Fuel for Steam Boilers. 133 



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cumnavigators in ISOSj exposed to a winter even longer and more 

 severe than is commonly felt at Archangel. In America, the same 

 marked difference is observed between the climate of Nootka and- 

 Hudson's Bay ; and even in so small a scale of Nature as that af- 

 forded by our island, the frosts are generally less severe in Lancashire 

 than in the East Riding of Yorkshire. If then the southern districts 

 of European Russia are exposed to a winter more severe than those 

 of France or Germany, they may boast in their turn of more genial 

 climate than the banks of the Ural and the Amur ; while all are sub- 

 ject to a dispensation of nature which extends too far, and acts too 

 uniformly to be ascribed to any local or temporary causes." — Life 

 of Bishop Heber, Vol. I. p. 532—535. 



Art. XVI. — Fuel for Steam Boilers. — Editor. 



The vast consumption of wood in our steam-boats, and in some' 

 of our manufactories, must, in a few years, make serious inroads 

 upon our forests, which (while the applications of steam will be con- 

 standy extending v/ith our increasing population,) will, year by year, 

 be wasted in a rapidly increasing proportion. In the maritime parts 

 of the country, and especially in the eastern and middle States, this 

 effect is already conspicuous in relation to the pine groves and for- 

 ests, and especially those of the pitch pine. This fuel is decidedly 

 preferred, because the resinous matter, with which it abounds, cre- 

 ates an abundant flame, that readily rolls along, in unceasing vol- 

 umes, and thus applies the heat to the whole extent of the metal with- 

 whose surface the water is in contact. 



In steam boilers, there must not only be a sufficient heat in the' 

 grate of the furnace, but the heat must be applied wherever the 

 steam is to be generated. The fuel that affords the greatest abun- 

 dance of inflammable gas is therefore the best. Flame is produced 

 by the combustion of inflammable matter, in the state of gas or va- 

 por ; a burning substance which affords no volatile matter, cannot 

 produce flame ; thus iron gives bright sparks, but (if pure) no flame. 

 Wood, in all its varieties, turf and bituminous coal, during their de- 

 composition in the act of burning, emit vast quantities of inflammable 

 gas and vapor, and therefore burn with abundant flame 5 but pure 

 plumbago (black lead) aflbrds little or no flame, and anthracite much 

 less than the other varieties of fuel that have been named. 



