Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1894 — A Cubic Ton of Goal. [ARTICLE]

A Cubic Ton of Goal.

The cubic capacity of a ton of coal is being inquired into by the Admiralty, says the Court Journal. It has always been reckoned that one ton of coal gce3 to forty cubic feet, but many complaints have lately been received from engineers of short delivery on the regulation scale of forty feet to a ton. A vessel recently coaled on this measurement as a basis of quantity was found to have a deficiency of fourteen tons. Obviously, however, it must have have been badly stowed, for it has bean proved that a ton of wellstowed Welsh coal only occupies a cubic capacity of thirty-five feet. It is somewhat curious that such a question should be ra ; sed at such a late hour, for the forty-foot system has been in existence for so many years that to doubt its accuracy is tantamount to questioning the multiplication table, and it inevitably gives rise to another question as to the real quantity of coal vessels receive under this measurement.