198 [Assembly 



coal is the most souglit after, made from oak, birch, and the like 

 woods. It gives a very strong heat, burns in any part of a house^ 

 and is particularly useful in culinary departments; it i& expen- 

 sive for the reason that it requires constant renewal. 



I cannot leave this subject, charcoal, witliout mentioning other 

 valuable properties contained in it. It is indestructible, and will 

 preserve animal substances a long time from decay, by absorbing 

 the putrid gases that naturally arise from them ; its use in medi- 

 cine is valuable; it makes a capital tooth powder, and in 1830 I 

 discovered that there is no article used as a manure, more valua- 

 ble in agriculture, than pulverised charcoal, as it enters into the 

 composition of all the vegetable kingdom, in the form of carbon. 

 I have proved by experiment that all plants will grow in it in a 

 pure state. 40 per cent of sugar, 44 per cent of the starch of 

 wheat, 53 per cent of oak wood is pure carbon. In the gaseoua 

 form it is found abundantly in water, earth and air. It will free 

 liquors passing through it of their empyreumatic flavor, and 

 likewise deprive them of color. It is a nonconductor, and i» 

 often used to confine heat. Carbon combines with oxygen in two- 

 proportions, forming carbonic oxyde and carbonic acid. 



Of all the fuel now known, or made use of in the wide world, 

 coal takes the precedence and stands first. It is found usually 

 deep in the bowels of the earth, and is raised by mining opera- 

 tions of various and complicated kinds; it is supposed to have 

 ori"'inated from immense deposits of vegetable substances, which, 

 by the compression of superincumbent masses of earth, aided by 

 water, has become consolidated carbonic acid gas. It comes to 

 us under a variety of names, such as bituminous, cannel, anthra- 

 cite, &c. Of all the varieties the cannel is the cleanest, as it does 

 not soil the hands, burns freely and emits a bright light, from 

 which fact it derives its name. Cannel is pronounced in the 

 north of England candle coal; as it answers as well for light as 

 heat. 



Anthracite differs entirely from all other vaieties of coal 

 from the fact that it is entirely carbon and devoid of hydrogen 

 gas; it therefore emits neither smoke, flame or gas. It brtaks 



