260 MANUFACTURES OF RUSSIA. 



simplicity or the construction of the furnaces. Naphtha and naphtha refuse, when 

 burned in the calorimeter, evolve relative to their composition, and according to the 

 determinations of many investigators, about 11.000 units of heat, for instance accord- 

 ing to Mahler in 1892, 10,800 units; while the best kinds of coal do not evolve more 

 than 7,-400 heat-units. This relation requires the substitution of ilOO parts by 

 weight of coal by only 67 parts by weight of naphtha refuse, and this proportion 

 is actually observed in the heating of boilers and locomotives by these two kinds of 

 fuel. As Henri St. Claire Deville long ago showed, naphtha fuel is more advantageous 

 than coal, and even than coke, in all furnaces which require a high temperature, such 

 as smithy hearths and foundry furnaces. 



This is due in the first place to the fact that naphtha contains a high per- 

 centage of hydrogen and no oxygen, and in the second place, which is still more 

 important because naphtha fuel when properly regulated may be totally combusted 

 like a combustible gas, without any excess of air, which is impossible with coal or 

 coke if not converted into generator gases. A no less important quality in certain 

 oases, as for instance in vessels of the fleet and in the centre of towns, is the faculty 

 possessed by naphtha fuel of entirely burning under boilers and stoves without any 

 trace of smoke, and of giving a flame of any required length, as well as of heating^ 

 very rapidly. In a word, naphtha fuel must be regarded as the best form of fuel yet 

 known. It is applicable to any kind of heating, for instance to house heating, 

 kitchen and baker ovens, to steamers, locomotives, and other steam engines, and 

 also to metallurgical and glass furnaces. Its application to these purposes is almost 

 exclusively carried on in Eussia, because this is the only country where it is cheap. 

 During recent years its price at Baku varied between 3 and 6 kopecks per poud, and 

 along the Volga from Tsaritsin to Nizhni from 10 to 20 kopecks, and in Moscow from 

 20 to 30 kopecks; but the price tends rather to fall than rise, because the amount of 

 refuse produced at Baku increases every year, and the transport by water becomes- 

 cheaper, and the reservoirs or stores are everywhere increasing in ninnber. 



These low prices have resulted in naphtha fuel being employed in the steamers. 

 coursing the entire system of the middle and lower reaches of the Volga and 

 Kama, and on all those navigating the Caspian Sea, as well as on the railways ad- 

 joining these water ways, especially the Transcaucasian and Transcaspian railways. 

 And these railways are greatly indebted to naphtha for their very existence, because 

 the shores of the Caspian and the lowlands of the Volga, owing to their poor forest 

 vegetation and the absence of workable seams of coal, are deprived of any other form 

 of fuel, and the naphtha which occurs both on the west near the Sea of Bailov and on 

 the Apsheron peninsula and near Petrovsk, and also on the east shore of the Cas- 

 pian, on the island of Cheleken, and the adjoining ports of the Transcaspian region ; 

 especially the heavier kinds of naphtha present the most natural if not the only 

 local fuel. In other parts of the Empire naphtha fuel must be regarded as an excep- 

 tional and in some cases valuable material, as for instance for obtaining high temper- 

 atures, for use on board the Men of War, owing to its giving no smoke, and for 

 obtaining a rich illuminatiuggas. When naphtha refuse is suddenly subjected to a 

 high temperature in gas retorts, it gives a gas which is very rich in heavy 

 hydrocarbons, and very luminous. But for the ordinary purposes of heating and. 

 especially for boiler heating. Avhere any kind of fuel is applicable, an extended em- 



