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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 2, Issue 11 (March 1, 1928)

Remember

Remember

One pound of coal—good coal—is nearly one pound of carbon, and one pound of carbon properly burnt results in the liberation of 14,650 heat units or B.T.U's. (B.T.U. means British. Thermal Unit, the amount of heat required to raise one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit.) A unit of heat will raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit.

In order that the importance of an ample and uniform air supply (and the necessity of intimately mixing the air and the coal gas by every possible means), may be grasped, the following; figures are given:—

One cubic inch of air contains 443 billion billion (443,000,000,000,000,000,000) molecules; 93 billion billion of these are oxygen molecules. One molecule of oxygen is required to burn one atom of carbon. One cubic inch of air, therefore, contains oxygen sufficient to burn 93 billion billions of carbon atoms—this number of atoms page 31 being contained in a piece of coal no larger than a pin's head.

Those wishing to study more widely the problem of combustion will find the works of Millikan, Lodge, Comstock and Troland, Crowther, Rislieu, Deeley, Jones, Roscoe and Schorlemmer, Thomson, Campbell, Gibson, the U.S.A. Bureau of Mines and Professors Goss, Cranford, Fry and Dr. Brislee, of considerable interest and importance.