Charcoal fire

“ Large jobs of brazing may be handled with a charcoal fire built in the forge, as this fuel produces a very satisfactory and clean fire. The only objection is in the difficulty of confining the heat to the desired parts of the work.
The most satisfactory fire is that from a fuel gas torch built for this work. These torches are simply forms of Bunsen burners, mixing the proper quantity of air with the gas to bring about a perfect combustion. Hose lines lead to the mixing tube of the gas torch, one line carrying the gas and the other air under a moderate pressure. ”

“ Q. Why are persons sometimes killed by having a charcoal fire in their bed-rooms?
A. When charcoal is burned, the carbon of the charcoal unites with the oxygen of the air, and forms carbonic acid gas, which is a narcotic poison.
Q. Why does the carbonic acid gas of a charcoal fire rise and disperse itself about the room; whereas the carbonic acid gas of a beer vat settles near the floor?
A. The carbonic acid gas of a charcoal fire is heated by the combustion of the fuel, and rises; but the carbonic acid gas of a beer vat is not heated, and, therefore, rests on the bottom of the vat. ”

“ The difference between the burned air from a charcoal fire, and smoke from a fire of coal or wood, is that in the latter there are added to the chief ingredient, carbonic acid, which is little perceived, others which disagreeably affect the eyes and nose, and so force attention. ”

“ No room ought ever to be left unoccupied without a guard being placed on the fire. Most of us have had experience of sudden small explosions of the coals, and holes being burnt in the hearthrug, even when there is some one at hand to stamp out the fire at once; and we can imagine what the consequences would be if the hearthrug had been left to smoulder. In the case of steam-pipes, after wood has remained a long time in contact with steam, hot-water, or hot-air pipes, the surface becomes carbonised. During the warm season, the charcoal absorbs moisture. ”

“ It affords the gas which vivifies and warms our frames, and receives into itself that which has been polluted by use, and is thrown off as noxious. It feeds the flame of life exactly as it does that of the fire — it is in both cases consumed, and affords the food of consumption — in both cases it becomes combined with charcoal, which requires it for combustion, and is removed by it when this is over. ”

“ To cause the face to appear in a mass of flame make use of the following: mix together thoroughly petroleum, lard, mutton tallow and quick lime. Distill this over a charcoal fire, and the liquid which results can be burned on the face without harm. ”

“ The furnace being completely dried, a fire is lighted in the hearth, and fuel gradually added, until the whole is filled to the trundle head, which is the open and lesser base of the truncated cone that forms the body of the furnace. The blast may then be applied, slowly and gently at first, and increasing gradually, until it reach its maximum of intensity. As the blast proceeds, the charcoal gradually burns, and descends; its place is supplied at top by fresh fuel, by ore, and by the earthy matter used as a flux. ”

“ When the wood has been reduced to charcoal, the fire is partially extinguished by closing the air-holes. The coals are drawn from the pit with an iron-toothed rake, and, while this is performed, the dust mingles with them, and smothers the fire which may yet remain. ”

“ Charcoal, if saturated with oil, may become so heated as to burn, and coals containing iron pyrites, when wet, will catch fire. Phosphorus, when dry, ignites easily, and has been known to melt and burn in a room where the temperature was only 70°, so that in hot weather a fire may be started by large packages of matches. ”

“ Eating coals of fire has always been one of the sensational feats of the Fire Kings, as it is quite generally known that charcoal burns with an extremely intense heat. This fervent lunch, however, like many of the feasts of the Fire Kings, is produced by trick methods. Mixed with the charcoal in the brazier are a few coals of soft white pine, which when burnt look exactly like charcoal. These will not burn the mouth as charcoal will. They should be picked up with a fork which will penetrate the pine coals, but not the charcoal, the latter being brittle. ”

“ The fire is burned in a furnace near the bottom, and the heated smoke is made repeatedly to traverse the structure from side to side along the winding passage before it reaches the top, where a pipe conveys it, when comparatively cold, into a flue in the wall. The heated mass of brick continues to warm the room long after the fuel is burned. The same quantity of fuel which heats a German oven for a day is consumed in an open grate in three hours. In Northern Germany the poorer classes burn turf and charcoal, the better classes use the turf to mix with the stone-coal. ”

