Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/58



Mr. G. Gurney. 5 August, 1831. or the combustion of smoke is prevented principally by the particles being mechanically mixed with or surrounded by carbonic acid gas. I believe it not to be chemically combined.

Would not the motion of the Carriage and the current of air that is produced by going quickly through the air, give great facility in the application of a smoke-consuming apparatus?—If the consumption of smoke depended on the presence of oxygen gas or atmospheric air which contains it, I think it would; but on my previous reasoning, I do not think the consumption of smoke would be effected by any quantity of atmospheric air. I have made several very extensive experiments on this subject, and the only experiment that I have succeeded in, was by passing it through sand mixed with quick lime, by which the carbonic acid was absorbed, and the smoke as it passed through the mixture rendered combustible; the carbonic acid was removed to a considerable extent, and left the carbonic oxyde and hydrogen gas in such a free state as to be combustible.

Of what materials are your propelling wheels?—The same as a common stage coach wheel.

Are the wheels of the Carriage drawn nearly of equal diameter with the wheels of your drawing Carriage?—Rather less; the diameter of the wheels of the drawing Carriage is about five feet, and the ordinary diameter of a stage coach that is drawn is about four feet six.

From the experiments you have made, supposing the drawing Carriage and the Carriage drawn were of equal weights, what do you think would be the different proportion of weight on the wheels?—None.

Do you speak that with any certainty?—Yes, I do. I have taken the loss of iron upon coaches after knowing the number of miles they had travelled over, and the loss of iron on the Steam Carriage, and the number of miles it had travelled over, and find that the love in both cases bore the same proportion.

Is coke alone used on the railways in the locomotive Engines?—On the Manchester and Liverpool