Page 28 - Fundamentals of Air Pollution 3E

II. The Industrial Revolution 7

Fig. 1-3. A kiln for smoking red herring. Source: H. L. Duhamel due Monceau, "Traite
general des peches," Vol. 2, Sect. Ill, Plate XV, Fig. 1, Paris, 1772.

In the United States, smoke abatement (as air pollution control was then
known) was considered a municipal responsibility. There were no federal
or state smoke abatement laws or regulations. The first municipal ordi-
nances and regulations limiting the emission of black smoke and ash ap-
peared in the 1880s and were directed toward industrial, locomotive, and
marine rather than domestic sources. As the nineteenth century drew to
a close, the pollution of the air of mill towns the world over had risen to
a peak (Fig. 1-4); damage to vegetation from the smelting of sulfide ores
was recognized as a problem everywhere it was practiced.
The principal technological developments in the control of air pollution
by engineering during the nineteenth century were the stoker for mechani-
cal firing of coal, the scrubber for removing acid gases from effluent gas
streams, cyclone and bag house dust collectors, and the introduction of
physical and chemical principles into process design.