“ One mineral, incombustible, seen in the ash residue, which for good coal amounts to barely three per cent. The second, volatile, and which, under the influence of heat becoming gaseous, appears in an open fire as tall flame and smoke, and, where combustion is imperfect, produces soot. The third constituent is carbon or charcoal, familiarly known as coke or cinder, and when burning gives a short, shallow, bluish flame. The carbon and the volatile portions can be raised to a high temperature, and still will not burn unless oxygen be brought into contact with them. ”

“ There is one gas that every one ought to know about, because many persons have been killed by it from want of this knowledge. This gas is made whenever charcoal is burned; and many deaths have occurred from it by burning charcoal in small furnaces in close rooms. This is often done to warm a room where there is no stove or fire-place. As the charcoal burns slowly, the gas is [3046] made, and as it is heavier than air, it spreads, at first, all over the floor. It gets higher and higher, and at length reaches the mouths, of the persons in the room. ”

“ In the bottom drawer of a small cabinet built into the corridor, among a jumbled collection of tools and gadgets, I found a small pocket flame-thrower, one of those all-purpose gas-fired lighters that is adjustable for the small flame needed to light a cigarette or the steady blaze that will ignite charcoal for a fire or even a miniature jet of heat suitable to cut thin pieces of metal. I started to discard the gadget but some obscure tug of memory stopped me. Heat. Heat brought more than searing pain. It consumed. All living organisms were vulnerable to it. ”

“ On the next opportunity, pocketing a larger quantity of charcoal than usual, he filled the holes in it with gunpowder and then stopping them with black sealing-wax, sold the charcoal to the unsuspecting woman, who presently replenished her fire with it, with the natural result that her brazier was blown to pieces and herself almost frightened out of her wits. ”

“ The reason for this resistance to fire is that the wood, being a poor conductor of heat, will not warp and buckle under heat, and cannot burn for lack of air to support combustion. A removal of the sheet metal on such a door after a fire in a mill shows that the surface of the wood is carbonized, not burned, reduced to charcoal, but not to ashes. ”

“ The wood is disposed in heaps, and covered with earth, so as to prevent the access of any more air than is absolutely necessary for supporting the fire, which is kept up till all the water and oil is driven off, after which the fire is extinguished by shutting up all the air-holes.
We may analyse charcoal either by combustion in air, or rather in oxygen gas, or by means of nitric acid. In either case we convert it into carbonic acid, and sometimes a little potash and some neutral salts remain. ”

“ Even the most explosive mixture will not take fire from well burned charcoal, nor by iron heated to any degree short of actual combustion. But on the contrary, hydrogen whether simple or sulphuretted, olefiant gas, or carbonic oxide, may each be set on fire very readily by all these means ”

“ The process, which lasts altogether twelve hours or more, is divisible into two portions:—First, the fire is allowed to char and smoulder, out of the free access of air, till all the heap becomes a glowing red-hot mass, just as in charcoal-burning or ballast-burning at home. But after the fire has penetrated the whole heap it is poked up, the air admitted, and there is a thorough blazing fire, which goes on burning till all the fuel is turned into ashes, amongst which are discernible some of the hardest bones—as the malar, temporal, and shafts of the long bones—semi-vitrefied. ”

“ The Dyoor and the Bongo appear almost equally ignorant about charcoal-burning. They understand very little about the exclusion of air from the furnaces, or of burning their wood in piles: their science seems limited to the combustion of small fragments heaped up over one another till the fire below them is choked, or subdued by pouring water upon the top. I am not aware whether the other negroes have mastered the secret of charcoal-making ”

“ In warm weather there is nothing better for a preserving fire than a portable charcoal furnace placed out in the open air; as in a room with the doors or windows shut the vapor of charcoal is deadly, and never fails to produce suffocation. ”

