rom the
smoky and dirty bituminous coal. Some, indeed, go so far as to say that
if the gas were three times as costly as the old fuel, they could not be
induced to go back to the latter. It is therefore quite within the region
of probability that the city, now so black that even Sheffield must be
considered clean in comparison, may be so revolutionized as to be the
cleanest manufacturing center in the world. A walk through our rolling
mills would surprise the members of the Institute. In the steel rail
mills for instance, where before would have been seen thirty stokers
stripped to the waist, firing boilers which require a supply of about 400
tons of coal in twenty-four hours--ninety firemen in all being employed,
each working eight hours--they would now find one man walking around the
boiler house, simply watching the water gauges, etc. Not a particle of
smoke would be seen. In the iron mills the puddlers have whitewashed the
coal bunkers belonging to their furnaces. I need not here say how much
pleasure it will afford me to arrange that any fellow members of the
Institute who may visit the republic are afforded an opportunity to see
for themselves this latest and most interesting development of the fuel
question. Good Mother Earth supplies us with all the fuel we can use and
more, and only asks us to lead it under our boilers and into our heating
and puddling furnaces, and apply the match. During the winter several
explosions have occurred in Pittsburg, owing to the escape of gas from
pipes improperly laid. The frost having penetrated the earth for several
feet and prevented escape upward, the freed gas found its way into the
cellars of houses, and, as it is odorless, its presence was not detected.
This resulted in several alarming explosions; but the danger is to be
remedied before next year. Lower pressure will be carried in the pipes
through the city, and escape pipes leading to the surface will be placed
along the surface at frequent intervals. In the case of manufacturing
establishments, the gas is led into the mills overhead, and, all the
pipes being in the open air, no danger of explosion is incurred.

The following extract from the report of a committee, made to the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers at a recent meeting, gives an
idea of the value of the new fuel: "Natural gas, next to hydrogen, is the
most powerful of the gaseous fuels, and, if properly applied, one of the
most economical, as very nearly