LOW-TEMPERATURE CARBONIZATION [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I have
read with much interest your continued advocacy of the low-temperature carbonization of coal. Both here and in other countries experts have for years been doing everything to get a paying result, but without success. The Scottish Shale Industry, with which I have been connected for over 50 years, with a yield of 20 to 30 gallons of crude oil to the ton of shale, is at the end of its tether, and Australia, with a much larger yield, has quite failed to make it pay. No doubt there are other by-products of value in the coal tar, but what is the maximum yield of crude oil from a ton of coal of average quality and, more important still, the quantity of burning oil and light spirit obtainable ? I fear the yield from coal can never live against the free oil now obtained all over the world.— I am, Sir, &c.,
High View, Oatlands, Weybridge. ERNEST HILL.
Previous page
