hand power or by steam power, from this crusher. We ordered one on the strength of that, to be tested, and paid for if found to answer our purpose. I took great care, in putting it up and testing it, that everything should be made to work as fairly and smoothly as possible. He claimed, I believe, that four men in ten hours could crush 1,200 bushels of coke by hand. I put two men to work on it--one to shovel the coke into the hopper, and the other to turn the crusher. I found that after one or two revolutions the thing refused to go with one-man power, and I put two men at it at intervals; but it did not do any bet

ter.

No four men can begin to crush, in that crusher, 1,200 bushels of coke in a day. I merely give you my experience as to the working of the machine by hand power; how it works by steam power I cannot say, because our facilities are such that we cannot use a steam engine.

MR. PRICE-I should hardly think it would be worth while to set up the machine, unless it was used in connection with a steam engine.

MR. C. WHITE-There are a great many of us that have not the facilities for running an engine in connection with the crusher. The result of my experience with the Root crusher was, that from it I got an idea of how I would better it, and I went to work and got up the patterns, though I have not applied for a patent. I hope it is understood that I am not selling a coke crusher. I make these statements simply for the reason that I think my experience in the matter of crushing coke may be of interest to the Association. Mine is a cutter and not a crusher, and its operation has proved very satisfactory. I find there is a loss in measurement of about ten per

cent.

There was another fault I found in Root's machine. The balance wheel weighed about 50 pounds. It was of no assistance whatever in working the machine. I made mine 300 pounds, which I found was a very great improvement; so much so, that one man can stand on a platform and turn the wheel rapidly without trouble, while another man shovels out the coke. I can crush out 1,500 bushels of coke in one day with the machine in this way. I have figured the additional cost of

crushing the coke at 1 cents per bushel, which covers every thing. I find, also, that it makes a great deal less dust than the other. In fact, I have it so arranged that the coke, as it comes through the crusher, falls upon a screen, and, running down, sifts itself. By this means my coke is perfectly clean, when it is delivered to the consumers. There is one thing I have not yet been able to succeed in doing, and that is in getting our people to put the price of this crushed coke up. We have so much on hand, that they think it would be better for us to get rid of it, even at the loss of 13 cents. Therefore, we are to day delivering that coke at just the same price as we are delivering the other.

MR. PRICE-DO you sell any more?

MR. C. WHITE-Very little; but we only got this machine up, and in operation, week before last, and, of course, we cannot tell much about it.

MR. PRICE-Of course, I do not pretend to say that there may not be some better machine than Mr. Root's; but when it is run with a light steam engine, it does very good work. We have it arranged so that the coke falls upon a screen, and the dust, consequently, falls upon one side, and the coke is upon the other. Have you patterns for your machine?

MR. C. WHITE-Yes.

MR. PRICE-Mr. Root's machine does very good work for us under the conditions I have named-run with steam power; still, if there is anything better, I think we are all interested in knowing what it is.

MR. WHITE-I have not had it patented, and have not even applied for a caveat. The idea just came into my mind, from seeing the defects in the other. I thought I saw a way of remedying them, and I set about trying what I could do in that direction. I worked out the patterns, and put the machine up, but, as I say, I only succeeded last week in getting it into operation, and have used it for only two or three hours at a time. I have, however, all the coke crushed that I can store away in what little space we have.

I do not wish to say anything against Mr. Root's machine. It may work very well with steam power (and we have Mr.

Price's word for it that it does), but it certainly does not work well with hand power. Neither do I wish to appear to be speaking in favor of the machine I now use. I am simply stating results.

MR. PRICE-What is the expense of your machine?

Mr. WHITE-I could not tell. It would not be over from $85 to $95. I have not determined the matter of price as yet.

