The Smoke Problem of Great Cities

Abstract

IT is a significant fact that the thing which first strikes the foreigner on visiting large cities in Great Britain is the smoky atmosphere and the grimy appearance of the buildings. He wonders how we can tolerate such an environment. It is true enough that most of us do so, and it may be, as one writer has said, “that thousands of people live their lives from start to finish in the midst of black smoke and have come to regard it as a normal condition of life.” Nevertheless, there is a small section of the community who feel very differently on the subject, as the growing mass of literature on the smoke nuisance testifies. The latest contribution is a treatise on the smoke problem of cities by Sir Napier Shaw and Dr. Owens, who for many years have devoted their attention to the estimation of atmospheric impurities in London and other large towns. The most interesting section of the volume is the record of these experiments, namely,. the measurements by the standard gauges, which have been set up in various towns, and the results obtained with the dust filter and the jet dust counter, all of which have already appeared in extenso in the reports of the Committee on Atmospheric Pollution of the Meteorological Office. The volume includes also a good deal of information borrowed from other sources.

The Smoke Problem of Great Cities.

By Sir Napier Shaw Dr. John Switzer Owens. Pp. xvi+301. (London: Constable and Co., Ltd., 1925.) 22s. 6d. net.