212 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



Much more time might be occupied in discussing the 

 various by-products which arise directly and indirectly 

 from the use of Coal ; great has been, too, the expense 

 and ingenuity devoted to ensure their acceptance by the 

 public. Take Ozokerit for an instance, which was first 

 discovered as a natural product, very similar in appearance 

 and composition to Solid Paraffin. I beheve ^20,000 

 was spent in posting the word on to every available dead 

 wall, conspicuous rock, or high fence, and in advertising 

 it in every language and in every country, until the 

 curiosity of the whole world was raised to a high pitch 

 in anticipation of the coming wonder ; but I think we 

 must now leave the coal pit, and work our way to the 

 iron mine, or rather to the smelting furnace, and see what 

 progress has been made in disposing of the enormous 

 output of slag. 



In the early days of Iron smelting the process was so 

 crude and imperfect, that iron was left in the slag in such 

 quantities that it has since been extracted with consider- 

 able profit from the old slag and cinder heaps. 



Taking an average of all the districts in England, for 

 each ton of iron made, 25 cwt. of slag is produced, and 

 from the official returns of 1879 of the iron smelted, no 

 less than 8,000,000 tons of slag were accumulated. The 

 space occupied by this mass when loosely tipped is some- 

 thing like 170,000,000 cubic feet, whilst the bulk of the 

 iron only occupies one-sixth of the same space. There 

 is, however, this great difference between iron and its 

 refuse ; whilst the former is diffused and finds its way 

 into every corner of the world, from the hook at the end 

 of the fisherman's line, or the hair-spring of a watch, to 

 the magnificent steam ship, or the abundant works upon 

 the various railways ; from the splendid roof of many of 

 our pubHc buildings, to the small but infinitely long rod 

 of the telegraph wire ; whilst iron has been diffused 

 through all the beautiful branches of the Arts and Sciences ; 