MR. C. H. NETTLETON-I have also had a little experience, and it came about in this way: Our town is a small one, and our consumption is, of course, somewhat limited. The centre of population is at some distance from the works, and we depend a good deal upon the inhabitants of the immediate vicinity of the works for sale of our coke. We found that we could only sell our large coke to the factories, but in consequence of some of the factories not running last winter, it accumulated to some 4,000 or 5,000 bushels, which, for us, is a large amount. I heard that Col. Steadman, of Newport, was doing something in the way of breaking up coke, and also Mr. Slater, of Providence. I asked both of these gentlemen how they did it. Col. Steadman gave me a slight sketch of the means he employed, and the results; and I went and got a Newport machine. It cost me $55, without the fly-wheel. I picked up a fly-wheel that answered my purpose sufficiently well, and the whole cost did not exceed $65. We run it with a small four-horse power engine. It will break coke as fast as two men can shovel it in. I arrive at the loss in measurement in this way: I measured up 200 bushels of large coke as it came from the retorts, and after it had been put through the machine I had 179 bushels of broken coke, and 9 bushels of dust. I estimated the cost to be, including extra labor, at from 12 to 2 cents. But it brought about this result, that there is a great demand for all of my coke. I have a very small amount on hand, not enough to last me more than two weeks, and before I got the crusher I could not sell my coke.

MR. HARBISON-I think the great difficulty is that gentlemen who complain of not being able to dispose of their coke, do not make a good quality of coke. We have no trouble whatever to dispose of our's. We have got orders enough on our

books for all the coke we shall produce in the course of six weeks. Even during the summer I am sometimes obliged to send to New Haven for coke to keep our customers supplied. It is brought by water and by rail. As I said before, the trouble is that the gentlemen do not make good coke.

MR. PRICE-Perhaps Mr. Harbison will tell us how to make good coke.

MR. HARBISON-Buy a good quality of coal, burn it for the proper length of time in properly constructed retorts, take all the gas out, and you will have good coke.

MR. PRICE-I will say one word on that point. I am convinced there is a great deal in what the gentleman from Hartford has said. In the first place, unless you buy a good quality of coal, you will not have good coke. There is a great deal of coal used that is utterly unfit for gas purposes. It is used for various reasons: sometimes because it is very cheap, sometimes because stockholders of the gas companies are interested in the coal companies that sell this cheap coal, and sometimes, because they are interested in the railroad that carries it. There are a multitude of reasons why some gas managers use poor coal, but in my judgment it is a mistake. The best coal is, I think, generally the cheapest, even though it may cost something more. We use Youghiogheny coal, and I do not think there is any better coke made in the United States, with all due respect to my Hartford friend. But just across the river from us, not more than a hundred rods distant, where they were using a different coal, there was a good deal of complaint about the coke they made, and the people who naturally would have bought coke from them came to us; and when we asked them why they came to us to buy coke, they said it was because the coke at the other works was not good. I think it was partly because they used poor coal, or at any rate, inferior coal; and partly for another reason, which sometimes may hold good in works, besides those I refer to, and that is this: the works were small, and the men who had charge of the coke and threw it out went back to the fill retorts. The works were not large enough to employ sufficient labor, so that a number of men could be filling the retorts while the others were taking care of

the coke.

The result was that the coke was neglected, and was left to take care of itself while the men were filling the retorts with coal, and consequently it was often burned Of course we all know the importance of taking proper care of the coke, and taking it out just at the right time. If this is neglected, of course, we cannot expect to get good coke. I have said this because I think the observance of proper care in this respect is almost as necessary to the successful handling of the coke after it leaves the retort as to have a first-class quality of coal.

MR. BREESE—I suppose a good many members of this Association know how to make good coke. For my own part, I would like to know a little more about making ammoniacal liquor. I would like to know what strength it should be made in order to be most useful to those who may desire to purchase it, and what the cost would be in economically managed works. I can make coke, probably, as well as the rest of the members of the Association, and sell all I can make, but I do not know a great deal about making ammoniacal liquor, and some of my friends do not know much more. I, for one, would like a little more information on the subject, and if Mr. McIlhenny or Mr. Price, who have had considerable experience in making ammoniacal liquor, would give us a little more, in detail, their results in regard to the amount they can make per ton, the strength that it should be made, and what it cost to make it, they would help some of us very much.

MR. MCILHENNY-I think there has been rather too much stress laid upon the amount of information I possess upon this subject, but what I have, I am perfectly willing to give to the members of the Association who desire it. In the first place, to make ammonia you must have facilities. These facilities consist of effective scrubbers. It will depend largely upon the efficiency of the scrubbers as to the quantity that can be produced per ton of coal. There is no cost, I may say, in producing ammonia. All that is required is a pump, to pump the liquor over. It is one of those things that come voluntary, as it where. The way that we manage it is very simple. We have two scrubbers, 46 feet high by 12 feet in diameter-plain cylinders filled with slats. These slats are about 4 inches