Specification of Richard Goodwin : prepared fuel.

  • Richard Goodwin
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of Richard Goodwin : prepared fuel. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Goodwin s Improved Prepared Fuel. advantages in the saving of stowage to the extent of at least one-third. I use the fullers’ earth, blue clay, or other such earthy materials as before named for binding or holding the other matters together. I most distinctly claim the use of road mud, mire, or scrapings of the 5 highway roads or streets, as applied to the manufacture of fuel, as my Invention or discovery, and consider the use of the same as a component of fuel as an invaluable discovery, inasmuch as the said mire or mud is in itself inflamable and combustible, as it contains iron and steel in very small and innumerable particles, which is perpetually being chafed from the shoes and 10 shoe nails of horses, and from the tires of carriages of every description ; this brought into collision with flint stone (with which also this mud or mire abounds) of themselves produce fire. And the mineral and vegetable parts and qualities of this part of my improved fuel I consider to be in their very finest state of applicability for burning purposes, not having been washed of 15 their native strength in the common sewers, nor finally deposited in the river, where it becomes mud necessarily exhausted of its greatest strength and finest qualities by the flowing and ebbing tides, and constantly in an almost state of inundation, which is well known to be ruinous to the very best and strongest coal produced in the kingdom. The coal I use being all small, is 20 with a view to its entire incorporation with the other materials, and to bring it into the most important use in giving or imparting to the fullers’ earth, clay, or loam a mouldering tendency, reducing it to ashes. The unctious qualities of tar or pitch are so great that in being well mixed with fullers’ earth, clay, or loam, it becomes, when lighted, a kind of cemented body of fire, and in like 25 manner also diffuses its bituminous power into the mire or mud. The qualities of the road or highway mud or mire are peculiar and most important: —First, it gives to the fullers’ earth, clay, or loam an additional readiness for crumbling into ashes when submitted to the action of fire, instead of its forming a hard substance or kind of stone or brick in the fire; the grit of 30 stone and sand in the mud or mire occasions this in a great degree, loosening or separating the glutinous or binding qualities of the fullers’ earth, clay, or loam ; also the pulverized iron and steel it contains gives to this fuel an intensity of heat which I believe is not found in any coal. The vegetable matter this mud or mire also contains, such as corn, clover, hay, and straw? 35 after the partial decomposition it undergoes before it forms a part with the other numerous ingredients, vegetable and mineral (found in road mud or mire), added to the well-known bituminous properties of tar, pitch, and coal, produce a superior and economical fuel for all domestic purposes, and in a furnace is quite equal in extent of spreading flame to Hartley Main coal.