“ A call brings the charcoal-burner outside the rough hut of poles and brushwood from which he is watching his fires. In a few minutes our skates are off and we are climbing the steep to him. He says that since our last visit two of his ovens have died out; combustion has ceased, and a quantity of charcoal is fairly won. From this open-fronted hut—he has several, to protect him from changes of the wind—he can see every fire. ‘I’m frightened that one there is going to get into a low [flicker of flame] ,’ he says as, sod in hand, he goes to the cone in question. ”

“ Small Coal, burnt in an open Fire, is not near so dangerous as Charcoal, properly so called, the Danger of which arises from this, that in extinguishing it by the usual Methods, all those sulphureous Particles of it, in which its Danger consists, are concentred. ”

“ As they lift they get inflated with air; they are then sharply forced down on their own folds, and the contained air ejected forcibly through an iron or clay nozzle, into the very small heap of glowing charcoal which forms the fire. ”

“ Charcoal, coke or anthracite coal are the fuels generally used in slow combustion heating stoves.
Gas fires, as a substitute for the open coal fire, have many points in their favour, for they are conducive to cleanliness, they need but little attention, and the heat is easily controlled. On the other hand, they may give off unhealthy Gas fires. fumes and produce unpleasant odours. They usually take the form of cast iron open stoves fitted with a number of Bunsen burners which heat perforated lumps of asbestos. ”

“ Published as the Act directs, April 1, 1806, by Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, Paternoster Row.
6. Charcoal fires in pots are used chiefly in the [235] shops of handicraftsmen. They warm a room (that is kept close, and has no chimney to carry off the warmed air) very speedily and uniformly; but there being no draught to change the air, the sulphurous fumes from the coals [be they ever so well kindled before they are brought in, there will be some] mix with it, render it disagreeable, hurtful to some constitutions, and sometimes, when the door is long kept shut, produce fatal consequences. ”

“ The present method of open fires is dirty, troublesome, wasteful, and extravagant. With the introduction of gas as a heating agent, there will be no more carting about of coals and ashes, and no more troublesome lighting of fires with wood, paper, and matches. No more coal-scuttles, no more smoky chimneys, no more chimney-sweeps! On the other hand, the old open coal-fire is cheerful, ‘pokable,’ and conducive to ventilation; while the Englishman loves to stand in front of it and toast himself. ”

“ But besides the flame, which is a peculiar gas in the state of combustion, heat expels from coal an aqueous vapour, loaded with several kinds of ammoniacal salts, a thick viscid fluid resembling tar, and some gases that are not of a combustible nature. The consequence of which is, that the flame of a coal-fire is continually wavering and changing, both in shape, as well as brilliance and in colour, so that what one moment gave a beautiful bright light, in the next, perhaps, is obscured by a stream of thick smoke. ”

“ The flame produced from coal, wood, turf, oil, wax, tallow, or other bodies, which are composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxigen, proceeds from the production of carburetted hydrogen gas, evolved from the combustible body when in an ignited state.
It must have been noticed at the same time, that in the common mode of burning coal in a fire-place, or stove, nearly the whole of this inflammable gaseous matter is lost. We often see a flame suddenly burst from the densest smoke, and as suddenly disappear ”

“ Have you seen the coal heap in the forge, how the fire rages and glows within before the blast? Water is thrown on without quenching the fire, it only intensifies its heat. At last the black mass cracks on all sides and the white fury shoots out in spits and knives of flame. ”

“ It is a common oil-lamp, in which the flame is surrounded with a fine wire-gauze. The flame cannot pass through the gauze; and thus if the destructive gas of a coal-mine enters the gauze and ignites, the flame cannot pass again out of the gauze, and ignite the surrounding gas. Sometimes the inner flame burns with a terrible blue light. It is the symptom of danger. If the lamp were an open flame the fire-damp would shake the pit with one dreadful explosion. The safety-lamp yields a feeble light; and thus, unfortunately, the miner sometimes exposes the flame, and perishes. ”

“ Nearly every one has noticed the blue flame with which coal burns in the parlor coal heater or in other furnaces where little draft is used and most of us remember that the gas which is given off from such a fire has asphyxiated many who were unfortunate enough to be sleeping in a closed room, when through insufficient chimney draft or a leaky stove some of the unburnt gas filled the room. ”