Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
It has often been observed that the stones and bricks of buildings, especially under pro-
jecting parts, crumble more readily in large towns where much coal is burnt than else-
where
…
I was led to attribute this effect to the slow but constant action of the acid rain
…
it
is not to be expected that calcareous substances will resist it long, and one of the greatest
evils in old buildings in Manchester is the deterioration of the mortar. It generally swells
out, becomes very porous, and falls to pieces on the slightest touch.
15
Using Smith
'
s extensive chemical analyses of free acids in Manchester
'
s rain-
water, Dietrich Schwela has converted his
gures to estimate that the pH value of
s rainfall over a century ago was a very low 3.5.
16
This is a far more acidic
value than today
the city
'
s measurements for acid rain in Europe and the United States. In
the USA and Germany smoke, soot and acid rain had similar deleterious effects on
the built environment. Chicago
'
'
s dazzling
'
White City
'
, an exhibit of elegant
buildings created for the 1893 World
s best architects,
quickly darkened and decayed. While in industrialising Germany famous buildings
such as Cologne Cathedral were seriously corroded by air pollution.
17
The omnipresent smoke that blanketed fast-growing industrial areas was also
linked to the destruction of urban nature. Green spaces and blue skies had largely
become
'
s Fair by some of America
'
'
'
meaningless terms
for poor city-dwellers during what some contempo-
'
'
'
raries called
rst real industrial city,
damage to local vegetation was devastating, as Robert Holland, consulting botanist
to the North Lancashire Agricultural Society, noted:
the age of smoke
. In Manchester, the world
s
Some years ago I had the honour of making an inspection of all the public parks of
Manchester on behalf of the Corporation
…
I scarcely need say that, going as I did from the
fresh green country, I was horri
ed to see the havoc that was being made. Fine open
spaces
…
which ought to have been beautiful, and would have been picturesque if well
covered with trees, and which should have supplied pleasant recreation grounds for a
population that sees far too little of country life and breathes far too little of fresh country air
-
rendered hideous by the blackness of everything with[in] them
-
trees stunted, dying,
owers struggling to bloom and sometimes their species scarcely recognisable. It is no
exaggeration; and as long as the surrounding chimneys send out volumes of sulphurous
acid and of carbon there can be no improvement
18
…
s parks were representative of the
conditions in and around coal-fuelled industrial cities more generally. In the 1920s,
for example, the authorities of Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis, Brooklyn
Botanical Gardens and New York
The effects of smoke on
ora in Manchester
'
s Central Park all lamented the loss of trees,
shrubs and plants from smoke-related problems. At roughly the same time, of
'
cial
reports into air pollution emanating from the Ruhr in Germany revealed damage to
cropland and woodland on a regional scale.
19
While some vegetation could with-
stand the unrelenting assault from air pollution (such as ash, elder, hawthorn, poplar
15
Smith (
1859
) p. 232.
16
Schwela (
1983
).
17
Stradling (
1999
) and Frenzel (
1985
).
18
Mosley (
2008
) p. 41.
19
Obermeyer (
1933
) and Br
ü
ggemeier (
1994
).
