nearly the statute ton of 2240 lbs. Hence, inclusive of thin layers, termed partings, an acre of the thick' or 'ten-yard' coal should contain somewhat less than 48,400 tons, and an acre of the same coal eight yards in thickness somewhat less than 38,720, say 38,000 tons. Now, it is certain that on the average at least one-third, or 12,000 tons per acre, have been irremediably lost from the mode of getting as previously described. But, as usual, where God has been most bountiful man has been most prodigal. Imagine that enormous store of force, which, as we have seen, it may have required millions of years to accumulate, not only lost, but in great measure needlessly and wickedly wasted. Warning, alas! comes too late, for the mischief is done, and the nation has been robbed of what never can be restored. It should be observed that in South Staffordshire it is not customary to weigh the coal as it leaves the pit, but directly to discharge the contents of the skips into boats, and every one knows how much the system of boat-gauging is open to fraud. What a South Staffordshire collier calls a ton of coal may probably be estimated at about 27 cwts. of 112 lbs. to the cwt. This should be borne in mind in collecting colliery statistics in this locality, for otherwise the results will be to a considerable extent erroneous. It is a common practice for the South Staffordshire colliers or colliery proprietors to pay a fee to the steerers of the boats which may be sent to be loaded, it being frequently left to these men to choose where they shall go. It need hardly be remarked that this is another opportunity for the practice of rascality. Moreover, it is not unusual for those having the charge of loaded boats to abstract some of the coal in transitu, and to pour water over the remainder in order to make up the weight. We know that these statements are true, and we publish them in order to show how much rottenness still prevails in the colliery trade of a particular district, and to put statisticians on their guard against inaccurate returns of colliery yields. It is, however, satisfactory to know that this state of matters is exceptional. With regard to the total waste of coal in all the collieries of Great Britain, either in the way already described, or by the destructive practice of burning at the pit's mouth great heaps of small coal and dust, it is not possible to present any precise and trustworthy information. There is too much reason for apprehension that it greatly exceeds what the public may suppose, or what the workers of collieries would be willing to admit. One illustration, on undeniable authority, shall suffice. The late Mr. Nicholas Wood * See above, pp. 448, 449. asserted asserted that, in 1861, the waste at the Hetton and Black Boy Collieries alone amounted to 160,000 tons of small coal in a year! From information collected at the Museum of Practical Geology, it would seem that last year about 96,000,000 tons of coal were raised. It would probably be safe to add to the number at least 20,000,000 tons for waste; or say, in round numbers, that we are now raising about 120,000,000 tons yearly. In 1860 the quantity raised was 80,000,000 tons; and in 1856 about 66,600,000 tons.* These numbers are so large that it is difficult to form an accurate conception of what they really mean. With 100,000,000 tons, a girdle of coal three feet wide and about seven high might be put round the earth! The next point for consideration is the waste of coal in burning. In common domestic fires it has been computed that seven-eighths, and even more, of the heat capable of being evolved from the coal pass up the chimney unapplied, so far as mere warming is concerned; and, whether this estimate be exaggerated or not, it is undoubtedly true, that the proportion of heat lost, and consequently of coal wasted, is very large. About half of the heat generated by the fire is supposed to be carried off with the smoke, about one-fourth in the constant current of the warmed air of the room into the chimney between the mantelpiece and the fire, and the remainder of the loss of heat is represented by the unburned particles of carbonaceous matter in the smoke. It is this matter which renders coal-smoke so dark and offensive, and which is partially deposited as soot. We need no further proof of the quantity of fuel wasted in this manner than what is afforded by the observation of a chimney on fire. But an English fire-place is so cheerful and attractive, even though we may be roasted on one side and frozen on the other, what matters the waste of fuel? Moreover, it is argued that the open fire causes excellent ventilation, and no doubt it does, but not so as effectually to remove the air which has become most vitiated by animal exhalations, namely, that at the upper part of the room. Our legs may thus be refrigerated, while our heads are immersed in contaminated air above. The open fire warms us by radiation, and long habit has wedded us to the system, in spite of its manifold defects, not the least of which is waste of coal,-a mineral which it needed no Sir Robert Peel to inform the House of Commons is more precious to us than all the silver of Mexico and Peru. In some other countries, especially those of colder climates, *See Q. R., vol. 110, p. 329. On the Smokeless Fire-place.' By Neil Arnott, M.D., 1855, p. 114. where where the death-rate is not higher than in Great Britain, there is comparatively no prodigality in the consumption of fuel. People there find comfort without intellectual or bodily deterioration, in houses suitably heated by warmed air. In such climates our fireplaces would be useless, and would be discarded even by those who may have been brought up in more genial latitudes, and have been led to believe in the necessary connexion during inclement weather between comfort and an English hearth with its wasteful pile of blazing coal. Climate is greatly concerned in this matter. Let fuel be ever so abundant, if the temperature of the external air be very low, as it is, for example, in Sweden and Canada during winter, the warming of houses by such fire-places as we are accustomed to in this country would be very inefficacious, and would not be tolerated. The alternative would be roasting or suffocation, unless the inhabitants were willing while in-doors to clothe themselves after the fashion of Esquimaux. In such countries, notwithstanding the rigour of climate and the copious supply of cheap firewood-a material which, unlike coal, is constantly being replenished-there is much greater economy in the use of fuel than with us. In the good old times in England our ancestors seem to have been as lavish in the consumption of wood, of which in those days there was no lack, as we are at present with respect to coal. This is proved by the large dimensions