AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 435 



complained of in the coal oil is not found when the heat of the mass does 

 not exceed 450=' or SOO"" Fahr. 



Mr. Yeeder, whose business is in oils, desired to know how to rid coal 

 oil of its sulphur. 



Mr. Reid. — Pass it through lime water. 



Mr. Everitt. — The odors resulting from combustion are very difficult to 

 remove. 



Mr. Stetson. — May not surplus heat in the mass be regulated by suitable 

 introduction of cold air ? The various products of the coal come oflF at 

 different temperatures, and we must find out what those are. 



Mr. Everitt. — 600" brings out all, leaving coke alone. 



Mr. Seeley. — Men knew nearly as much 07ie hundred years ago as wc 

 do now on the subject before us, as to the oils, the temperatures. Heat 

 the oils. One boils at 200° ; another at 300°, and so on to 300°, 400°, 

 500°. Young's patent is mistaken. Laboratories of chemists have given 

 us as accurate results as Young. Coal tar products were better examined 

 before. Mr. Seeley draws the atomic symbols of some of the materials. 

 Heat diminishes the carbon in all of them. 



Secretary Meigs tried the Anthracite coal when first brought here. He 

 examined the coals after they had gone through white heat, and was then 

 somewhat surprised to find, wdieu cold, the inside of the coal as black as 

 ever, and as good to burn. Wc have thrown away such coals, because the 

 outsides were ashes, these thirty years past, by millions tons I Not know- 

 ing that the carbon in them sustains any degree of heat, it enters the sub- 

 stance of iron in the furnace. 



Secretary Leonard. — I do not see why perforated plates may not be used 

 to pass the gases. The journals can be worked gas-tight, and breaks 

 within the cylinder will stir the mass properly for admission of heat uni- 

 formly. 



Mr. Stetson. — The Pittsburgh engineers are doing their best to improve 

 the coal products, finding difficulties enough. Common sense finds in bodies 

 diiferences which the atomic symbols do not satisfy inquiry. Ls parafiine 

 commercially valuable ? As a candle it does not burn well and correctly. 



Mr. Seeley. — A patent has been granted this week for paraffine candles. 



Mr. Everitt. — They are now made in Boston and elsewhere. They burn 

 well in that climate, but when warmer, they are apt to bend like asphal- 

 tum. 



Prof. Hedrick. — The coal oils are not pure chemical compounds. Anal- 

 ysis cannot tell us precisely what is combined with them. Some say they 

 are binary compounds, one dissolving the other. We want to separate the 

 oils. That would be worth the trouble of sevei-e analysis. The boiling 

 point of water tells us much, and the various degrees of heat are capable 

 of further analysis. German chemists are doing much in this article. 



Mr. Tillman had objections to the revolving cylinder. Pittsburgh is now 

 beginning to despair of success. He justifies the symbolic atom method 

 of definition. Weight cannot tell us. When the atomic compound is 



