Page:Cassier's Magazine Volume XV.djvu/30

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stoking plant used in connection with gas works.

This plant consists of machines for charging and withdrawing the retorts after breaking the coal to proper dimensions and raising it to hoppers by elevators from the coal stores, thus reducing the labour bill to a very large extent. In connection with such operations the results have been so successful that the cost of carbonising in many works has been reduced by one shilling per ton of coal handled. When it is mentioned that hundreds of these machines are in operation, and that even under one single management where they are adopted the quantity of coal handled is equal to 600,000 tons per annum, it can at once be seen what an immense saving the adoption of this plant entails. These machines are used very largely not only in Great Britain, among others by the three principal gas companies in London, but also in many of the principal gas works in Europe, Australia and the United States.

In connection with structural work, Sir William Arrol & Co. make a specialty in designing and erecting all kinds of buildings in steel, and one special feature that is always kept in view is the lighting of these, which is usually done by having the roofs entirely covered by glass instead of by slates or other material. The first of these buildings was designed by Sir William about eighteen years ago for the Greenock Foundry Company, in connection with some large extensions which they were making to provide new