Addendum
By passing steam over red-hot carbon, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen is formed. This mixture of inflammable gases is known as “water-gas,” and in the preparation of the gas on a large scale, coke is used as a source of carbon. If, therefore, water-gas became generally used, another use for coke would be added to those already referred to (p. 47).
With reference to the consumption of coal in London (p. 46), it appears from the Report of a Committee of the Corporation of London, issued at the end of 1890, that the present rate of consumption in the Metropolis is 9,709,000 tons per annum. This corresponds to 26,600 tons per diem. It has been proved by experiment, that when coal is burnt in an open grate, from one to three per cent. of the coal escapes in the form of unburnt solid particles, or “soot,” and about 10 per cent. is lost in the form of volatile compounds of carbon. It has been estimated that the total amount of coal annually wasted by imperfect combustion in this country is 45,000,000 tons, corresponding to about £12,000,000, taking the value of coal at the pit’s mouth. Taking the unconsumed solid particles at the very lowest estimate of 1 per cent., it will be seen that, in London alone, we are sending forth carbonaceous and tarry matter into the atmosphere at the rate of about 266 tons daily; and volatile carbon compounds at the daily rate of 2660 tons (see p. 32). At the price of coal in London this means that, in solid combustibles alone, we are absolutely squandering about £10,000 annually, to say nothing of the damage caused by the presence of this sooty pall. Such facts as these require no comment; they speak for themselves in sombre gloom, and in the sickliness of our town vegetation—they give a new meaning to the term “in darkest London,” and they plead eloquently for science and legislation to show us “the way out.”
Footnotes
1 “An experiment concerning the Spirit of Coals,” Phil. Trans. (abridged), vol. viii. p. 295.
2 Report of the Coal Commissioners (1866-71), vol. i.
3 In a paper read before the Royal Statistical Society by Mr. Price-Williams in 1889, this author points out that, owing to the introduction of the Bessemer process and other economical improvements, the amount of coal used in the iron and steel manufacture had fallen in 1867 to about sixteen and a half per cent. of the total quantity raised.
4 This remark does not apply to Great Britain; our Excise regulations have practically killed those branches of manufacture requiring the use of pure wood-spirit.
5 Since the above was written, new synthetical processes for the production of indigo have been made known in Germany by Karl Heumann. Of the commercial aspect of these discoveries it is of course impossible at present to form an opinion.
6 Since the above was written the continuation of Koch’s researches upon the tubercle bacillus has culminated in the discovery of his now world-renowned lymph for the inoculation of patients suffering from tubercular disease.
7 In one large factory in Yorkshire there is a set of stills kept constantly at work making pure aniline at the rate of two hundred tons per month. The monthly consumption of coal in this factory is two thousand tons, equal to twenty-four thousand tons per annum.