Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 21.djvu/599

Rh manufacturing, the English report includes purifying, salaries, the wages for carbonizing, and wear and tear, which latter item has already been carried to the plant account. The first of these amounts to 1·82 cent; the second ·82 of a cent, and the third to 7·16 cents, making a total of 9·8 cents per 1,000 feet. This is probably much below the actual amount paid for these items in American works, but I am assured on excellent authority that, in works constructed after the best modern models, purification should cost the gas company nothing, and that all labor in the manufacturing department should be covered by an outlay equivalent to one man's wages ($2.50 per day) for each 40,000 feet of gas made per day. As the same amount of labor would have to be paid for each day in the year as on the days of greatest demand, this would amount, for a daily make of 1,000,000 feet, to 25 men whose wages at $65 per month (26 X 2) would be $19,500 a year, or 9 cents per 1,000 feet of the actual make. Including the cost of purification, and calling the amount 12 cents, we shall not be far wrong, or at least shall not exceed the actual outlay in the average works of this size. In the case of electricity the labor required at each station would be:

—making $15,600 a year for the whole manufacturing plant, and 7·8 cents per 1,000 feet. To this may be added 1 cent to cover salary of electrician and incidental labor, bringing the item up to 9 cents.

There remains to be considered the cost of the coal in the case of gas, and the expense of running the engines in the case of electricity. The cost of coal per 1,000 feet of gas made was, in the case of the London companies, 36 cents, corresponding to $3.51 per ton, the make of gas being for this amount of coal 9,529 feet. This was offset by the sale of residuals, as below:

—which leaves 12·8 cents as the net cost of the coal.

Compared with foreign companies, both in England and on the Continent, but very little is done with the residual products in this country, and the amounts received vary greatly between different works. Reliable data on this point can not be obtained, but under the most favorable conditions this item can not be taken as amounting to