American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-03-29

the same amount of work al inferior fire.
man Will consume twice the quantity of
fuel that is required by one who is eN-
pert at his business. That which is true
of steam engines and furnaces is equally
true of our household stoves; and one
housekeeper will manage to get along, and
do equally as good work, with from one
half to one-fourth less fuel than is con-
sumed by others. Now, the faculty which
enables some to economist fuel is, in a
great measure an art; that is to say, it
depends upon experience and the skill
which arises from manual dexterity; but
it is also a science and may be acquired by
careful study of the principles which
govern combustion and the distribution
of heat; and these are by no means diff
cult to comprehend.
An important circumstance connected
with fuel in relation to it's efficiency is it's
coHditiOn as regards moisture, and the
action of the atmosphere. Coal or wood
that has absorbed moisture is not only
disagreeable, but very uneconomical.
Numerous carefully conducted expert
ments show that it requires one pound of
coal to evapCrate fourteen pounds of wa
ter while one pound of wood evaporates
seven pounds of water. If therefore our
| wood pile, or our coal bin, should be eX-
posed to rain or snow so as to absorb
moisture, this moisture must be all evapo-
rated and carried up the chimney as steam
by the heat produced by the burning fuel,
and this heat is of course just SO much
| wasted that otherwise might be made use
full
But the loss arising from the fact that
to get rid of all moisture requires heat, is
not the only item of loss arising from
such exposure. 1t has now been very
| fully demonstrated that exposure to air
and moisture causes, in both coal and
wood, sort of slow combustion, which
lessons their efficiency by from ten to
thirty per cent. One of the first points
then that demands our attention is the
| careful preservation of fuel from atmOS-
pheric influences. To use it in a damp
condition involves great waste; but it is
| not enough that coal and wood be dry at
the time they are used-they must be
kept constantly dry during the whole
period of their storage. This fact is fully
recognized by railway companies, who
always keep their wood care fully covered,
and purchasers of coal and wood would do
well to see that the fue! which they buy has
| been properly kept. Coal taken from a
heap that has been exposed for months to
| the clements, is not as valuable, weight
for weight, as coal that has been well
| kept.
Having taken proper care in this mat
| ter, the next point is to see that the fuel
| is properly and completely burned. We
do not by this refer to the mere escape of
few cinders through the crate, for these
| may be recovered by the use of "a COM
mon screen. The | So of fuel which
arises from that imperfect combination
that carries our coal and wood up the
chimney before they have given out more
capable of giving out, far exceeds
any small loss occasioned by the
existence of cinders i'll the ash
| heap; and among those who are ignorant
of the phenomena which occur during
| the combustion of coal the source of this
loss is never so much as suspected. We
| do not always remember that of all the
tons of coal and cords of wood that we
! buy, the entire quantity, with the eXcep-
| ton of few pounds of ashes passes up
the chimney in perfectly invisible form.
| The small amount of smoke that We see
| forms but very small part of the fuel
that is actually consumed, and may be
| safely left ont of the calculation. Coal
and wood are both composed of charcoal,
or coke combined with certain combusti
| bic gases-tse carbon or charcoal form
ing, however, the largest portion of our
fuel. When this carbon is fully saturated
| with the oxygen of the air it forms
dense, invisible gas, generally known as
| carbOnic acid. To produce this gas there
are required six pounds Of charcoal and
| sixteen pounds of oxygen, and to furnish
| eighty pounds of air are needed But it
happens that carbon forms another COM
| pound containing but half the quantity
of oxygen that carbonic acid does. This
| is known as carbonic OXide-an invisible
gas which burns freely with a pale blue
| flame that is often seen Pickering over
| the bed of red hot Goals in our stoves,
after all the gas that was originally con
| tanned in the coal has been driven of.
| This blue flame is often supposed to be
| the flame OF burning sulphur; but IN al
most all cases it is due To carbonic oxide,
and is in reality the lie burning of half
| burned fuel. When thus re burned the
| fuel gives out just rs r;iuch heat as it did
in its first combustion; and hence, if we
| allow it to escape in 2 half burned condi-
ton we incur the loss Of just one-half the
| heat that we ought to get. And rs the
fuel is perfectly invisible while in this
half burned condition we are very apt to
let this drain proceed without our notic
ing it.
The proper remedy for this difficulty is
the admission of full supply of air and
the use of thin beds of fuel. Where the
| fuel lies in deep masses through which
| the air has to force its way, the gases con
tinue to dissolve the fuel as they pass up
wards through it, and then they carry it
| off. When brisk fire is needed, see that
the draft is free and that the coal is even
/
| Where it is absolutely necessary to have
a deep bed of coal, economy demands the
| use of some form of what are known as
gas-burning stoves, in which stream Of
hot air is poured into the stove ADORE the
| fuel, and thus the complete combustion
OF the half burned but gaseous coal is
| insured.
| But it is possible to commit as great an
error, on the other hand, by admitting
too much air. We have just stated that
| six pounds of coal require eighty pounds
of air for their complete combustion.
| This is large quantity, but il we allow
twice as much air to pass in as is needed,
then for every six pounds of coal that we
use, we raise eighty pounds of air from
| the temperature OF the room to about 400
| degs., and then let it go off, carrying all
this heat with it. This is Just about the
| same thing as if, for every six pounds OF
coal, we were to raise ten gallons ofwater
to the boiling point and then throw it
out doors. The proper remedy for this is
to see that the coal lies i'll compact mass
on the grate-no large spaces through
which the air can pass being allowed.
This involves the use of coal as small as
| is consistent " it'll the securing OF a proper
drau@ht. A popular error in this respect,
| is the using of coal that is larger than ne
cessary Tie smaller the coal the fewer
and get heated without aiding in the pro
duction of heat.
When small fire is needed in a large
stove, it Will always be found true econo.
nay to cut oil part of the crate by covering