As regards the supply. This for London and the greater part of England will doubtless be derived from the great coal-field of South Wales. The total quantity of available coal in this region after deducting the waste in getting, was estimated by the Government Commissioners at 32,456 millions of tons. It is very difficult or impossible to correctly estimate the proportion of anthracite in this, but supposing it to be one tenth of true anthracite it gives us 3245 millions of tons, or about enough for the domestic supply of the whole country during 100 years, assuming that it shall be used less wastefully than we are now using bituminous coal, which would certainly be the case. But, including the imperfect anthracite, the quantity must be far larger than this, and we have to add the other sources of anthracite.
We need not, therefore, have any present fear of insufficient supply; probably before the 100 years are ended we shall find other sources of anthracite, or even have become sufficiently civilized to abolish altogether our present dirty devices, and to adopt rational methods of warming and ventilating our houses. When we do this any sort of coal may be used.
COUNT RUMFORD’S COOKING-STOVES.
In the preceding chapter I described Count Rumford’s modification of the English open firegrate which eighty years ago was offered to the British nation without any patent or other restrictions. Its non-adoption I believe to be mainly due to this—it was nobody’s monopoly, nobody’s business to advertise it, and, therefore, nobody took any further notice of it; especially as it cannot be made and sold as a separate portable article.
An ironmonger or stove-maker who should go to the expense of exhibiting Rumford’s simple structure of fire-bricks and a few bars, described in the last chapter, would be superseding himself by teaching his customers how they may advantageously do without him.
The same remarks apply to his stoves for cooking purposes. They are not iron boxes like our modern kitcheners, but are brick structures, matters of masonry in all but certain adjuncts, such as bars, fire-doors, covers, oven-boxes, etc., which are very simple and inexpensive. Even some of Rumford’s kitchen utensils, such as the steamers, were cheaply covered with wood, because it is a bad conductor, and therefore wastes less heat than an iron saucepan lid.
Rumford was no mere theorist, although he contributed largely to pure science. His greatest scientific discoveries were made in the course of his persevering efforts to solve practical problems. I must not be tempted from my immediate subject by citing any examples of these, but may tell a fragment of the story of his work so far as it bears upon the subject of cooking-ranges.
He began life as a poor schoolmaster in New Hampshire, when it was a British colony. He next became a soldier; then a diplomatist; then in strange adventurous fashion he traveled on the Continent of Europe, entered the Bavarian service and began his searching reform of the Bavarian army by improving the feeding and the clothing of the men. He became a practical working cook in order that they should be supplied with good, nutritious, and cheap food.
But this was not all. He found Munich in a most deplorable condition as regards mendicity; and took in hand the gigantic task of feeding, clothing, and employing the overwhelming horde of paupers, doing this so effectually that he made his “House of Industry” a true workhouse; it paid all its own expenses, and at the end of six years left a net profit of 100,000 florins.