382 
Tin. 
cumstance, which tends to give Great Britain an advan- 
tage, over some other countries, in such manufactures as 
require a great consumption of fuel. Wood was scarce 
in Saxony above a century ago, and it is now still more 
scarce in France. They are beginning, it is said, in that 
country to use coal and coak, or charred pitcoal, called by 
them Charbon de terre epure , and they have granted a pa- 
tent to an individual for the preparation of it.* Another 
individual has began to distil tar from pitcoal, and he 
gets about 5 pounds weight of tar from an hundred of 
coal (which is pretty nearly what I suggested in 1781, 
as possible to be obtained from the same quantity, voh 
II. p. 352.) The Frenchf expect great advantage from 
this mode of depurating coal, but we have nothing to ap- 
prehend on that score, for the patriotic zeal of the Earl of 
Dundonald has put us in possession of every advantage 
which can be expected from a discovery, which he has 
had the honour of bringing to perfection. 
I do not know whether any attempt has ever been made 
to plate copper with tin instead of silver ; I am aware of 
some difficulty, which might attend the operation, but 
yet it might, I think, be performed ; and if it could, we 
might then have copper vessels covered with a coat of tin 
of any required thickness, which is the great desideratum 
* Acad, des Scien, a Paris, IT'S! ; where M. Lavoisier gives 
an useful memoir on the comparative excellencies of pit-coal, 
coak, wood and charcoal as fuels. II suitde ces experiences, que 
pour produire des effets egaux, il faut employer : charbon de terre 
600 livres; charbon de terre charbonne 552 ; charbon de bofs 
mele 960 ; bois de hetre 1125; bois de chene 1089, 
t II sufht de dire qu J eile peut fournir a la capitale un nou- 
veau chauffage, devenu necessaire dans un moment ou V on est 
menace d 5 une disette de bois ; qtf eile peut ouvrir dans le roy- 
aume une nouvelle brance de commerce ; etablir de nouvelles 
manufactures ; faire vaioir des mines, restees jusqu’ a present 
ihutiles, L'Esprit des Jcurn, Juillet, 1785. 
