ACCOUNT 



OF SOME 



NEW EXPERIMENTS ON WOOD AND CHARCOAL. 



HAVING had occasion to dry several kinds of 

 wood, to ascertain how much water was con- 

 tained in them, I procured a piece of each kind six 

 inches long and half an inch thick, and planed off some 

 pretty thin shavings, which I kept to dry for eight days 

 in a room, the temperature of which was constantly 

 about 60 F. The wood had been previously drying 

 two or three years in a joiner's workshop. 



Of each kind of shavings I took 10 grammes (154.5 

 grains), which I placed on a china plate in a kind of 

 stove made of sheet-iron, and heated them moderately 

 by a small fire under the stove for twelve hours, after 

 which they were suffered to cool gradually during 

 twelve hours more. The stove, being surrounded with 

 brickwork, was still hot twelve hours after the fire had 

 been extinguished. 



On taking out the china plates in succession and 

 weighing the shavings anew, their weight was found to 

 be diminished about one tenth, some a little more, 

 others a little less. When the shavings were put into 

 the stove, their weight was 10 grammes ; when taken 

 out, it was about 9. Their colour was not perceptibly 

 altered, and they had no appearance of having been ex- 

 posed to a strong heat. 



