WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.R.S. 325 



merit. In liis letter, he did not make comparisons between the 

 t\vi furnaces, he merely endeavoured to correct an error which 

 Mr. I'.ell li;ul incidentally fallen into. Rc^anlin^ Price's retort 

 furnace, IK- ini^ht observe, that at one time he had retorts in con- 

 nection with his own gas-producers when he found that he could 

 not get them gas-tight, and also that if, as in Price's furnace, the 

 coal passed through the retort, surrounded by the spent gases on 

 tin ir way to the chimney, the spent gas would speedily take up 

 all the gas that leaked through the joints, and make away with it 

 Dzioonsnmed ; moreover, it was very difficult to construct a vertical 

 retort in such a way, and to heat it to that nicety that the coal 

 would part with its hydrocarbons, and would not adhere to the 

 sides. The probability was that if they gave that furnace into 

 the hands of an ordinary fireman, the retort would soon be choked, 

 the bricks get overheated, and the whole thing come to grief. 

 How such accidents were prevented in Price's furnace did not 

 appear ; probably at Woolwich, where extreme care was bestowed 

 upon it under the author's own eyes, and where any failure could 

 readily be put right, without counting much the cost of doing it, 

 it might answer for a certain time, but judging by his own 

 experience, he should be apprehensive of a considerable amount of 

 difficulty if such a furnace were put into ordinary hands. The 

 furnace, while working, would no doubt give a fair result, and 

 develop a considerable amount of temperature. 



In the discussion of the Paper 



"NOTE ON THE MANUFACTURE OF ANTHRACITE 

 COKE IN SOUTH WALES," 



By ME. W. HACKNEY, 



DR. SIEMENS* said, he could fully substantiate the results 

 which Mr. Hackney had stated in his paper as having been 



* Excerpt Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, 1875, pp. 530-532. 



