Page:EB1911 - Volume 02.djvu/117

 central and eastern portions producing steam, coking and house coals.

Anthracites of newer, tertiary or cretaceous age, are found in the Crow’s Nest part of the Rocky Mountains in Canada, and at various points in the Andes in Peru.

The principal use of anthracite is as a smokeless fuel. In the eastern United States, it is largely employed as domestic fuel, usually in close stoves or furnaces, as well as for steam purposes, since, unlike that from South Wales, it does not decrepitate when heated, or at least not to the same extent. For proper use, however, it is necessary that the fuel should be supplied in pieces as nearly uniform in size as possible, a condition that has led to the development of the breaker which is so characteristic a feature in American anthracite mining (see ). The large coal as raised from the mine is passed through breakers with toothed rolls to reduce the lumps to smaller pieces, which are separated into different sizes by a system of graduated sieves, placed in descending order. Each size can be perfectly well burnt alone on an appropriate grate, if kept free from larger or smaller admixtures. The common American classification is as follows:—

Lump, steamboat, egg and stove coals, the latter in two or three sizes, all three being above 1 in. size on round-hole screens.

From the pea size downwards the principal use is for steam purposes. In South Wales a less elaborate classification is adopted; but great care is exercised in hand-picking and cleaning the coal from included particles of pyrites in the higher qualities known as best malting coals, which are used for kiln-drying malt and hops.

Formerly, anthracite was largely used, both in America and South Wales, as blast-furnace fuel for iron smelting, but for this purpose it has been largely superseded by coke in the former country and entirely in the latter. An important application has, however, been developed in the extended use of internal combustion motors driven by the so-called “mixed,” “poor,” “semi-water” or “Dowson gas” produced by the gasification of anthracite with air and a small proportion of steam. This is probably the most economical method of obtaining power known; with an engine as small as 15 horse-power the expenditure of fuel is at the rate of only 1 ℔ per horse-power hour, and with larger engines it is proportionately less. Large quantities of anthracite for power purposes are now exported from South Wales to France, Switzerland and parts of Germany.

ANTHRACOTHERIUM (“coal-animal,” so called from the fact of the remains first described having been obtained from the Tertiary lignite-beds of Europe), a genus of extinct artiodactyle ungulate mammals, characterized by having 44 teeth, with five semi-crescentic cusps on the crowns of the upper molars. In many respects, especially the form of the lower jaw, Anthracotherium, which is of Oligocene and Miocene age in Europe, and typifies the family Anthracotheriidae, is allied to the hippopotamus, of which it is probably an ancestral form. The European A. magnum was as large as the last-mentioned animal, but there were several smaller species and the genus also occurs in Egypt, India and North America. (See .) ANTHRAQUINONE, C14H8O2, an important derivative of anthracene, first prepared in 1834 by A. Laurent. It is prepared commercially from anthracene by stirring a sludge of anthracene and water in horizontal cylinders with a mixture of sodium bichromate and caustic soda. This suspension is then run through a conical mill in order to remove all grit, the cones of the mill fitting so tightly that water cannot pass through unless the mill is running; the speed of the mill when working is about 3000 revolutions per minute. After this treatment, the mixture is run into lead-lined vats and treated with sulphuric acid, steam is blown through the mixture in order to bring it to the boil, and the anthracene is rapidly oxidized to anthraquinone. When the oxidation is complete, the anthraquinone is separated in a filter press, washed and heated to 120° C. with commercial oil of vitriol, using about 2 parts of vitriol to 1 of anthraquinone. It is then removed to lead-lined tanks and again washed with water and dried; the product obtained contains about 95% of anthraquinone. It may be purified by sublimation. Various synthetic processes have been used for the preparation of anthraquinone. A. Behr and W. A. v. Dorp (Ber., 1874, 7, p. 578) obtained orthobenzoyl benzoic acid by heating phthalic anhydride with benzene in the presence of aluminium chloride. This compound on heating with phosphoric anhydride loses water and yields anthraquinone,

It may be prepared in a similar manner by heating phthalyl chloride with benzene in the presence of aluminium chloride. Dioxy- and tetraoxy-anthraquinones are obtained when meta-oxy- and dimeta-dioxy-benzoic acids are heated with concentrated sulphuric acid.

Anthraquinone crystallizes in yellow needles or prisms, which melt at 277° C. It is soluble in hot benzene, sublimes easily, and is very stable towards oxidizing agents. On the other hand, it is readily attacked by reducing agents. With zinc dust in presence of caustic soda it yields the secondary alcohol oxan-thranol, C6H4 : CO·CHOH : C6H4, with tin and hydrochloric acid, the phenolic compound anthranol, C6H4 : CO·C(OH) : C6H4; and with hydriodic acid at 150° C. or on distillation with zinc dust, the hydrocarbon anthracene, C14H10. When fused with caustic potash, it gives benzoic acid. It behaves more as a ketone than as a quinone, since with hydroxylamine it yields an oxime, and on reduction with zinc dust and caustic soda it yields a secondary alcohol, whilst it cannot be reduced by means of sulphurous acid. Various sulphonic acids of anthraquinone are known, as well as oxy-derivatives, for the preparation and properties of which see. ANTHRAX (the Greek for “coal,” or “carbuncle,” so called by the ancients because they regarded it as burning like coal; cf. the French equivalent charbon; also known as fièvre charbonneuse, Milzbrand, splenic fever, and malignant pustule), an acute, specific, infectious, virulent disease, caused by the Bacillus anthracis, in animals, chiefly cattle, sheep and horses, and frequently occurring in workers in the wool or hair, as well as in those handling the hides or carcases, of beasts which have been affected.

Animals.—As affecting wild as well as domesticated animals and man, anthrax has been widely diffused in one or more of its forms, over the surface of the globe. It at times decimates the reindeer herds in Lapland and the Polar regions, and is only too well known in the tropics and in temperate latitudes. It has been observed and described in Russia, Siberia, Central Asia, China, Cochin-China, Egypt, West Indies, Peru, Paraguay, Brazil, Mexico, and other parts of North and South America, in Australia, and on different parts of the African continent, while for other European countries the writings which have been published with regard to its nature, its peculiar characteristics, and the injury it inflicts are innumerable. Countries in which are extensive marshes, or the subsoil of which is tenacious or impermeable, are usually those most frequently and seriously visited. Thus there have been regions notorious for its prevalence, such as the marshes of Sologne, Dombes and Bresse in France; certain parts of Germany, Hungary and Poland; in Spain the half-submerged valleys and the maritime coasts of Catalonia, as well as the Romagna and other marshy districts of Italy; while it is epizootic, and even panzootic, in the swampy regions of Esthonia, Livonia, Courland, and especially of Siberia, where it is known as the Sibirskaja jaswa (Siberian boil-plague). The records of anthrax go back to a very ancient date. It is supposed to be the murrain of Exodus. Classical writers allude to anthrax as if it were the only cattle disease worthy of mention (see Virgil, Georg. iii.). It figures largely in the history of the early and middle ages as a devastating pestilence attacking animals, and through them mankind; the oldest Anglo-Saxon manuscripts contain many fantastic recipes, leechdoms,