FUEL SUPPLIES IN WAR TIME.
(TO THE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOIL:1
STIL,--The following two paragraphs from the current Press deserve to be noted by all interested in the use of fuel, whether in the domestic grate, the steam boiler, or the factory furnace:— " THREATENED COAL FAMINZ 1N TM. MIDLANDA.—Birmingham and the Midlands generally are threatened with a coal famine. Not only are householders menaced, but manufacturers cannot obtain regular supplies, and if the present scarcity continues some of them will have to close down. .. . A variety of causes have contributed to this, the most important of which probably is the deficiency of miners, owing to enlistment."
"Amsterdam, January 280..—an order to economize coal has been issued by the German railway administration at Essen. It has further been officially pointed out to housewives that coke is a much cheaper form of fuel than coal and gives a better heat" Here is a point certainly where we may well learn from the enemy. It cannot be too widely known—not only by house- wives, but by factory managers and other large users of fuel —that there are in many districts full stocks of coke; that it is, at the same price per ton as coal, a much cheaper form of fuel, as a much larger percentage of its weight is readily combustible material; that in kitchen ranges " broken" coke is particularly useful; and that recent experiments have demonstrated that coke can be advantageously employed for steam raising with but slight variations in the formica arrangements. It is therefore to the advantage both of the
community and of the individual at the same time that the fullest possible use should be made of our coke supplies.—I am, Sir, dec., A STUDENT OF FUEL ECONOMICS.
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