195. Copper imported in the form of ores, one and one fourth cents per pound on each pound of fine copper contained therein. 198. Copper in plates, bars, ingots, Chili or other pigs, and in other forms, not manufactured, not specially provided for in this act, two cents per pound.

203. Lead ore and lead dross, one and one-half cents per pound: Provided, That silver ore and all other ores containing lead shall pay a duty of one and one-half cents per pound on the lead contained therein, according to sample and assay at the port of entry.

204.

205.

Lead in pigs and bars, molten and old refuse lead run into blocks and bars, and old scrap-lead fit only to be re-manufac tured, two cents per pound.

Lead in sheets, pipes, shot, glaziers' lead, and lead wire, two and one-half cents per pound.

206. Metallic mineral substances in a crude state and metals unwrought, not specially provided for in this act, twenty per centum ad valorem; mica, thirty-five per centum ad valorem.

vessels of American manufacture exported filled with American products, or exported empty and returned filled with foreign products, including shooks when returned as barrels or boxes; also quicksilver flasks or bottles, of either domestic or foreign manufacture, which shall have been actually exported from the United States; but proof of the identity of such articles shall be made, under general regulations to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury; and if any such articles are subject to internal tax at the time of exportation such tax shall be proved to have been paid before exportation and not refunded: Provided. That this paragraph shall not apply to any article upon which an allowance of draw back has been made, the re-importation of which is hereby prohibited except upon payment of duties equal to the drawbacks allowed; or to any article manufactured in bonded-warehouse and exported under any provision of law: And provided further, That when manufactured tobacco which has been exported without payment of internal-revenue tax shall be re-imported it shall be retained in the custody of the collector of customs until internal-revenue stamps in payment of the legal duties shall be placed thereon.

496. Asbestos, unmanufactured.

497. Ashes, wood and lye of, and beet-root ashes.

498. Asphaltum and bitumen, crude.

499.

500.

Asafetida.

Balm of Gilead.

Cuttle-fish bone.

560. Divi-divi.

561. Dragon's blood.

562. Drugs, such as barks, beans, berries, balsams, buds, bulbs, and bulbous roots, excrescences such as nut-galls, fruits, flowers, dried fibres, and dried insects, grains, gums, and gum-resin, herbs, leaves, lichens, mosses, nuts, roots, and stems, spices, vegetables, seeds aromatic, and seeds of morbid growth, weeds, and woods used expressly for dyeing; any of the foregoing which are not edible and are in a crude state, and not advanced in value or condition by refining or grinding, or by other process of manufacture, and not specially provided for in this act.

663. Oil cake.

664. OILS: Almond, amber, crude and rectified ambergris, anise or anise-seed, aniline, aspic or spike lavender, bergamot, cajeput, caraway, cassia, cinnamon, cedrat, chamomile, citronella or lemon grass, civet, fennel, jasmine or jasimine, juglandium, juniper, lavender, lemon, limes, mace, neroli or orange flower, nut oil or oils of nuts not otherwise specially provided for in this act, orange oil, olive oil for manufacturing or mechanical purposes unfit for eating and not otherwise provided for in this act, ottar of roses, palm and cocoanut, rosemary or anthoss, sesame or sesamum-seed or bean, thyme, origanum red or white, valerian, spermaceti, whale, and other fish oils of American fisheries, and all other articles the produce of such fisheries.

666. Opium, crude or unmanufactured, and not adulterated, containing nine per centum and over of morphia.

668. Orchil, or orchil liquid.

669. Ores, of gold, silver, and nickel: Provided, That ores of nickel, containing more than two per centum of copper, shall pay a duty of one and one-fourth cents per pound on the copper contained therein.

682. Platinum, unmanufactured, and vases, retorts, and other apparatus, vessels, and parts thereof composed of platinum, for chemical uses.

683. Plumbago.

685. POTASH.-Crude, or "black salts," chlorate of potash, muriate of potash, nitrate of potash, or saltpetre, crude, sulphate of potash, crude.

686. Professional books, implements, instruments, and tools of trade, occupation, or employment, in the actual possession at the time of persons arriving in the United States; but this exemption shall not be construed to include machinery or other articles imported for use in any manufacturing establishment, or for any other person or persons, or for sale.