386 
Mr. West had not said that coal would supersede coke in 
the manufacture of iron, but in a very few words he had called 
the attention of engineers to the possibility of making it do 
so. There was no proof, perhaps, that coal might now, 
or indeed ever, replace coke in the iron manufacture. He 
had called attention only to the quantity of heat, and not to 
the intensity. It was possible that under proper management 
coal might be made to give out twice as much heat as coke, 
but it required so much longer time to reach the point of 
intensity which was needful. He believed that the Low Moor 
Company had used coal in place of coke to a very consider- 
able extent, and he believed they found themselves neither 
better nor worse for it. What he wished to draw the atten- 
tion of engineers to was, whether it would not be possible 
to smelt iron by coal, instead of the expensive system of 
coking, as adopted at present. 
Mr. G. Hanson then exhibited a very ingenious model of 
an apparatus for ventilating mines, upon which he read a 
short paper. The apparatus — which is an application of 
the Archimedes screw, — is so constructed as to afford 
facilities for raising miners out of pits, along with the 
minerals, on a principle much safer than the present system 
of ropes. Mr. Hanson gave a practical demonstration, both 
as to ventilation and the conveyance of minerals by the appa- 
ratus. 
The Chairman expressed his regret that there were not 
more discoveries of this description, as in the course of the 
preceding two months, twenty-one lives had been sacrificed 
in the West-Riding by coal-pit explosions. He agreed with 
Mr. Hanson, that the cost of such an apparatus ought to 
be no obstacle to its general adoption. Many lives were lost 
in consequence of the breaking of ropes, the use of which 
