AuuBiiss. xcvn 



Mr. liramwell, when presiding over Iho Mechanical (Section at Brighton, 

 drew attention to the waste of fuel. 



Dr. Siemens, in an able lecture he delivered by request of the Association 

 to the operative classes at the meeting at Bradford, pointed out the waste of 

 fuel in special branches of the iron trade, to which he has devoted so much 

 attention. 



He showed on that occasion that, in the ordinary reheating furnace, the 

 coal consumed did not produce the twentieth part of its theoretical effect, and 

 in melting steel in pots in the ordinary way not more than one-seventieth 

 part, in melting one ton of steel in pots about 2| tons of coke being con- 

 sumed. Dr. Siemens further stated that, in his regenerative gas-furnace, one 

 ton of steel was melted with 12 cwt. of small coal. 



Mr. Lowthian Bell, who combines chemical knowledge with the practical 

 experience of an ironmaster, in his Presidential address to the Members of 

 the Iron and Steel Institute in 1873, stated that, with the perfect mode of 

 Avithdrawing and utilizing the gases and the improvement in the furnaces 

 adopted in the Cleveland district, the present make of pig iron in Cleveland 

 is produced with 3| million tons of coal less than would have been needed 

 fifteen years ago, this being equivalent to a saving of 45 per cent, of the 

 quantity formerly used. He shows by figures, with Avhich he has favoured 

 me, that the calorific power of the waste gases from the furnaces is sufficient 

 for raising all the steam and heating all the air the furnaces require. 



It has already been stated that by working steam more expansively, either 

 in double or single engines, the consumption of fuel in improved modern 

 engines compared with the older forms may be reduced to one third. 



All these reductions still fall far short of the theoretical efiect of fuel, 

 ■which may be never reached. Mr. Lowthian Bell's figures go to show that 

 in the interior of the blast-furnace, as improved in Cleveland, there is not 

 much more to be done in reducing the consumption of fuel ; but much has 

 already been done; and could the reductions now attainable and all the 

 information already acquired be universally applied, the saving in fuel would 

 be enormous. 



How many open blast-furnaces still belch forth flame and gas and smoke 

 as uselessly, and with nearly as much mischief to the surrounding neighbour- 

 hood, as the fires of Etna or Vesuvius ! 



How many of the older and more extravagant forms of steam-engine still 

 exist! 



"What is to be done with the intractable householder, with the domestic 

 hearth, where, without going to German stoves, but by using Galton's grates 

 and other improvements, every thing necessary both for comfort and con- 

 venience could be as well attained with a much smaller consumption of 

 coal ? 



If I have pointed out that we do not avail ourselves of more than a frac- 



1875. a 



