Coke

“ The various gas companies realize a yearly sum equal to six million of dollars from the sale of the coke. The peddlers distribute the coke to their customers in large vans, wheel [Pg 400] barrows, donkey carts, hand carts, and some of these strong limbed, broad chested fellows, carry the coke from door to door in large sacks. A few of the women own routes, and hire boys or men to sell the coke, giving them eight to twelve shillings a week, according to their merits and enterprise as hawkers. ”

“ There's no need to make such a fuss over a bit of coke.'
"'You've wasted pretty near arf a 'undered-weight,' I ses. 'I've a good mind to report you.'
"'Don't do that, watchman!' he ses, in a pitiful voice. 'Don't do that! 'Ere, I tell you wot I'll do. I'll pick it all up agin.'
"Afore I could move 'and or foot he 'ad shifted a couple o' cases out of 'is way and was in among the empties. I stood there dazed-like while two bits o' coke came flying back past my 'ed; then I 'eard a loud whistle, and 'e came out agin with 'is eyes rolling and 'is mouth wide open. ”

“ No large fires are permitted: the smoke would give too good a ranging-mark to Minnie and her relatives. Still, it is surprising how quickly you can boil a canteen over a few chips. There is also, for those who can afford half-a-crown, that invaluable contrivance, "Tommy's Cooker"; and occasionally we get a ration of coke. When times are bad, we live on bully, biscuit, cheese, and water, strongly impregnated with chloride of lime. The water is conveyed to us in petrol-tins—the old familiar friends, Shell and Pratt—hundreds of them. ”

“ Coke fell into great want and distress, together with his wife and children, and died suddenly by a slip of his foot into a shallow pit, wherein he was searching for tin, out of a conceited opinion he had that he should at last raise his fortune by tin, as his grandfather before him had done. ”

“ This property is utilized in several large coking plants in America, where the gas from the first ten hours’ working is drawn off by a second hydraulic main and sent directly to town gas-works, where it passes through the ordinary purifying treatment, the gas from the second period being alone used for heating the ovens.
Coke is essentially a partially graphitized carbon, its density being about midway between that of coal and graphite, and it should therefore occupy less space than the original coal ”

“ The fuel employed is the coke or char resulting from cannel coal when it has yielded up its hydrocarbons and other gases during the process of carbonization in the gas retorts. Being entirely made from Scotch cannel the coke is very poor in quality, as it contains a large percentage of mineral matter or ash relatively to its fixed carbon. ”

“ The time of burning is either 48 or 72 hours, the turns being so arranged as to avoid the necessity of drawing the ovens on Sunday. The longer the heat is continued the denser the product becomes, but the yield also diminishes, as a portion of the finished coke necessarily burns to waste when the gas is exhausted. ”

“ Before the retorts are drawn the lid is removed from the top of the producer, and any fuel still remaining unconsumed is touched up a bit by way of leveling it on the surface, and as soon as it has been filled up to the constricted portion a shovelful of soft luting is spread over the top of the coke, and the lid is laid upon it and driven home, thereby making a perfectly air-tight joint. ”

“ The yield of by-products averages about 1% of ammonium sulphate, about 31⁄2% of tar, and 0.6 to 0.9% of benzene, of the weight of the coal carbonized. After the ovens have been heated and steam supplied for the machinery of the condensing plant and the coke ovens, there is usually a surplus of gas, which may be used for lighting or driving gas-engines. ”

“ For this reason the yield on the coal charged is usually less than that obtained in retort ovens, although the quality may be better. Coals containing at most about 35% of volatile matter are best suited for the beehive oven. With less than 25% the gas is not sufficient to effect the coking completely, and when there is a higher percentage the coke is brittle and spongy and unsuited for blast furnace or foundry use. The spent flame from the ovens passes to a range of steam boilers before escaping by the chimney. ”

