S7A WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.R.S. 175 



In //// ili*-i;*sion of (ha Paper 



"ON GAS-GENERATING FURNACES," 

 By Mr. F. LIRMANN, 



Du. Si KM FA'S* said, Mr. Liirraann was so well known as a 

 gentleman who had originated practical ideas which had been 

 hiiLTt-ly used, that anything coming from him deserved much con- 

 sideration. The gas-producer now advocated by Mr. Liirmann 

 \v;i< lased, as might be supposed, upon a sound philosophical prin- 

 ciple that of concentrating heat as much as possible in the 

 operation of converting the solid fuel into gas. He had, however, 

 two criticisms to make on Mr. Liirmann's paper, the one regarding 

 the historical record with which he prefaced his arguments, and 

 the other as to the technical value of the particular arrangements 

 proposed by him. It was now more than thirty years since he 

 had constructed the first gas-producer applied to the regenerative 

 gas furnace, and he might add, that the subject of fuel conversion 

 had engaged his attention ever since. Under these circumstances 

 he should have expected to find in the historical record of the 

 author some allusion to his labours in this direction. In the years 

 1863 and 1864 he patented several varieties of gas-producers, in 

 which the coal passed towards the fire-grate through retorts, in a 

 vertical or inclined direction, which retorts were heated either by 

 the gas resulting from the operation itself or from extraneous 

 sources. Indeed, the hopper arrangement, described in the paper 

 as Price's gas-producer, might, amongst others, have been taken 

 from one of his specifications of that early date. He might 

 further mention that in the year 1863 he brought a bill before 

 Parliament to supply Birmingham with heating gas, and that the 

 gas-producer then put forward comprised both the principle of re- 

 tort-heating and that of the open grate for the final conversion of 

 coke into carbonic oxide, whilst by another arrangement the coke 

 was withdrawn from the apparatus to be used separately as breeze. 

 This arrangement, he believed, was still in operation at Messrs. 



* Excerpt Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, 1880, p. 583-585. 



