THROWING COALS ON THE FIRE.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14635, 13 February 1918, Page 9

THROWING COALS ON THE FIRE.

AN ENORMOUS WASTAGE

A strong appeal for a drastic revision of the methods of consuming coal was made by Dr Hickling, of the Manchester University, in a lectu»e to the members of the Aneoats Brotherhood at the New Islington Hall.

At the present time, Dr Hickling pointed ou.t, they were taking from the ground of Britain over 200 million tons of coal every year. The 25 million tons extracted from the Lancashire coalfield annually would make a continuous wall a yard thick and over 'JOit high all round the British Isles. From the Manchester, or coalfield all tho upper seams of coal -were removed more than a century ago and all within I,oooft of the surface" nearly half a century ago. To-day the miners wero working 3,000 ft below the surface in this district. It was known that there were seams.to a depth of practically 7,000 ft. but it was exceedingly doubtful whether they could'erer be got, for at present ifc was not practicable to mine lower than 4.000 ft. The miner's problem was to discover how the deeper seams could be. recovered, -and the geologist's to determine how tar the seams now being Worked extended under other recks, in order to ascertain how long our coal supply would itlSu.

At ou- present rate of consumption our supply might last for another hundred or two hundred years, but not for ever. Thus arose the vital question of whether we ■ were ' taking from the ground all the coal we could'without wasting ahv ; and whether we were using it properly when v.c got it " An emphatic "No" was thd only answer to. both questions. The one principle guiding the getting of the coal was that tne man who got it must make an immediate profit on it, whether the method was the best for the nation or not, and this was resulting in an enormous- wastage. Then, when the coal was won,,, the only, use' we made of it was to burn it 3 and in the most ineitechve manner possible. Burning it in the ordinary fireplace used only onetenth of the heat it was capable of producing, and sent the rest up the chimney to pollute the atmosphere to such ar extent that they never ,saw a blue sky within 100 miles of Manchester—pop sibly nowhere in the country. Coal should be burned ?o as to produce no smoke at all. That which went into the air as smoke would then become the source of a most invaluable arra/y of materials, as by-product? many times the value of the original coal could be obtained, and tne" atmosphere purified, by burning it in closed retorts and obtaining the required heat m the form of- ga«. Among those by-products were the greater part of the chemicals of all sorts used in that country, more than half of the medicines, and the very important, aniline dyes and the explosives obtained in connection with the production of them Ihe day for merely -throwing coal on fcho nre had iong since gone past