The Carbonisation of Coal

Abstract

THIS book is a welcome addition to the literature of a subject which is increasing in importance with each successive decade. Practical men are at length beginning to realise that the utilisation of the store of potential energy in coal by more rational methods than have hitherto prevailed is a problem that has to be grappled with seriously if our supremacy in the chief manufactured products of the world is to be maintained Authorities of the highest competence have repeatedly pointed out that enormous economies might be effected if more scientific—that is, more common-sense—methods were employed in the consumption of coal. The waste is universal and extends practically to every industry, although in some to a much greater extent than in others. In the blast furnaces it is relatively small, for the reason that ever since the introduction of the hot-blast, the connection between potential energy and output has received an amount of consideration such as has not been bestowed upon any other aspect of the general problem. On railways, in factories, in brickworks, potteries and glassworks the v aste is simply appalling.

The Carbonisation of Coal.

A Scientific Review of the Formation, Composition and Destructive Distillation of Coal for Gas, Coke and By-Products. By Prof. V. B. Lewes. Pp. xiv + 315. (London: John Allan and Co., 1912.) Price 7s. 6d. net.