398 The Economic Production of Artificial Heat. 



THE ECONOMIC PRODUCTION OF ARTIFICIAL HEAT. 



BY J. W. M f GAULEY. 



This subject is of considerable importance, both in a domestic 

 and an industrial point of view, but particularly in the latter, 

 since the success of a manufacture must be greatly affected by 

 the cost at which heat — that is, motive power — is procured. 

 The supremacy which Great Britain has attained, as a manu- 

 facturing country, is mainly due to the abundance and excel- 

 lence of her fuel, and to a skilful application of the advantages, 

 it has conferred. We cannot enter into all the details of this 

 very extensive inquiry ; but we shall lay before our readers- 

 some of the most useful facts and most practical deductions, 

 connected with it. 



The purposes for which artificial heat is required may be 

 conveniently divided into two classes : one of them relating to 

 domestic economy, and having for its object the preservation 

 or production of a proper temperature in apartments, and the 

 preparation of food ; and the other to the requirements of the 

 arts and manufactures. Few climates are so genial as, at no- 

 part of the year, to demand artificial modes of warming habita- 

 tions; none are altogether independent of heat for culinary 

 purposes ; and ail civilized nations are desirous of promoting- 

 manufactures, which, when carried on extensively, must, to a 

 greater or less extent, depend on the effect derived from heat. 

 For, with the steam-engine, heat is really the moving power, 

 the water being but a carrier of the forces developed by com- 

 bustion, and the steam but the most convenient medium for 

 obtaining them. Such an investigation as the present includes, 

 also a consideration of the different species of fuel, and their 

 most effective application to practical purposes : these various, 

 points, therefore, shall more or less be kept in view in what 

 we are to say. 



Fuel : Wood. — Though a great variety of substances have 

 been used at various times, and in different places, as fuel, 

 those almost universally employed are reducible to wood, peat, 

 and coal, with their modifications, charcoal and coke. Wood, 

 on account of its very general diffusion, and its convenience as. 

 a heat- giving material, has been always used for the production 

 of artificial heat ; and, for some purposes, it continues to be more 

 suitable than anything else : thus its freedom from sulphur, 

 etc., confers upon it superior excellence in the reduction and 

 manufacture of iron. In new countries wood is usually, at first, 

 cheap and abundant, from the necessity of clearing the forest ; 

 but its price is soon augmented, since the labour required to 

 fell it is expensive, and the difficulty of transportation is often 



