SMOKELESS FUEL FROM COAL, 775 
sea by way of the Strait of Belle Isle. That demand can be complied with, and 
the shortest and best line of communication can be thus opened between the 
interior and the seaboard.—S?. Louis Republican. 
SMOKELESS FUEL FROM COAL. 
Mr. W. D. Scott-Moncrieff, in a paper read before the Society of Arts, has 
recently brought to the attention of that body an important project for not only 
hereafter preventing, but also for rendering commercially available the dense 
stratum of smoke that has so long hung like a pall over the city of London, ob- 
scuring the light and rendering the atmosphere dangerous to the whole communi- 
ty. He proposes to substitute for the bituminous coal now in universal use for 
domestic and industrial purposes a modified form of this coal from which the gas 
has been partially extracted. Experiments made by him as long as ten years ago 
showed that.a semi-coke, resulting from a short distillation of coal, furnishes a fuel 
that is practically smokeless; and he has since discovered that, treating this 
coke with water when hot, renders it still more smokeless and makes it the most 
perfect fuel imaginable, as it has all the cheerfulness and heat-giving properties 
of the unprepared coal, with none of the disadvantages arising from its use. To 
produce this fuel in quantities suitable for public use he proposes to take advan- 
tage of the existing plant of the gas companies, finding that they are amply suffi- 
cient for the purpose. Instead of taking 10,000 cubic feet of gas per ton from 
the coal, he would take 3,333 cubic feet, or any other convenient proportion, 
and pass three times the quantity through the retorts. In this manner the gas 
would be coming away from the retorts all day long, just as formerly, witha slight 
loss of time to be allowed for the additional frequency of the charging. The sup- 
ply at the end of the twenty-four hours would be in excess of that which is ob- | 
tained from the long extraction, and in this way less and not more plant would be 
necessary to give the same quantity in a given time while the gas itself would 
be of better quality. The author claims, from his investigations and ex- 
periments, that the results of the application of his scheme would prove 
startling. The gas companies would have double the quantity of by-products, in 
the shape of tar and ammoniacal products,*that they have at present; the com- . 
munity would have twenty-four candle instead of sixteen candle gas; the fuel 
resulting from the process would be of a nature to ignite readily, make a cheerful 
fire that gives out twenty per cent. more heat than common coal; and*London 
would become asmokeless city. The only extra expense to the companies would 
be that of the additional workmen employed in charging the retorts and interest 
upon the additional capital required for transit appliances; but, as an offset, the 
the companies would receive an increased quantity of valuable by-products and a 
supply of fuel that would be in universal demand; and the profits from the sale of 
this at prices much below that of coal would be such that the companies would 
be actually getting their coal for nothing.—Age of Stcel. 
