Cannel coal

“ At various points on these acclivities strata of coal have been discovered partly by the action of water, partly by human labour, the extent of which, owing to the impenetrable forest vegetation and the consequent lack of natural indications, can only be ascertained by boring.
The coal is of the best quality of that kind of brown coal generally called cannel coal, and is occasionally met with in immense seams. The average thickness of the seam is about six feet. ”

“ The excess of hydrogen in a coal, above the amount necessary 576 to combine with its oxygen to form water, is known as “disposable” hydrogen, and is a measure of the fitness of the coal Gas coal. for use in gas-making. This excess is greatest in what is known as cannel coal, the Lancashire kennel or candle coal, so named from the bright light it gives out when burning. This, although of very small value as fuel, commands a specially high price for gas-making. Cannel is more compact and duller than ordinary coal, and can be wrought in the lathe and polished. ”

“ Mineral coal is fossilized vegetable matter; anthracite has had most of the volatile hydro-carbons removed by distillation in the earth; bituminous and cannel coals retain them. These latter coals are distilled, and furnish us illuminating gas.
Experiment 129.—Put into a t.t. 20 g. of cannel coal in fine pieces. Heat, and collect the gas over H2O. Test its combustibility. Notice any impurities, such as tar, adhering to the sides of the t.t., or of the receiver after combustion. Try to ignite a piece of cannel coal by holding it in a Bunsen flame. ”

“ In the direct distillation of cannel-coal for the production of paraffin, it is necessary that the perpendicular tubes or retorts into which the coal is placed be heated only to a certain temperature, which is considerably lower than that applied when the object is the production of coal-gas. By this means nearly all the volatile matters pass over in the form of condensible vapours, and the crude oils are at once formed, from whence are obtained at different temperatures various volatile ethers, benzene, and artificial turpentine oil or petroleum spirit. ”

“ One pound of coal, on a large scale, affords only 31/2 cubic feet of gas. A gas jet, which consumes half a cubic foot per hour, gives a steady light equal to that of a candle of the above-mentioned size.
The cannel coal, known in Scotland by the name of parrot coal, is very inflammable, takes fire immediately, and produces a brilliant flame. It is used by the poor as a substitute for candles. This coal, we have seen, furnishes an abundance of carburetted hydrogen gas. ”

“ With this immense stock of fuel in the cellars of the earth, it seems evident that we need not trouble our minds or be anxious as to the duration of our coal supply. Besides, the conversion of vegetable matter into coal seems to be going on even now. In the United States there are peat-bogs of considerable extent, in which a substance exactly resembling cannel coal has been found; and in some of the Irish peat-beds, as also in the North of Scotland, a similar substance has been discovered, of a very inflammable nature, resembling coal. ”

“ Cannel coals are generally variable in quality, being liable to change into shales or black-band ironstones within very short horizontal limits. In some instances the coal seams may be changed as a whole, as for instance in South Wales, where the coking coals of the eastern side of the basin pass through the state of dry steam coal in the centre, and become anthracite in the western side. ”

“ And if we give credit to the assertion of those workmen, whose business it is to manufacture a given quantity of gas by means of a certain quantity of coal delivered to them, it would appear that coal which affords gas abounding in sulphuretted hydrogen, is the kind of coal most easily to be decomposed. This, as far as it regards the decomposition of Scotch Splent or cannel coal, is certainly true. No species of coal affords gas at a lower temperature, and of none is the gaseous product more loaded with sulphuretted hydrogen gas. ”

“ He found that the Scotch cannel-coal afforded 56.57 volatile matter, 39.43 charcoal, and 4 ashes; while the stone-coal, found under basalt, gave 16.66 volatile matter, 69.74 charcoal, and 13.6 ashes, and oak wood, 80.00 volatile matter, 19.5 charcoal, and 0.5 ashes. The quantity of gas, however, depends entirely on the quality of the coal. A temperature of about 600° to 700° is sufficient to disengage it. A pound of good cannel coal, properly treated in a small apparatus, will yield five cubic feet of gas, equivalent in illuminating power to a mould candle, six in the pound. ”

