158 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
accomplished, as in the latter the process of reduction altogether 
ceases, and there is but little slag to deal with. I here repeat 
what I have previously said, that the first practical experiments 
should have been made with coal, and in a cupola instead of a 
blast furnace, because the interruptions occurring in the working 
of cupola furnaces are under control, and are incomparably 
shorter and less costly than those of the blast furnace. Never- 
theless, such coal should not be used in the cupola furnace for 
the production of pig iron, but only when pig iron is re-melted, 
and not till this more simple operation is successful, and experi- 
ence has been gained of the action of the coal, should it be 
extended to the complicated operations of the blast furnace. 
Although the coking of the raw brown coal (lignite) under 
high pressure, with or without superheated steam, prevents to 
some extent the bursting of the single pieces of crushed coal, 
yet it appears that the greater cost of this application is not 
covered by the better yield thereby obtained from the larger 
pieces of coal; therefore this method, which was tried in Juden- 
burg, Koflach, and Verdernberg, has been given up. The state- » 
ment that useful coke is obtained by the mixture of very poor 
with richer coals has been proved at Creuzot in France, where 
about equal parts of the two sorts of coal were mixed in the 
coke oven. It is for that reason generally held that the small 
of the brown coking coal, mixed with good coking coal, should 
furnish good coke for the blast furnace, while the somewhat 
larger pieces of the brown coking coal might be used direct ; but 
if this method is to be attended with economical results, the 
account must show the prices according to the local circum- 
stances. 
In the foregoing I have remarked that in the experiments 
hitherto carried on, the special properties of brown coal were. 
not taken into account, while everywhere the construction of the 
furnace used has been intended for the consumption of charcoal 
or coke. As worthy of special notice for experimenting with 
the use of brown coal, the construction of the furnace at Queny- 
veans was pointed out by me in the above-mentioned volume of 
the “ Mining and Metallurgical Year-Book” for 1873, at pages 
56-58, and the manipulation to be followed was also described. 
In the construction of the blast furnace, the stalk above the 
boshes, instead of rising directly upwards, as usually is the case 
appeared to be divided vertically into two equal parts, which 
turned to the right and to the left. One of these halves (which 
stands not quite horizontal but obliquely, and is provided with 
peculiar shafts at the top) is for the coking and preparation of 
brown coal, and the other for the wersting and preparation of 
the iron ore and the requisite flux. The burden of the red hot 
coke of brown coal and the red hot ore consequently first meet 
at the level of the boshes, z.e., nearly at the end of the first third 
of the stack of a furnace of the height elsewhere used. By this 
means important advantages in favour of the possibility of 
working with raw brown coal should be obtained, among which ~ 
