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I shall now give a few out of many specimens of coal, to show its composition, and so look at it in a practical point of view. For ordinary purposes, there is no doubt the “best” is the best; but whether that best is Welsh, or Newcastle, or Scottish, I do not pretend to say; for the various kinds of coal are suited for different purposes, and what may be refuse in one direction may be of the greatest use in another.
In experiments undertaken with a view to determine what coals were best suited for our steam-navy, Sir Henry de la Beche and his associates tried nearly all the kinds known in Britain, and compared them too with those artificial fuels which are made up from coal-refuse, and are extremely valuable in their way.
I can only give a few examples, and shall refer my young readers—they are older now than when the lecture began, and will not mind a little dry study—to the book itself, if they require more information.
They tried these coals to see how much they held of carbon, which supplies the heat; of hydrogen, which gives the flame; of oxygen, which is worse than useless in the coal, though essential in the air that is to support the combustion; and, lastly, the quantity of ashes left after the coal was consumed.
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References
page 229 note * Memoirs of the Geological Survev, vol. 2, part 2.
page 231 note * 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 at first. The case which gave rise to the discussion was that of “Gillespie v. Russell.” 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 Graptolites—sea-cmimals. They are very thin beds, but they are true anthracite coal for all that.
page 234 note * Poor Mansfeld, who worked so hard at these ethers, and who discovered camphole, literally fell a martyr to his zeal, and died in the odour of sweet flowers; for one of his retorts blew up—and deprived him of life.
page 235 note * Even anthracite was regarded in America, fifty years ago, as incombustible refuse, and thrown away. In 1316, or a little later, it was made a capital offence to burn coal: one man, in Edward let's reign, was actually hung for it
page 236 note * See his Monograph of the Permian System in England, p. 9, footnote; also the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 1843.