350 Anaii/sis of Scientific Books. 



applies to the engine-boiler a newly-constructed fire-place, con- 

 taining a circular grate, which is made slowly to revolve upon 

 its axis ; the fire upon this grate is fed in front by a kind of 

 hopper, continually delivering small coal, which, from the ro- 

 tary motion of the grate itself, becomes equally spread upon 

 its surface, so as to maintain a thin fire and a sharp draught; 

 the coal is thus^rapidly and perfectly decomposed and burned, 

 the smoke at first produced having to pass across the grate and 

 over the red-hot and already coaked fuel. The great advantages 

 of this plan consist in the uniformity of heat, and its propor- 

 tionate production to the work which the engine has to perform, 

 or to the quantity of steam consumed ; the fire-bricks are not 

 injured ; the clinkers or scorise are produced in thin layers; and 

 the bars are so little heated, that while three bushels of coal 

 per hour are consuming, they are seldom hot enough to singe 

 paper ; the boilers are less injured than by a common fire ; and 

 there is a considerable saving in the consumption of fuel. The 

 disadvantages of Mr. Brunton's plan are, the expense of the 

 apparatus ; the requisite alteration of the boiler, or rather the 

 addition of a supplementary boiler ; the necessity of a moving 

 power to effect the rotation of the grate; and the labour of 

 breaking the coals into small pieces before they are put into the 

 hopper. Upon the last point Mr. Brunton, when questioned 

 by the Committee, replies as follows: " No coals should be put 

 on a steam-engine fire until they are small enough to pass a 

 three-inch mesh ; therefore, the necessity of breaking the coal 

 to that size is advantageous ; but we have lately burned a spe- 

 cies of small coal in our own furnace, and also in the town of 

 Birmingham, which has till now been regarded as perfectly 

 useless, and as such there are thousands of tons encumbering 

 the ground in the Staffordshire collieries, incapable of being 

 used with effect in any other furnace, and we have produced 

 with this hitherto supposed rubbish, 70 per cent, of the effect of 

 saleable coal *." 



How far Mr. Brunton's invention bears upon the main point 

 of our inquiry, namely, the consumption of smoke, will appear 

 from the following evidence : Mr. James Scott Smith, of the 

 Whitechapel Distillery, says, " We can consume the smoke to 

 a very great extent, and although it is not completely invisible, 

 yet it is never offensive ; we never have any of those dark 

 volumes of smoke which are the cause of so much complaint." 

 Mr. Brancker, of Liverpool (a sugar-refiner), also gives evi- 

 dence as to the great diminution of smoke effected by Mr. 

 Brunton's " fire-regulator ;" and both these gentlemen speak 

 in terms the most unequivocal, respecting the saving of fuel, 



* Minutes of Evidence, p. 1 2. 