of the hearths in the baronial halls and other dwellings of ancient date which may still be seen in various parts of the kingdom. If we could only be induced to give up our prejudices and prefer reality to semblance, there would be no difficulty in warming and ventilating our houses with a fraction of the coal which we now employ. But then the open fire must be superseded by what most Englishmen instinctively abhor, namely, stoves or other similar appliances more or less concealing the fire. Ordinary stoves are an abomination, especially if no special arrangements for ventilation are provided. The air, by contact with them, becomes not warmed but heated, and between warming and heating there is a great difference. Minute particles of dust are everywhere floating on the atmosphere near the surface of the earth, which are immediately made manifest by the streaming of the sun's light into a comparatively dark room. Those particles consist in a certain degree of organic matter, which, on impinging upon the strongly-heated surface of a stove, are decomposed and yield odorous products. It is conjectured by some, but it is a mere conjecture, that the air undergoes some other change which renders it disagreeable if not unwholesome. However this may be, no such objection can apply to air simply warmed; warmed; and stoves may be constructed which warm and do not burn the air, as it is termed. At the same time they may be made ornamental, safe, and moderate in price. Such stoves might have been seen in the International Exhibition of 1862, particularly in the Swedish department. They presented a large surface either of white enamel or of pottery. The ingenuity of British inventors, or rather of patentees, has been largely exercised on the subject of stoves, and as every fresh invention of the kind is declared to excel all its predecessors in the saving of fuel,20 per cent. is a trifle,-we ought now to be able to generate heat without any fuel at all! Many of these contrivances are as unphilosophical in principle as they are repulsive in appearance. This condemnation is, unhappily, too applicable to a great many miscalled inventions which have been concocted by patentmongers, who of late have multiplied and become an obstructive nuisance to real inventors. To show what may be done in the way of economizing coal in our households we may cite the following statement of Dr. Arnott : --- The writer of this (Dr. Arnott) has in his own house a striking illustration of the matter in a peculiar enclosed fire, which, for fourteen years past in a large dining-room, has maintained, day and night, from October to May a temperature of 60° (Fahrenheit) or more, with good ventilation, by an expenditure of only twelve pounds of coal for twenty-four hours, or about a fourth of what would be used in an open fire burning for fifteen or sixteen hours. The aperture by which enough fresh air enters the room to maintain combustion sufficient to warm the room, is about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. If this be compared with the aperture of a common chimney-pot, which has a diameter of ten inches, and an area or size, therefore, more than one hundred and fifty times greater than that of the stove,-and if the rapidity be considered with which a column of dense smoke filling that pot escapes from it when the fire is burning briskly,-and if it be considered further that such column consists almost entirely of the warmest air of the room, defiled by a little pitchy vapour from the fire, there is proof of prodigious waste, and room for reasonable hope that a great saving is possible.'* But economy is not the only incentive to the saving of coal in our households. It is really distressing to perceive the vast difference in the quality of the atmosphere of London and our large towns and that of the country or of many cities on the Continent -Paris, for example. Here we are in the metropolis breathing coal-smoke, begrimed by coal-smoke, and sometimes involved in that 'pitchy cloud of infernal darkness,' through which we see the sun dimly as a fiery red ball. Our buildings are made hideous by coal-smoke, being patched with horrid streaks of black, where the rain fails to penetrate. The things we call statues, though consisting of bronze, are blackened with soot-an effect which it is reported an eminent deceased sculptor admired, as they were thus boldly relieved against the sky! If we keep our windows close the ubiquitous smut gains access, and if we open them--as we needs must-woe betide us. And not only do our hands and faces contract dirt, but soot finds its way into the air-tubes of our lungs. Plants as well as animals are poisoned by smoke, and see how they struggle for existence even in the Parks of London. The fine trees in Kensington Gardens are dying apace, and roses bloom not within some miles of Charing Cross. Then how great oppression falls on our spirits from the fuliginous exclusion of the pure light of the sun! Tyndall tells us that the aqueous vapour in our atmosphere keeps us warm like a blanket, and so prevents us from being speedily frozen to death. But what is that dense canopy of coal-smoke over our heads but a veil which makes man wretched and nature hideous? This, as we all know, is not the language of exaggeration; and what is so bad in the metropolis is far worse, if possible, in many manufacturing towns of the country. With us the evil is now caused in great measure by the imperfect combustion of a very large quantity of coal in our domestic fires, as with few exceptions the nuisance formerly occasioned by furnace-chimneys has been greatly abated. But in the country, as Sir Robert Peel stated recently in the House of Commons, it is far otherwise. There factories are permitted to vomit forth torrents of black smoke with impunity, although, as Sir George Grey remarked, ample powers exist for the suppression of this great evil, if only his favourite local authorities' could be prevailed upon to put the law in force. Who are these 'local authorities' of whom we have of late heard so much in Parliament? Why, doubtless, in many cases the very men who create the abomination. Mr. Henley, the venerable member for Oxfordshire, advised that heavy penalties should be inflicted for a breach of the law in this respect, and that half should to the informer. This is good sound sense. Another suggestion has been made that the Factory Inspectors might with advantage be directed to take this matter in hand, and we are disposed to think this suggestion reasonable. At any rate, your 'local authorities' who produce the smoke can hardly be expected to proceed against themselves; and as they are often omnipotent in their locality, the suffering inhabitants would not be likely to risk an encounter with these mighty men of the mills. Lan go cashire |