SALTER — A CHRISTMAS LECTURE ON COAL. 
231 
kitchen, if such a division could be made. And coal that is so bad 
that no Englishman would like to burn it, may be exported ! 
And now we must leave the coal, with one extract from a work 
that is rather bulky, but fall of information. Ronald's and Richard- 
son's " Chemical Technology," vol. 1, treats of fuel and its apphca- 
tions, and from this work what little I have to say of the products 
of coal will chiefly be taken.* From it we learn that in 1855 the 
fuel used was divided as follows : — • 
Household coal 19,000,000 tons 
Ironworks 13,000,000 
Steam, gas, &c 9,000,000 
Export 400,000 
45,000,000 
Add for Scotland 7,500,000 
„ Ireland 220,000 
Total 52,720,000 
Our present consumption, as above said (p. 60), is about seventy 
million tons, and for the future it will probably be greater ; and this, 
remember, is all from the older or true coal-measures. The conti- 
nent of Europe is supplied, in many places, with coal of a later date. 
We must look at some of the products of coal. 
It seems hardly necessary to allude to gas, for, like the common 
blessings of light, and air, and health, we are only sensible what a 
boon it is when we lose it. It would take a chapter by itself. Gas 
is now made so carefully, and purified so completely from the dele- 
terious things that once poisoned us, that I believe I am safe in say- 
ing that the bisulphuret of carbon is the only impurity they do not 
remove. Even this, I learn, Mr. Bowditch has lately succeeded in 
doing. 
We are told that a country rector in Yorkshire, Dr. Clayton, of 
Crofton, first discovered coal-gas ; and his letter to the Hon. Robert 
Boyle attracted attention from the Royal Society — when, do my 
readers think? — in 1739, fifty or sixty years after! So much for 
the spirit of discovery at that date. The first person who really 
used gas for practical purposes, and whose credit ought not to be 
forgotten, was a Mr. Murdock, an engineer employed by Bolton and 
Watt in putting up steam-engines at Redruth. He lit up his own 
house, and afterwards the Soho Works at Birmingham ; and even 
* I did not know that this celebrated work contained a chapter on the question 
** What is coal ?" till lately, or I should have referred to it afc first. The case which 
gave rise to the discussion was that of " GUlespie v. Eussell." I need hardly 
say that my own conviction is, that, in a commercial sense, whatever is a bed of 
fossil fuel is a bed of coal. I believe fully that in Dumfriesshire and the county 
of Down there are beds of fuel made of fossil QraptoUtes — sea-animals. They 
are very thin beds, but they are true anthracite coal for all that. 