“ Cokes. A fine similitude that, sir! did you see the pan?
Edg. Yes, sir.
Over. Nay, the hole in the nose here of some tobacco-takers, or the third nostril, if I may so call it, which makes that they can vent the tobacco out, like the ace of clubs, or rather the flower-de-lis, is caused from the tobacco, the mere tobacco! when the poor innocent pox, having nothing to do there, is miserably and most unconscionably slandered.
Cokes. Who would have missed this, sister?
Mrs. Over. Not any body but Numps.
Cokes. He does not understand.
Edg. [picks Cokes’s pocket of his purse.] Nor you feel. ”

“ In the first class the heating is done by direct contact or by burning the gases given off in coking within the oven, while in the other two the heating is indirect, the gas being burned in cellular passages or flues provided in the walls dividing the coking chambers, and the heat transmitted through the sides of the latter which are comparatively thin. The arrangement is somewhat similar to that of a gas-works retort, whence the name of “retort ovens” is sometimes applied to them. The difference between the second and third classes is founded on the treatment of the gases. ”

“ When produced rapidly and at a low heat, as in gas-making, it is of a dull black colour, and a loose spongy or pumice-like texture, and ignites with comparative ease, though less readily than bituminous coal, so that it may be burnt in open fire-places ”

“ In the further treatment of the condensed products by distillation the tar gives burning oil and pitch, the benzene is separated from the creosote oil by steam-heated stills, and the ammoniacal liquor, after some lime has been added to decompose fixed ammonium compounds, is heated to vaporize the ammonia, which is condensed in lead or copper-lined tanks containing strong sulphuric acid to produce a crystalline powder of ammonium sulphate, which accumulates in the receiver and is fished out from time to time. ”

“ A man would as soon have thought of making a call in his dressing-gown as of strolling about the West End with a cigar in his mouth. The first whom I ever saw smoke a cigarette at a dining-table after dinner was the King ”

“ Coca has been praised as a nervine and muscular tonic, preventing waste of tissue, appeasing hunger and thirst, relieving fatigue, and aiding free respiration, and as being useful in various diseases of the digestive and respiratory organs. It is said to be specially useful in many forms of asthma, chronic bronchitis, obstinate cough, phthisis, and general debility; in gastric derangements, owing to its slight astringency, it seems to give more tone to the stomach than the mere anæsthetic action of the Cocaine it contains would produce locally ”

“ The following are also ready solvents, each taking up about 1 of it in 3 parts: benzol, toluol, and amylic alcohol; of petroleum spirit about 25 parts are required, much less if hot; from this solution, also from hot alcohol, wood spirit, acetone and chloroform it readily crystallizes on cooling. It is almost tasteless, but produces a tingling numbness on the tongue, and local anæsthetic action on all mucous membrane. Good Coca leaves yield 0.5 per cent. or more of Cocaine, but the average is less—if fermented, often nil. ”

“ He instances cases “by no means singular,” of longevity among the Indians of individuals who had attained the great age of 130 years, under its use.
Pöppig [12] says the average yield of a Cocal or Coca plantation is about 800 lbs. of dry leaves per English acre. When nearly dry, he says, they emit an odour similar to mellilot, or the new-mown hay odour of Anthoxanthum odoratum (probably due to coumarin) , which causes headache to strangers. If not perfectly dry when packed they heat and ferment, and become inert and useless, especially to the manufacturer of Cocaine. ”

“ Properties.—Cocaine is in the form of four- to six-sided prisms of the monoclinic system. It is one of the few alkaloids which melt under the temperature of boiling water, the melting-point being as low as 85° in water. It readily furnishes a sublimate at 100°, partially decomposing. On boiling with hydrochloric acid cocaine is [348] decomposed into methyl alcohol, ecgonin, and benzoic acid, according to the following reaction:—
Cocaine is but little soluble in water, but easily dissolves in ether, alcohol, benzene, chloroform, and carbon disulphide ”

“ Coca wine, and other medicated wines are largely sold to people who are considered, and consider themselves, to be total abstainers. It is not uncommon to hear the mother of a family say, 'I never allow my girls to touch stimulants of any kind, but I give them each a glass of coca wine at 11 in the morning, and again at bedtime.' Originally coca wine was made from coca leaves, but it is now commonly a solution of the alkaloid, in a sweet and strongly alcoholic wine. ”

