Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - Trials of Welsh and Mixed Coals . . .

The idea did not appear a very promising one, for the qualities of the two coals were essentially diverse, and supposing that they did not require different treatment, which they did, at first view the mixture of a bad coal with a good, would seem necessarily to result less in improving the bad than in deteriorating the good. The treatment, required, however, is essentially diverse.

The Northern being a bituminous coal, in order that it may be consumed with the least evolution of smoke, requires the employment of perforated furnace doors. The Welsh, which is a smokeless coal, needs no such appliance, and is in fact deteriorated to the extent of 15% in its evaporative power by the use of such doors. Here, therefore, at once are the horns of a dilemma.

The Welsh coal is purchased at a high price, in consequence of its economy in consumption. The Northern coal would remove its chief disqualification by the use of perforated doors; but the use of perforated doors diminishes the economic value of the Welsh, and the mixture of the Northern coal makes the smokeless coal to lose that property. In two respects, therefore, the high priced coal loses its special recommendations, and the inferior coal gains little by the injury it has inflicted upon its associate.

At the same time the stokers must be careful to mix the two coals in the proportion which may have been prescribed to them as best for the inferior coal. They must also stoke frequently enough to suit the characteristics of the Northern coal, and check themselves in doing so from injuring the Welsh coal which is best left alone.

Moreover, ships of war should be able to find at the depots where they must coal the two descriptions of fuel in quantities sufficient to supply the proportions recommended. These were the conditions which must attend the use of the mixture, supposing the Northern coal proprietors could succeed in convincing anyone that a mixture was best.

The Newcastle people were "canny" enough not to make the attempt with commercial companies which have to earn money, but with the Admiralty which has simply to spend.

The first experiments of a mixture were made in April, 1860, on board Her Majesty's ship Cumberland, at Sheerness. The result is thus stated: "The consumption of the mixed coal was greater by 3281bs. in three hours than the Welsh."