“ Splint or hard coal comes next, which is not easily broken, nor is it easily kindled, though it affords a clear and lasting fire when once ignited. Cherry or soft coal, is an abundant and beautiful kind, and highly prized by mortals. It does not cake when heated, it can be broken with ease, and it readily catches fire, requiring but little stirring, and giving out a cheerful flame and heat. Another kind is called cannel coal. It is always compact, and does not soil the fingers. It varies much in appearance, from a dull earthy to a lustrous wax-like substance. ”

“ In nature, the pyrite and marcasite minerals may oxidize in ground water percolating over them to form dilute sulphuric acid, the acid mine waters.
Cannel coal in Missouri has been found chiefly in old sinkhole deposits through part of central Missouri. It is characterized by fracturing conchoidally and having a more massive structure (instead of the layered structure common to bituminous coal) . Cannel coal burns to a very hot, rather quick fire because of high volatile content, and is thought to have developed from accumulations very rich in plant spores. ”

“ Cannel coal is found in several counties, and is mined in considerable quantities, most of it being shipped to Europe. Railroads are being rapidly built throughout the coal regions, thus bringing increased quantities yearly into market. Coal in the eastern counties is mined at low cost; no deep shafts and corresponding machinery are required; the strata show themselves in the sides of the mountains from which the coal is easily and rapidly secured and loaded into cars. In the lower parts of the coalfields four strata of iron ore are found. ”

“ The seams are principally above water levels and in many cases have been laid bare by erosion; and the supply is varied—besides a “fat coking, gassy bituminous,” there are an excellent grade of splint coal (first mined in 1864 at Coalburg, Kanawha county) and (except that in Kentucky) the only important supply of cannel coal in the United States. Most of the mines are operated under “non-union” rules. ”

“ In the large demand from England and Europe for coal, which is finding expression in the large orders sent to Philadelphia and Baltimore for Pennsylvania and Maryland coal, [D] there is the best possible evidence that the local trade of the national canal would be enormous. So highly thought of is the Kanawha cannel coal that it is now shipped down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, and sent thence by sea to New York, where it brings per ton about three times the price of anthracite in that market. ”

“ On the contrary, cannel coal, whose compounds, so far as they can be recognized as vegetable remains, are essentially the floating trunks and branches of stigmaria, indicates as evidently that in this case the coal was formed of plants floating or submerged, thus presenting the two essential differences which are recognized in the peat beds of our time. ”

“ Anthracite, another form of carbon, is used as fuel for strong furnaces. It leaves little “ash,” and is smokeless when burned. Coal, in all its forms, is evidently derived from wood. Thousands of years ago vegetable matter must have been embedded in the ground and subjected to carbonization. There are different kinds of coal, all of which come under one or other of the following heads: cubical coal, slate coal, cannel coal, glance-lignite,—the last being, as its name implies, an imperfect development of wood; it is a brown coal. We are not here concerned with coal as a fuel. ”

“ One ton of Wigan cannel coal yields 10,000 cubic feet, and gives a light equal to 747 lbs. of spermaceti candles.13 The price, in London, of good gas from Newcastle coal, is 4s. 6d. per thousand cubic feet, which gives a light equal to 741⁄2 lbs. of spermaceti, and equal to 89 lbs. of mould candles; therefore, when the latter are 8d. a pound, the burning of gas is twelve times more economical than the burning of candles. In Liverpool, gas from cannel coal is supplied at the low price of 3s. 9d. per thousand feet; and that gas gives at least one-third more light than the ordinary London gas. ”

“ But taking two hours per day as the common average throughout the year, the consumption in Messrs. Philips and Lee’s mill will be 1250 × 2 = 2500 cubic feet of gas per day; to produce which 700 weight of [68] cannel-coal is required in the retort. The price of the best Wiggan cannel-coal (the sort used) is 131⁄2d. per cwt. (22s. 6d. per ton) delivered at the mill, or say about eight shillings for the seven hundred weight. Multiplying by the number of working days in the year (313,) the annual consumption of coal will be 110 tons, and its cost 125l. ”

