PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 209 



the colonies must now be measured, not by the local 

 demand for butchers' meat, but by the price which 

 can be obtained for the various constituents of the 

 carcase in the different markets of the world. The utiliza- 

 tion of this waste animal food has received of late vears 

 a large amount of attention, and various methods have 

 been introduced both for transporting the animals them- 

 selves either alive or in carcase, and also for preparing the 

 animal food in different forms, cither as extracts of meat, 

 tinned provisions, or dried and smoked goods. 



There are two industries which have together consti- 

 tuted, to an incalculable extent, to render our commercial 

 position what it is. I refer to the coal and iron trades. 



Now in both of these there is an immense amount of 

 waste material which is more and more being brought 

 into utihty. 



Our colliery produce cannot last for ever, at the enor- 

 mous rate at which we are working the pits, and as the 

 quantity of small waste coal per annum in the United 

 Kingdom has been estimated at 28,000,000 tons, the 

 utilization of this refuse is a matter of national importance. 



Many, more or less successful, efforts have been made 

 to combine this dust with tar, pitch, and other inflammable 

 substances, and then to press the mixture with bricks, 

 which are used as fuel. At the Charleroi mines in 

 Belgium over 250,000 tons of such an agglomerate are 

 annually made ; and so extensive is now becoming in our 

 own country the manufocture of patent fuel, that we ex- 

 port yearly 400,000 to 500,000 tons of this commodity. 



Much time, thought, and attention have of late years 

 been devoted, both in domestic uses and in the produc- 

 tion of steam, to minimize the consumption of fuel, and 

 the urgent necessity there is for this is evident when we 

 consider that our coal supplies are used once for all, and 

 cannot be replaced, and that our annual consumption is 

 ever on the increase. In 1855 the amount raised was 64 



