weight of coke, which in the ordinary beehive ovens
from coal of the same quality is only 60 per cent.
or in beehive ovens having bottom flues about 66 per
cent., while in the Carves ovens it is, as I have
said, upward of 75 per cent. Against these figures
there is a charge of 1s. 4d. per ton of coke for additional
labor, including all the labor in collecting the by-products;
the interest on the first cost of the plant, which
is considerable, and probably some outlay for repairs
in excess of that in the case of ordinary ovens, has
also to be charged. Mr. Jameson takes credit
for the combustible gas, which is used up in the Carves
ovens, but which remains over in his process, and
is available, though not nearly all consumed, in raising
steam for the various purposes of a colliery, including,
no doubt, before long, the generation of electricity
for its illumination. It is right to state that
prior to 1879 Mr. Henry Aitken had applied bottom flues
for taking off the oil and ammoniacal water to beehive
ovens at the Almond Ironworks, near Falkirk.
He states that the largest quantity of oil obtained
was eleven gallons, the specific gravity varying from
0.925 to 1.000, and that the water contained a quantity
of ammonia fully equal to 51/2 lb. of sulphate of
ammonia to the ton of coal coked. The residual
permanent or non-condensed gases were allowed to issue
from the end of the condenser pipe, and were burnt
for light in the engine-houses, but it was intended
to force them into the oven again above the level
of the coke. Owing to the works being closed,
nothing has been done with these ovens for some years.
I may mention, by the way, that it is proposed to
apply the principle of Mr. Jameson’s process
to the recovery of oil and ammonia from the smouldering
waste heaps at the pit-bank, by the introduction into
these of conduits resembling those which he applies
to the bottom of the beehive oven. There is every
reason to expect that one or more of these various
methods of utilizing valuable products which are at
present lost will be carried to perfection, and will
tend to cheapen the cost at which iron can be produced,
and still further to increase its consumption for
all the multifarious purposes to which it is applied.
WONDERFUL USES AND DEMAND FOR IRON AND STEEL.
But the world’s annual production of 20,000,000
tons of pig iron is itself sufficiently startling,
and without attempting to present to you the statistics
of all its various uses—for which, in fact,
we do not possess the necessary materials—the
increased consumption of more than 9,000,000 tons
since 1869 becomes conceivable when we consider how
some of the great works in which it is employed have
been extending during that or even a shorter interval.
And of these I need only speak of the world’s
railways, of which there were in 1872 155,000 miles,
and in 1882 not less than 260,000, but probably more
nearly 265,000 miles. In the United States alone
about 60,000 miles of railway have been built since
1869—the year, I may remind you in passing,
in which the Atlantic and Pacific States of the Union
were first united by a railway; while in our Indian
Empire the communication between Calcutta and Bombay
was not completed till the following year.