“ Of the coal itself three varieties are found; the common or Slate coal, Cannel coal, here called Splint, or Parrot coal, and Coarse coal, also called Splint.
The texture of line splint is compact, the cross fracture conchoidal, and the fragments are cubical. Coarse coal is slaty in its texture, and it seems to be intermediate between common and cannel coal. ”

“ Such facts merely imply that portions of the areas of coal accumulation were liable to inundation of a character so temporary as not finally to close the process, as happened when at last a roof shale was deposited by water over the coal. Cannel coals and bituminous shales holding mussel-like shells, fish scales, etc., imply the existence sometimes for long periods of ponds, lakes or lagoons in the coal swamps, but ordinary coal did not accumulate in these. ”

“ Mills's new colliery to the westward of the Old Mitre (just where the "'T'" of "The" is engraved in the map) the Cannel coal is 396 feet (132 yards) deep, proving, with the gentle dip of the measures, that there must be a fault with a large downthrow to the west, between these two places. The amount of this downthrow is stated at 65 yards (195 feet) . The dip of the beds on the downside of this fault is about west-north-west, in which direction they will pass obliquely under the red clays, &e, of Essington Wood. ”

“ Ten per cent of the coal should be cannel; naphtha is, however, often employed to subserve the same purpose, one ton of ordinary bituminous coal requiring four gallons of oil.
In Boston, 7,000,000 cubic feet of gas have been burned in one day, consuming 500 tons of coal; the average is not more than half that quantity. Of the other products, coke is employed for heating purposes, gas carbon is used to some extent in electrical work, and coal-tar is the source of very many artificial products that were formerly only of natural origin. ”

“ The first thing that the fine fresh coal does is to choke the air spaces existing through the bed of coke, thus shutting off the air supply which is needed to burn the gases produced from the fresh coal. The next thing is a very rapid evaporation of moisture from the coal, a chilling process, which robs the furnace of heat. Next is the formation of water-gas by the chemical reaction, C + H2O = CO + 2H, the steam being decomposed, its oxygen burning the carbon of the coal to carbonic oxide, and the hydrogen being liberated. ”

“ The investigations include the possibility of making satisfactory commercial fuels from lignite or low-grade coals which do not stand shipment well, the benefiting of culm or slack coals which are wasted or sold at unremunerative prices, and the possibility of improving the efficiency of good coals. Some of the various forms of commercial briquettes, American and foreign, are shown in Fig. 2, Plate XX. After undergoing chemical analysis, the coal is elevated and fed to a storage bin, whence it is drawn through a chute to a hopper on the weighing scales. ”

“ The first cause is probably the most important, and this is particularly true of anthracite coals where a sliding scale of prices is used according to the season of the year. While market conditions serve as one of the principal reasons for coal storage, most power plants and manufacturing plants feel compelled to protect their coal supply from the danger of strikes, car shortages and the like, and it is customary for large power plants, railroads and coal companies themselves, to store bituminous coal. ”

“ In the great coal-field of South Wales, to which we must look for our main supply of anthracite, we are able to trace the action of heat in producing a whole series of different classes of coal in a single seam, which at one part is highly bituminous—soft, flaming coal, like the Wallsend, then it becomes harder and less bituminous, then semi-bituminous “steam coal,” then less and less flaming, until at last we have the hard, shiny form of purely carbonaceous coal, that may be handled without soiling the fingers, and which burns without flame, like coke or charcoal. ”

“ The soft coals, on the contrary, being porous as well as soft, allow the gases to escape from them much more readily, and so increase the danger at the working faces of the mines. The gas given out most abundantly by the coal is light carbureted hydrogen, known as marsh gas, from the fact that being a product of vegetable decomposition under water, bubbles of it rise to the surface on stirring the waters of a marsh. This is the gas that is known to miners as fire damp. ”