ON THE USE OF LIGNITE IN THE BLAST FURNACE. 157 
when heated. Not only, however, is the mixed charge in itself 
merely a makeshift, but the results obtained by it have been 
very varied. 
The reasons why the results until now obtained by the 
mixed charge, in the different places named, and with different 
varieties of brown coal, were so unequal, lay not so much in 
the more or less adequate character of the furnace and blast, 
as in the quality of the brown coal brought for this purpose 
to the places in question. There existed, in fact, a great dis- 
similarity in the composition and properties of the brown coal 
employed. Although, obviously, brown coal, very rich in 
sulphur and ash, should nowhere be used for this purpose, yet 
there is to be found in grades of inferior quality, by heating, and 
partly even by drying, a great difference in the tendency to 
burst. It is known that the property of containing more or less 
water is decisive (not indeed altogether, as anthracite shows, but 
still to a large extent) for the bursting in brown coal; in some 
lignites it is, in fact, 30 per cent. as compared with less than 10 
per cent. water in the better kinds of brown coal. Moreover, some 
brown coals, even some lignites, are saturated by resin or bitu- 
men to such an extent that if not purposely dried (dacken) it 
oozes out more or less. There is in this respect an essential 
difference not only in the geological formation of the brown coal, 
but in different seams of one and the same formation ; and even 
in different strips (strezfex) of the same seams, this great differ- 
ence is to be found. Before brown coal, therefore, is tried for 
blast furnace purposes, there should be a close examination of 
its composition and qualities. 
With the 9 to 10 per cent. of water contained in the coal of 
Fohnsdorf and Leoben, the mixed charge with only one-third of 
brown coal could have been continued till now without any 
serious interruption, whereby pieces of coal not less in size than 
one’s hand were selected, and, of course, the iron ore, mostly of 
a smaller size of grain, made no obstruction. In Kalan, on the 
other hand, where the brown coal was worked to the extent of 
60 or 70 per cent., and, as already observed, was worked under 
Mr. Massenez’ management for a short time exclusively, these 
good results could only have been obtained in this way : the 
coal, although occurring in a formation there termed Tertiary, is 
yet less liable to burst in that part of the seam, and had first 
been partly coked (half carbonised), the small thereby formed 
being afterwards separated. With a careful examination and 
selection of the coal at his command, the present general mana- 
ger at Kalan, Herr Em. Heyrowsky, hoped to succeed in work- 
ing the blast furnace by the exclusive use of the coal found there, 
and thus to obtain much more favourable results than had been 
accomplished in the experiments at Zeltweg, likewise under the 
same gentleman’s superintendence. 
It would scarcely be necessary, then, to have shown that with 
fuel which for the working of the blast furnace should be good, 
the working of a cupola furnace must be much more easily 
