Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/209

Rh amount of water-gas in separate producers. The independent production of water-gas will always be regarded by gas engineers as an invaluable means by which exceptional demands on the gas supply can be met at short notice.

Low-Temperature Carbonization. For many years inventors have been endeavouring to develop a practical process for the production of a solid smokeless fuel for domestic purposes by the carbonization of selected coals at 550 to 600 C. The re- sulting coke is entirely free from smoke-producing hydrocarbons, though it still contains 10 to 12% of volatile combustible matter, which burns with a very slightly luminous, perfectly smokeless flame. When the coke is kindled it becomes enveloped by these flames, which quickly raise the surface to incandescence. Un- doubtedly if this smokeless solid fuel could be produced at a cost permitting of its being sold at little more than the price of the coal which it would replace, it would lead to a complete revolution in domestic heating.

The problem really has two distinct sides the technical and the economic. On the economic side the data for a final solution will only be obtained after the technical solution has been reached. In other words, until a fair-sized industrial plant has been worked continuously over a long period, making and disposing of all the products of carbonization under steady market conditions, no one can say whether or not the business will be a profitable one.

On the engineering side an efficient and not too costly ap- paratus must be designed and constructed in the working of which manual labour, fuel consumption and maintenance costs are all reduced to a minimum. In these respects as well as in its output capacity on a given ground area the apparatus must stand com- parison with gas retorts and oil-shale retorts of the most modern types. Only when this ideal has been realized practically can the future of low-temperature carbonization as a business proposition be put to the test of continuous working on a large scale under the labour and market conditions of the day.

From the experience gained in 1919-21 at H.M. Fuel Research Station, with a considerable variety of coals, the yields and quali- ty of the gas, oils and coke produced under definite conditions were ascertained; but this knowledge is only the first step in the inquiry. For, until the cost of producing these, and themarketsin which they are to be disposed of, are known with equal certainty, no economic balance sheet of any real value can be arrived at. Low-temperature carbonization can only be established on a sound commercial basis with low operating costs and a very moderate margin of profit. Prior to 1914 the shale oil industry in Scotland was distilling three million tons of shale per annum. The entire cost of the carbonizing operation, for labour, mainten- ance and fuel, was is. 6d. per ton, and the margin of profit on which fair dividends were paid was as. 6d. per ton. Unless the costs and profit margins of low-temperature carbonization can be reduced to the modern equivalents of these figures, the prospects of its development on a large scale are not hopaful.

If low-temperature carbonization is proved to be a feasible operation commercially, it would find its first and most natural application in Great Britain to the 35 million tons of coal used for domestic purposes. Were this coal all carbonized, it would pro- duce about two million tons of fuel oil for the navy, or considera- bly more than the peace requirements, though considerably less than the war requirements. The motor spirit produced would amount to about 100 million gallons.

From this review it appears that coal is likely to remain for a long time the world's chief source of fuel. Its more efficient use may be secured: (i) by more careful sorting and preparation at the mine; (2) by the improvement of boiler and furnace firing on

well-known lines; (3) by the sorting out of its combustible constituents into fuels of higher availability or convenience by preliminary carbonization carried out either at high or at low temperatures. The development of oil shales as a source of liquid fuels was still in 1921 only in its initial stages, but it had evidently a great future before it. The problems of the utilization of peat, which cover a wide range both technically and economically, are mainly of local importance, and are not likely to affect the fuel supplies of the world to any great extent. The production of alcohol on a really large scale as a motor fuel of high availability bristles with economic and technical difficulties, and it was still in 1921 too early to pronounce an opinion on the possibilities of the future. Most, if not all, of these problems on their technical side are probably capable of solution by the skill and application of the industrial pioneers of the world; but the most difficult of the fuel problems of the future, as viewed in 1921, were those into which industrial and economic factors the relations between capital and labour, and the cost of production so largely entered. (G. T. B.) FURNESS, CHRISTOPHER FURNESS, 1ST BARON (1852- 1912), English shipbuilder and iron-master, was born April 23 1852, the son of a provision merchant, and entered the family business in 1870. By making a corner in food-stuffs, whilst the French fleet was blockading the mouth of the Elbe, he made a profit of over 50,000 for his firm out of the provisioning of ships. In 1877 he left the business and inaugurated the Furness line of steamships, and in 1891 he amalgamated with Withy & Co., iron and steel shipbuilders, founding the great shipbuilding firm of Furness, Withy & Co. at Hartlepool. In 1898, with others, he acquired extensive iron and steel works and founded the S. Dur- ham Steel & Iron Co. He had an interest in many other concerns, and was chief proprietor of a Liberal paper, the North Mail. In 1908 he established a profit-sharing scheme for his workmen, but in 1910 its continuance was put to the vote and rejected by a majority. In 1891 he was elected Liberal member for the Hartle- pools, but in 1895 he lost the seat, winning it again in 1900. In 1906 he was returned unopposed, and in Jan. 1910 he was elected but unseated on petition. A month later he was raised to the peerage; he had been knighted in 1895. He died at Grant- ley Hall, near Ripon, Nov. 10 1912.

His nephew, SIR STEPHEN WILSON FURNESS, IST BART. (1872- 1914), who, after his uncle's death became chairman of the ship- building firm and iron and steel works founded by him, as well as of many other undertakings, was born May 26 1872. He sat in the House of Commons for the Hartlepools from 1910, and was made a baronet in 1913. He died at Broadstairs Sept. 2 1914. FURNESS, HORACE HOWARD (1833-1912), American Shake- spearean scholar (see 11.362), died at Wallingford, Pa., Aug. 13 1912. His Variorum edition of Cymbeline was ready for the printer and appeared in 1913. FURSE, DAME KATHARINE (1875- ), founder of the English V.A.D. force, was born at Bristol Nov. 23 1875, the daughter of the poet and critic John Addington Symonds (see 26.286). In 1900 she married the painter Charles Wellington Furse (see 11.365), who died prematurely in 1904. On the outbreak of war in 1914 Mrs. Furse realized that the existing number of nurses would prove totally inadequate to deal with the enormous amount of work which might be expected, and in Sept. 1914 she proceeded to France with a number of assistants, these forming the nucleus of the V.A.D. force (Voluntary Aid Detachment). In Jan. 1915 she returned to England, and the V.A.D. work was then officially recognized as a department of the Red Cross organization. Mrs. Furse resigned her position in 1917, and the same year became director of the W.R.N.S. She received the order of the Royal Red Cross in 1916, and the G.B.E. in 1917.