“ OUTLINE OF COCA PLANT.
(Showing leaves and seeds. Nos. 1 and 2, Coca leaves seen by transmitted light.)
All illustrations in this volume have been specially prepared for this work, and are from original drawings from life by M. Mariani.
[5]
INTRODUCTION.
Each race has its fashions and fancies. The Indian munches the betel; the Chinaman woos with passion the brutalizing intoxication of opium; the European occupies his idle hours or employs his leisure ones in smoking, chewing or snuffing tobacco. Guided by a happier instinct, the native of South America has adopted Coca. ”

“ As a beverage to substitute for tea or coffee, a decoction or an infusion of Coca is worthy of attention at the present time. The Indian use of it in moderation seems to prolong life, without much need of sleep or food, or even the desire for these, although in excess it has, no doubt, a degrading effect. A taste for infusion or decoction of Coca or its pharmaceutical preparations is easily acquired; if a good sample of leaves be used it is not even at first disagreeable. ”

“ Now, since 3 drachms of this coca, or three fluid drachms of its fluid extract, gave the same physiological, or perhaps therapeutical, effect as 3 grains of caffeine, and as the 3 drachms contained about 0.45 grain of cocaine, it follows that cocaine is about 6.5 times more effective than caffeine; but it also follows that the coca accessible, and even the very best coca, contains very much less of its alkaloid than those articles which yield caffeine do of that principle. ”

“ Whether it does more than deceive or lull hunger, thirst, and fatigue, and how it acts in these respects, are subjects still to be investigated. The effect which travellers have noticed it has on the respiration at high elevations cannot be imaginary. Under the influence of Coca, it has been said, it appears that a new force gradually introduces itself into our organism, as water into a sponge. ”

“ The uses of the Coca leaf in Bolivia and Peru have been described by many travellers, who have seen it chewed, as has been before mentioned. From two to eight or twelve drachms or more is used daily, in conjunction with the ashes of the quinoa plant or with lime, as a remedy for, or preventive against, the effects of extraordinary physical exertion, to relieve the difficulty of respiration in ascending mountains, and to appease hunger, thirst, and fatigue. ”

“ If, on the other hand, they desire to use the Coca for the sake of enjoyment, they use it alone, turning it over and over in the mouth, until all its properties are exhausted, then they take more. But, if their purpose is to be inebriated, or to be taken to some extent out of themselves as if by mental alienation, they mix the leaves of Coca with those of Tobacco, and chew and suck them simultaneously; by this means they find themselves with their reason lost to them, and are like drunken [Pg 5] men, and they experience thence very great pleasure. ”

“ Both Pöppig and Von Tschudi give a doleful account of the intemperate use of Coca by the inveterate coquero, as he is called,—his bad breath, pale lips and gums, greenish and stumpy teeth, and an ugly black mark at the angles of his mouth, his unsteady gait, yellow skin, dim and sunken eyes encircled by a purple ring, his quivering lips, and his general apathy—all bear evidence of the baneful effects of the Coca when taken in excess. ”

“ It is this combination of properties that gives it its chief value in iron smelting, the substance being sufficiently dense to resist oxidation by carbon dioxide in the higher regions of the furnace, while the vesicular structure gives an extended surface for the action of heated air and facilitates rapid consumption at the tuyeres. ”

“ It is not surprising, under such circumstances, that this article should be very much abused, and that the evil of intemperance in the use of Coca, known as coquear, should be quite as prevailing among the natives of those districts as intemperance in the use of tobacco, alcoholic liquors, and opium is among other nations. They intoxicate themselves for several weeks, hide in the deepest forests in order not to be disturbed in their enjoyment, and not rarely return home to their family suffering from delirium or decided idiocy. ”

“ It produces more cerebral action than tea or coffee. Johnson, in his “Chemistry of Common Life,” says we may dismiss those fears of the Coca leaf which old Spanish prejudices awakened, and which representations like those of Pöppig have tended to perpetuate in Europe. There is no good reason why it should not be tried among ourselves. That Coca dilated the pupils of the eye was noticed by Von Tschudi. ”