Note 591 — TURF.

“In Holland there is turf, and in England there are coals, neither of which are good for burning either in apartments or in melting-houses. I have, however, discovered a method of burning both these to good coals, so that they shall not only produce no smoke or bad smell, but yield a heat as strong for melting metals as that of wood, and throw out such flames that a foot of coal shall make a flame ten feet long. This I have demonstrated at the Hague with turf, and proved here in England with coals, in the presence of Mr. Boyle, by experiments made at Windsor on a large scale. It deserves to be remarked on this occasion, that as the Swedes procure their tar from fir-wood, I have procured tar from coals, which is in everything equal to the Swedish, and even superior to it for some purposes. I have tried it both on timber and ropes, and it has been found excellent. The king himself ordered a proof of it to be made in his presence. This is a thing of very great importance to the English, and the coals after the tar has been extracted from them are better for use than before.”—Narrische Weisheit und weise Narrheit. Frankfurt, 1683, 12mo, p. 91. Boyle seems to speak of this invention in The Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, London, 1774, fol. i. p. 515. The burning of coals in order to procure from them rock-oil, which was used particularly by the leather manufacturers, and which on that account could not be exported, was much practised in England. It appears, however, that something of the like kind was attempted before Becher’s time; for in the year 1627, John Hacket and Octav. Strada obtained a patent for their invention of rendering coals as useful as wood for fuel in houses without hurting anything by their smoke. See Anderson’s History of Commerce.