32 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 
is doubtful if the average engine in this country or the United 
States shows anywhere near this efiiciency. But, as I have said 
before, the science of chemistry has served to show us the great 
amount of power we are wasting in every steam-producing 
plant using only 20 per cent. at best of the power in the coal, and 
allowing 80 per cent. to go to waste. In every case where per- 
manent improvement has been made, it has always followed a 
vivid realization of the inadequacy of the method in use. And 
in the production of power this is what chemistry has done. The 
application of these ideas to the iron industry has already 
borne fruit. Probably because the fuel for producing power is 
already in the form of gas, and perhaps also because the figures 
for this industry are so large that the economy attainable ap- 
pears a very tempting prize, engineers have designed and con- 
structed gas engines or internal combustion engines in which 
the waste gas from the furnace is led directly into the cylinder 
of engine without the use of steam at all. When the waste gas 
from a furnace is used directly in the gas engine instead of being 
burnt under the wasteful boilers to produce steam for the still 
more wasteful engines, we find the saving so great that where 
previously thousands of tons of coal were being burnt to assist 
the gas in producing power, the blast furnace has now assumed a 
commanding position as a power-producer with power for sale. 
In the last few years gas engines have made tremendous 
strides in relation to iron production, and it is now predicted 
that the iron industry will follow the course of its kindred in- 
dustry, the manufacture of coke. In this case the coal, original- 
ly burnt or distilled for the sake of the coke, allowing the gases 
and coal tar to escape, is now distilled in retorts, or ovens, for 
the sake of the coal tar, ammonia and gas, the question of market- 
ing the coke being a secondary matter. It is curious to observe 
how these substances were originally termed bye-products in the 
production of coke, whereas now the coal tar, gas and ammonia, 
far exceeding the coke in value, has made the latter a bye-pro- 
duct. So it is claimed we shall soon see blast furnaces built with 
the object primarily of supplying power, and producing iron as 
a bye-product. 
