DETERMINATION OF THE CALORIFIC 

 POWER OF WOOD 



By KITARO MOBOTO, Assistant Professor 



In the present trial, Berthier's litharge method was adopted to 

 determine the amount of heat evolved by woods of different species. For 

 simplicity's sake, the wood was considered as a mass of carbon alone, so 

 that the one rich in hydrogen, produced far smaller figures than the real 

 heat possessed by it. Wood which contained a large quantity of water on 

 the other hand gave an excessively high figure owing to failure to calculate 

 the amount of heat needed for the evaporation of this moisture. 



Two grams of saw-dust of every kind of wood and 50 grams of 

 lead oxide were put into a clay crucible and well mixed. To prevent 

 free access of air, 30 grams more of lead oxide was introduced, to fully 

 cover the mixture. The crucible was then closed with the lid and heated 

 in a charcoal fire; when the perfect fusion of the contents had taken 

 place, the crucible was taken from the fire and the weight of the reduced 

 lead was taken, to which the multiplying factor of 117 was applied. 

 The product thus obtained gives the quantity of heat evolved by the 

 different wood species tried. Below we give the amount of heat produced 

 by 1 gram of the various species. 



The Amount op Heat Produced by 1 gram op the 

 Various Species 



SPECIES 



Icho (Ginkgo Mloha, L.) 



Nagi {Podoearpus Nageia, Zoll. et Moritz.). . 

 Inumaki {Podoearpus maerophylla, D. Dm.) 

 Araragi {Taxus euspidata, S. et Z.) .. .. 

 Kaya (Torreya nueifera, S. et Z.) .. . . 

 Inugaya (Cephalataxus drupaeea, S. et Z.).. 



Carolie 



3,802.5 

 3,451.5 

 3,568.5 

 4,001.4 

 2,106.0 

 3,685.5 



