Excerpt from Hand Firing Soft Coal Under Power-Plant Boilers The Bureau -of Mines is making tests to determine how fuels can be used most efficiently for different purposes. This report contains descriptions of methods of firing soft coal under power-plant boilers and of methods of handling fire so as to have the least smoke and to get the most heat from the fuel. These descriptions are followed by discussions of the process of combustion and of the principal heat losses in an average power plant, because these discussions help to explain the reasons for the methods that are recommended. These methods have been tested in many plants by the writer when he was employed as fuel engineer by a large coal company. The descriptions and discussions are so arranged that each chapter is a complete unit and can be read by itself. Flue-gas analysis and its use in the operation of boiler furnaces are not treated in this paper, but will be discussed in another paper to be published by the Bureau of Mines. This paper seeks to meet the needs of the men, many without a technical education, who are employed in small plants of to horsepower capacity. For this reason the language used is plain and simple, and technical terms have been avoided as far as possible. However, it is difficult to describe a chemical process, such as the combustion of coal, without using chemical terms, but such terms as are used are explained in the text and also in the short glossary at the end of the report. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.