MOCK MIDNIGHT

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIII, 6 February 1923, Page 8

MOCK MIDNIGHT

LONDON IN A BLACK FOG. MIDNIGHT AT MIDDAY. ■ — (Daily Telegraph, November 22) London experienced yesterday one of the worst fogs of recent years, and one of the most curious in the annate of “fog-ography.” Midnight reigned at midday, and thence onward there was I no daylight whatever over the vast i Central area of the metropolis. It was, so far as London was concerned, a total eclipse of the sun by fog. There was a fairly heavy early-moming mist over the whole of Greater London, due : to the anti-cyclonic conditions, and as , the day advanced the weather condi- . tions became steadily worse. The dense. 1 black fog that followed was almost eni tirely our own making! As every Lon- ; doner rose for the day and lit his fire for breakfast ,or later stoked the office fire-grate, hundreds of thousands of chimneys, aided by innumerable factory chimney-stacks, began to belch forth volumes of soot which became collected, and held down, by the cloud-wrack some 300 ft to 500 ft above. A pearlgrey November sky of clean mist became rapidly transformed into a poisonous pall of soot. London, in short, became roofed wifh its own soot: there were thousands of tons of it in the black canopy. According to the report issued last night by the Meteorological Office, the weight of solid impurity in the atmosphere registered at South eKnsington between eleven a.m. and one p.m. reached a maximum of 51b per 1,000,000 cubic yards! Outer London remained free from the fog, but not from mist, through the day, but noon in the heart of the City and West-end saw the same conditions that mark evening or night. Many street lamps were never extinguished at all. Artificial illumination in street and building had soon to be everywhere employed. Nine-’thirty a.m. saw most of the street lamps burning as at 9.30 p.m. Possibly the user® of brilliant electric advertisement signs were pleased. Nobody else was! The theatres and cinemas quickly took advantage of the “mock night” to remind us of this or that entertainment. The familiar landmarks of daytime were blotted out.

Blotted out in the inky sky-blanket-ting were the dome of St. Paul’s and Big Ben, and the campanile of Westminster Cathedral. Dim and murky were the, great perspectives of Whitehall, the Embankment, Regent street, and the western thoroughfares. The omnibuses and all vehicular traffic were carrying lights from 11 a.m. onwards. After lunch-hour—which seemed like dinner-time all the shops and restaurants. and the great trade-palaces of the West End were brilliantly lighted up. Thereafter the bewildering pedestrian and motorist saw the House of Commons open its second sitting with electric light, and the London County (ouncil assemble by the same means of lighting and heating to discuss the question of fog prevention and ‘“the pollution of the atmosphere due to preventible causes!” No doubt there were Londoners who recalled the vivid description by Aantole France in his “Penguin Island’ 'of the giant city that became so extensively and so successfully industrialised that its mid-most inhabitants never looked upon the sun it all! Would the inky visitation come down to-the ground , and create a real oldfashioned “pea-souper,” bringing all traffic to a standstill ? So far there had been no serious interference with street traffic, although some morning

trams were delayed.' question which everyone ' afternoon and evening, t/ not confined to indiriduajj j" fore has the Meterologi cal ceived so many inquiries and aeroplane companies as the weather conditions WIT ' worse. A Daily Telegrap), ‘ tative, making similar informed as follows “Strictly speaking, it j 8 but a thick, low-lying mixed up with soot a tew |, ani up. The smoke of Lond„ n i caught by the heavy mist anti-cyclonic conditions prerat Friday the high-pressure onwards towards the Atlant 1 northerly wind got up whidy ing Saturday, Sunday, and j Monday. This cleared awjj ( of last week. Late on ji,u high-pressure returned over th part of London, bringing complete absence of wind J. familiar fog is due to the » ari air becoming gradually mean temperature to-day low 50dog. It was only j t i London that the darkness The visibility outside Londot, to six miles. It was gotd flying. The condition on tly n in the Channel was misty," ] It must be some satisfaction smoke-abatement societies toy Londoners are no longer 4 themselves as to the real mtn “mock midnights.” Eveiysi, terday were to be heard erpreaj arguments concerning the trues fogs. Dr John S. Owen, th guished consulting engineer i teorologist, of Victoria Street,i emphatic upon this point, “Yes,” he said, “we harem fog for ourselves, and we are I have it time and again, matk detriment of our health, anil mous cost to all business pwpl •ever similar weather conditions; The fog was caused by the ■ London’s chimneys being hdj like a pall over the city by | cyclone which prevails over I If we had no smoking chimnq would have been no fog; «■ lying mist, perhaps, butnodn light-destroying fog. London'i neys produce some thirty to la of soot per hour. Normally di ried away by the wind. Dr. there is no wind at all, and d has collected in a vast dem above the metropolis. ' “An experiment to find dl much soot there is suspended! shows that at the level of my dow it is about 1.61 b per I,W.M yards, but it is very mud dfl course, higher up. If it we might well have one of !>■ ‘pee-soupers’ on rccei'd. ference between ro-day's hfM one we had last week is fog has remained above the houses. I can recall but none which has same way so long as this. of this description 'Hk hours. “As you know, the autbfflM especially the smok< -a.bateiw';B have tried for a long people living in matter, in any ntb>r great M ern factories are t, •■/? ly equipped for power, light. Possibly ti 1 o-f electricity woid' b> average household r at time. But coke or meet .the same purpose. vast amount of the comes from dotne.-tii no not think it would be if householders were using smoky coal m ranges and fireplace. That would mean legisl, : < n. could be promoted is not There is much to be said gestion put forward by that, instead of penaliWß using smoky coal, they W’OZ some rebate off the rates it. The proposal has not as much as it deserves. >