AIR EROSION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19841, 16 May 1927, Page 3

AIR EROSION

ACID IN COAL SMOKE ENGLISH BUILDINGS DAMAGED LONDON, April 20. Two authorities, the one speaking in London and the other in Liverpool, re ccntly emphasised the damage done by the polluted atmosphere to stately public buildings. Addressing the Royal In stitution on “The Stones of London,” Air. J. Allen Howe pointed out that tho majority of London’s buildings are now built or faced with limestone, a material which is readily attacked by the acid-laden town atmosphere.

“With the recent report on the state of the Houses of Parliament before us, revealing peculiar defects demanding very costly repairs, with examples liko the refacing of the old Caen stone front of the Carlton Club and the variety of treatments now being given to other stone facades .by which their character is entirely changed, it is time,” he added, “to consider whether we are condemned to build only for one generation; whether we are using the best methods in the structures we hope to be permanent; and whether we shall continue to tolerate buildings black on one side and white on the other, with statuary embellishments reminiscent of the ‘white-eyed Kaffir.’ ”

“The shortest way out of our troubles,” he said 4 ‘would bo through the purification of the town air, though assisteuce could be given by using stone or other material of greater resistivity in situations where it is required; by employ' ing ornament in very bold masses or in quite low relief; by designing and constructing with meticulous care to avoid lodgment for damp; and by care in the choice of mortar. The magnificent now cathedral at Liverpool is already showing the effects of smoke, according to Afr. Edwin Up ton, treasurer of the Liverpool Gas Company, who read a paper before tho British Commercial Gas Conference al Wallasey. The very serious deterioration of the fabric of our beautiful buildings, said Air. Upton, was wholly attributable to coal smoke. The acids in the air were responsible in some cases for incrustations three inches deep and in others for tho reduction of stone to the substance of cheese. “It will, of course, bo a very long time before the Liverpool Cathedral reaches such a stage as that,” ho added, “but already its stateliness is being disfigured by a blackness, particularly noticeable on the Lady Chapel side, and it will not be long under pro- 1 sent conditions before its blackness will be comparable with that of another fine specimen of noble architecture — St. George’s Hall.”