Report op Society's Meetings. 195 
experiment of no value whatever in determining the point he seeks to 
determine. It reminds me of the question we used to put to one 
another at school, viz, " If a cart of coals costs seven-and-six-pence, 
what will a suit of black clothes come to ?" Mr. Russell must surely 
know that some furnaces and boilers give very much better economical 
results than others. The experiment quoted above only proves what any 
one might have told him before hand, that the Coster furnace with 42 
square feet grate area burning 49 lbs.'megass per square foot per hour, 
would give more economical results than the old type of furnace with 
25 square feet grate area, and consuming 57 lbs. megass per square 
foot per hour. 
If Mr. Russell would reverse the experiment, I venture to predict 
that the results will be more than reversed, and that Coster's furnace 
fired with the logie megass will show that it is 30 per cent, more 
valuable as a fuel than the other. If Mr. Russell wants to test the 
value of different kinds of fuel he must use the same furnace and boiler, 
and see that the experiments are carried out under exaftly the same 
circumstances, otherwise they are worse than useless ; they are mis- 
leading. I might have shown from Mr. Russell's own figures that the 
results could not possibly be as made out by him, but when the 
experiment itself has been conducted on terms so obviously unfair, it 
would only be a waste of time to take any notice of them. It is not 
easy to see what Mr. Russell means when he talks about success or 
failure in the burning of green megass ; if he means that it can't be 
consumed unless 70 per cent of juice has been expressed from it, we 
know from experience that he is wrong, for it can be consumed at any 
degree of dryness, from the canes upwards. If he means that in some 
circumstances green megass will give better results as a fuel than if it was 
dry, I can only say that this is entirely at variance with my own experi- 
ence, and I believe also that it is contrary to the experience of those who 
have tried it most. If Mr. Russell could give us a single instance (well, 
authenticated) in which the attempt to burn green megass direft from 
the mill has not been attended with an increase in the quantity of coals 
necessary to produce a ton of sugar, it would be of more value than 
any amount of deductions drawn from a single experiment of three 
hours duration. 
In measuring the success or failure of the operation another factor 
must be taken into our calculations ; and we may put it thus. If the 
saving effected by the abolition of Iogies, insurance, watchmen, and. 
BB 2 
