A/A' WILLIAM SIEMEXS, l-.R.S. 85 



ON FUEL. 



A Lecture //r/ircred to the Operative Classes at Bradford on leJialf of 

 Ilir British Association, 20th September, 1873. 



BY C. WILLIAM SIEMENS, D.C.L., F.R.S., C.E. 



IN accepting the invitation of the Council of the British 

 Association to deliver an address to the operative classes of this 

 great industrial district, I felt that I was undertaking no easy 

 task. Having to speak on behalf of the Association, and in the 

 presence of many of its most distinguished members, I am bound 

 to treat my subject scientifically, but I have to bear in mind at 

 the same time that I am addressing myself to men unquestionably 

 of good intelligence, but without that scientific training which has 

 almost created a language of its own. 



It is no consolation for me to think, that those who have taken 

 a similar task upon themselves in former years, have admirably 

 succeeded in divesting highly scientific subjects of the formalism 

 in which they are habitually clothed. The very names of these 

 men Tyndall, Huxley, Miller, Lubbock, and Spottiswoode are 

 such as to preclude in me all idea of rivalry, but I hope to profit 

 by their example, and to remember that truth must always be 

 simple, and that it is only where knowledge is imperfect that 

 scientific formulas must take the place of plain statements. 



The subject matter of my discourse is " Fuel ; " a matter with 

 which every one of us has become familiarised from his infancy, 

 but which nevertheless is but little understood even by those who 

 are most largely interested in its applications ; it involves con- 

 siderations of the highest d priori interest, both from a scientific 

 and a practical point of view. 



I purpose to arrange my subject under five principal heads : 



1. What is fuel ? 



2. Whence is fuel derived ? 



3. How should fuel be used ? 



4. The coal question of the day. 



6. Wherein consists the fuel of the sun ? 



