l88 TlMEHRI. 
The Hon. W. Russell recognized the value of the 
paper as far as theory was concerned ; but regretted 
the absence of practical results. There was one point 
in regard to which he must join issue with Mr. Mann. 
Mr. Mann said : — 
The presence of water, or its constituents, in fuel, promotes the 
formation of smoke, probably by mechanically sweeping along fine 
particles of carbon. The escape of smoke, so noticeable with the use of 
moist fuel, is therefore due to and indicative of imperfect combustion. 
But anyone who had observed the chimney at Bel Air 
since that estate began to burn green megass must have no- 
ticed that there had been comparatively little smoke, and 
that what there had been had been so intermixed with, and 
purified by steam, that it had been of a white colour, not 
black as before. His idea of smoke was that it was com- 
posed of fine particles of carbon, enveloped in an atmos- 
phere of carbonic acid gas, which particles were not 
consumed until they came in contact with the atmosphere. 
Everyone who had watched a chimney at night must have 
been struck by the flame emitted. That flame was due to 
the re-kindling of the carbonic particles contained in the 
smoke, and was not visible by day. Turning to Mr. 
Coster's paper, the honourable gentleman said that that 
writer had dealt very fully with the units of heat, 
and bore out a great deal of what had been written 
before. But he did not give them the results of actual 
experience. If he had said that in his furnaces at Anna 
Regina, or elsewhere, he had burnt so much green 
megass and had got that megass to do a certain 
quantity of work, Mr. Coster's recent paper would 
have been a very valuable one. He was glad 
to hear that Mr. Shields had sent in another paper, 
because he knew it would be brimful of hard stubborn 
