SALTER — A CHRISTMAS LECTURE ON COAL. 



235 



The chloride of lime was employed by Hoffmann to test the portions 

 as they passed over ; the aniline giving a fine violet colour, while the 

 leucol did not. 



The aniline must be crystallized with sulphuric acid to obtain the 

 colour ; and the process is thus given in Ure's Dictionary, from Mr. 

 Perkins' account, in brief. 



" Dissolve equivalent portions of sulph. aniline and bichrom. of 

 potash in water ;• mix, and let stand for several hours. Filter, and 

 wash and dry the black precipitate. Digest this in coal-tar naptha to 

 extract a brown resinous substance ; and finally digest with alcohol 

 to dissolve out the colouring matter, which is left behind on distilling 

 the spirit, as a coppery friable mass." 



To use it, add a strong solution in alcohol to a boiling solution of 

 oxalic acid, and apply when cold to the fabric to be dyed. 



But even this is not the last of the coal-miracles. Teetotal 

 advocates may keep watch over every grain of barley ; but, alas ! 

 we can get alcohol from boghead coal. I never tasted it, nor wish 

 to taste it ; but I understand it is yet more sleepy stuff than that 

 from the upper regions. Requiescat in pace. 



" There is no end," says Mr. Binney, "to the combinations, solid, 

 liquid, and gaseous, which belong to the chemistry of coal. Who 

 shall say these bodies do not change, the one into the other, under 

 various circumstances r" What may we not learn from their inves- 

 tigation regarding the laws — nay, perhaps, even the constitution of 

 matter? And all that is true of coal and its products may be said — 

 leaving a wide margin — for peat and other fossil fuels. They have 

 the same constituent parts, and are among the best of our earthly 

 treasures, although we have sadly wasted them before we knew their 

 value.* 



Light, heat, motion, fragrance, and colour — all from coal ! What 

 more could the sun himself do for us ? Is the heat from below the 

 same with that from above ? Robert Stephenson used to say so, and 

 when he saw one of his own locomotives tearing away at the rate of 

 forty miles an hour, would call out, half in fun and half in earnest, 

 " There goes the bottled sunshine." 



An acquaintance of mine, who knows coal mines well, gives me the 

 same idea in heroic verse : — 



" 'Tis the old sun's heat 

 That now cooks our meat ; 

 'Tis is his bottled up beam 

 That gets up our steam." 



Stephenson was right. It is the light and heat of former days 

 expended in converting carbonic acid and water into coal that is here 

 stored up for man. He can, by again converting coal into carbonic 



* Even anthracite was regarded in America, fifty years ago, as incombustible 

 refuse, and thrown away. In 1316, or a little later, it was made a capital offence 

 to burn coal : one man, in Edward lst's reign, was actually hung for it 



