Wootten.] -^l"* [March 3, 



A Combination of Apparatus by which ordinary Anthracite Coal-waate, 

 Jrom the Dirt-banks at the Mines, can be successfully and profitably 

 burned in the Furnaces of Stationary and Locomotive Boilers. 



By John E. Wootten, Reading, Pa. 



{Read before the American Philosophical Society, March 3, 1876.) 



Prominent and peculiar features in the landscape of the Coal Mining 

 Regions are the enormous heaps of black and apparently useless material 

 collected near the outlet of each mine. The nature of this material can be 

 best imderstood by a brief consideration of the source from which it comes. 



The coal measures are made up of veins of coal of varying thicknesses 

 and constitution. The coal of which they are composed, especially in the 

 thicker veins, has mixed with it layers of slate, sometimes in mass, at other 

 times finely laminated and disseminated throughout the .seam. 



As the coal is found in beds interstratified with rocky formation, it is 

 subject to similar accidents as are the rocks themselves when disturbed by 

 convulsions of nature ; therefore Avhen portions of a vein are crushed and 

 rendered unfit for use as marketable fuel.it must, notwithstanding its unfit- 

 ness, be removed from the mine to permit access to the more valuable coal. 



Seams of considerable thickness are usually divided into separate beds 

 of varying thickness, by deposits of slate, which impurity must be re- 

 moved in the preparation of the coal for the market ; and the same seam 

 may furnish several qualities of coal. 



The great heaps of material to which we have referred, are thus the re- 

 sults of the various ojierations of mining and preparation of the coal for 

 market. They contain therefore, in addition to the earthy matter, slate 

 and rock already mentioned, a large portion of the purest coal taken from 

 the colliery, not only that which is crumbled into small fragments during 

 the operation of mining, but also that, which having passed through the 

 breaking rollers is crushed into particles of too small size to be merchant- 

 able, and is for that reason consigned to the dirt heap. The last named 

 contribution to the heap constitutes from twelve to fifteen per 'cent, of all 

 the good coal that is mined, and is the result of the wasteful method which 

 is employed to reduce the large lumps to the uniform sizes requii'ed by the 

 demands of the trade. 



Some of these lieaps are the accumulations of half a century, and have 

 been exposed during their formation to the action of the weather and such 

 atmospheric influences as have lessened their value for heating purposes by 

 loss of carbon and saturation with moisture. 



We have therefore, in dealing with these masses as fuel, to overcome the 

 difficulties consequent upon their containing a very large amount of in- 

 combustible matter, all of tlie elements for the ready production of clinker 

 and incapability for producing an active or vigorous fire in the ordinary 

 furnace. 



To consume this material with useful effect, it is necessary either to sub- 



