Coal, smoke, and sewage, scientifically and practically considered : with suggestions for the sanitary improvement of the drainage of towns, and the beneficial application of the sewage : being the substance of a paper read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester / by Peter Spence.

Spence, Peter

Date:: 1857

Credit: Coal, smoke, and sewage, scientifically and practically considered : with suggestions for the sanitary improvement of the drainage of towns, and the beneficial application of the sewage : being the substance of a paper read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester / by Peter Spence. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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tolerably accurate information as to the actual economical condition of the coal combustion of Manchester down to a very recent period. In entering, then, upon the economical part of the question, it may be stated, on the authority of Mr. Dickenson, that 2,000,000 tons of coal are annually consumed in Manchester and Salford, which in a question of this kind may be taken as one town. For the average composition of the Lancashire coal I now refer to Table No. 1. This is not presented as perfectly accurate for any one variety of coal, for the difference in composition is considerable, and no two veins are exactly the same; but the list is sufl&ciently accurate for our purpose, and will not lead us materially astray on any one point. Suppose, then, that we take 100 lbs. of a mixtui'e of the various coals used in Manchester, it wUl contain as follows:— 4'5 lbs. Hydrogen 6-0 Oxygen 24-0 Carbon (volatile) 2-0 Sulphur 0'5 lbs. Nitrogen 58-0 Carbon (fixed) 5*0 Ashes (silica, alumina, and oxide of iron) Coal is sometimes divided into bituminous and non-bituminous. This description is now considered incorrect, as no coal contains bitumen. It has therefore] been proposed to call it bituminiferous ; and I may say that all the coal of the Lancashire coal measures is of that kind. With non-biturainiferous coal no black smoke is pro- duced, as there is no volatile matter in it, or nearly none, and its constituents can only be volatilised by combustion. To have a clear idea of the Economic as well as of the Sanitary part of the subject, it will be necessary here to go rather minutely into the process of combustion, and to shew in detail what this process is to which we have now to subject the coal whose consti- tuents we have thus described. Since the time when the Phlogiston theory of Stahl was exploded, which defined combustion to be the evolution of phlogiston, a sub- stance or principle which existed in all combustible bodies, and by the possession of which they became combustible (and which substance or principle was evolved when the bodies were burned, and as light, heat, or flame was produced, as the case might be);—since this theory was found to be untenable, and the phenomena became better under- stood, combustion has generally been held to be merely the union of oxygen with the combustible body, that union taking place in defi-

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