WESTERN COAL MEASURES AND INDIANA COAL. 555 
like that given by wood. Chemically it does not appear to differ 
from the caking-coals, but in burning behaves quite differently. 
Unlike the latter, it does not swell and shoot out jets of gas, nor 
form a cake by running together, neither does it leave an ash 
mixed with clinker, but retains its shape like hickory wood, until 
entirely consumed to a small quantity of white ash, which contains 
no trace of clinker. I have not yet had time to make an ultimate 
analysis of the block coal, but I believe that, when so examined, 
its superior heating properties which have been determined in 
practice by actual work done, though mainly due to its physical 
structure, will be found partly owing to its containing less oxygen 
and relatively more hydrogen than is commonly found in bitumi- 
nous coals. The block coal, in a great majority of the mines 
` that have been opened, is remarkably free from sulphur and phos- 
phorus. 
A specimen, taken from Garlick and Collins’ new shaft, coal G 
of my section and which has a specific gravity of 1.232, gave in 
one hundred parts: Water, 2.10, Gas, 37.35, Fixed Carbon, 57-95, 
Ash, white, 2.40, Phosphorus, 0.22, Sulphur, 0.073. 
At the White River Valley Rolling Mills, in this city, I was in- 
formed by the Superintendent, Mr. Sims, an experienced iron 
master from Pittsburgh, Pa., that it not only required a less quan- 
tity of block coal than of any of the coals in use around Pitts- 
burgh to make a ton of wrought iron, but that they were likewise 
enabled to bring off the heats in a much shorter space of time, 
and the resulting iron is of a superior quality —three important 
advantages that cannot be overlooked by iron-masters ; and it 
must be conceded, that the good behavior of a coal in the puddling 
furnace is one of the very best tests of purity and effective heating 
properties to which it can be subjected ; for, here, its good quali- 
ities are brought into requisition, and the bad ones are soon made 
manifest in the poor quality of the iron produced. 
Though the Blast furnaces of Clay county cannot be looked 
upon as filling all the requisites of an iron furnace best adapted 
to the use of block coal, still they are enabled to make a ton of 
No. 1 foundry iron that will, in quality, compare favorably with 
charcoal iron, by the use of less than two tons of coal; and I 
feel fully satisfied that by materially increasing the width of these 
furnaces across the bushes, and raising the temperature of the 
blast to 1200°-1500°, the make will be greatly increased and the 
consumption of coal very much reduced. 
