Just when you thought i was done another question on Begums Millions

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quentin skrabec

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Feb 16, 2026, 2:00:21 PMFeb 16
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Even though I published a major work on Begum’s Millions, tech, I continue to find more rat holes to explore. One of these was Verne’s chimney smoke system in Franc-ville, which is discussed in my paper on Verne and the clean environment. Since then, related to some other research, I found a description of Verne’s system at Charles Salt’s urban utopia (Saltaire) of the 1850s. Salt installed these burners (“Rodda Smoke Burners’). Most credited Salt as the inventor, so they stopped there.  Now, thanks to the research power of AI, I found a local history. The inventor was Richard Rodda, who in the 1840s patented the system in 1841. I was even able to get a copy of the patent, British Patent Specification No. 7765/1838, which fits Verne’s description.

 

To go deeper and confirm a link, I am looking for information from you guys that:

1.     may link to Charles Salt or Saltaire to Verne from letter etc

2.     links to Richard Rodda or his burner

Any piece of info could help me dig further

Quent

volker.dehs

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Feb 16, 2026, 4:18:07 PMFeb 16
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Hi Quent,

I think that you minimize the importance of Grousset in the writing of Begum's Fortune. After all, Verne had only 4 weeks to rewrite the whole novel (see his Correspondence with Hetzel) and he certainly did not spent much time to realize deeper investigations on the sources, Krupp or others. I doubt that he ever noted the names of Rodda or Charles Salt. The primarily source of Franceville is Benjamin  W. Richardsons Hygeia (1876), quoted even in in a note in chap. X of the novel, a fact known over 26 years when Piero Gondolo della Riva published a short article on the subject (Revue Jules Verne no. 7, 1999, pp. 43-47). Anyway, Grousset who lived at that time in GB was able to read English texts, but Verne was not. So, most time when you refer to Verne you should write Grousset.

Best, Volker

quentin skrabec

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Feb 16, 2026, 4:36:28 PMFeb 16
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    Absolutey agree — discussed this in fully in my paper!  In fact the Francville chapter fits Grousset better than Verne. 

Is there some linkage to Grousset ?  I probably have to dig deeper for a link but Grousset was more likely to have known of Saltaire society.
Thanks
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quentin skrabec

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Feb 16, 2026, 4:49:40 PMFeb 16
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One thing I would note Verne was probably aware of the technology of the burner as described with some detail. My research does in my mind support that Grousset would have the technical chops, but Verne would easily apply technology to healthy smoke control that may have been extremely important as noted by Richardson and possibly used by Grossett . Who ever wrote it - I believe had knowledgably of the science and patent details.

I'll leave the authorship debate to literary scholars - I m focused on the origin of the engineering of smoke control suggested. - in any case I will add Richarson to my search  rat holes to links.
Thanks Quent
From: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of volker.dehs <triful...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2026 4:18 PM
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Subject: [JVF] Re: Just when you thought i was done another question on Begums Millions
 
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James D. Keeline

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Feb 16, 2026, 7:41:54 PMFeb 16
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I believe that a well-informed reader may be able to make assessments of whether a section is more like one author than another.

Sometimes there is extrinsic evidence such as manuscripts or letters to show who did which portions.

But it is also possible to use some stylometric tests with tools like R/stylo.  One of these concerns most-frequently used words such as the Burrows Delta.

If there are sections that are in question, they can be compared with works that are very confidently attributed to one of the candidate authors.

I would not suggest using this instead of documentary evidence.  Vintage documentary evidence will usually supersede anything else, unless there is some reason for it to be flawed or misleading.

I wonder if anything like this has been tried, perhaps at the chapter level, to see if it is more like Verne or Grousset ?

I have done some of this analysis for U.S. juvenile series books.  I will say that it requires accurate transcriptions for the control and disputed texts to be meaningful.

James D. Keeline

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William Butcher

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Feb 17, 2026, 7:32:12 PMFeb 17
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I searched my hard disc, which has 10s of thousands of documents, for rodda and saltaire - but not a single hit i'm afraid, bill


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quentin skrabec

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Feb 17, 2026, 9:05:45 PMFeb 17
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I found robba and Saltaire in some local histories which have more referneces. What I havnt found is a good connection with verne other than the patent descirption for robba is same as verne. Going to he University of Michigan tomorrow, they have powerful AI programming and database connections. 

Quent

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Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2026 7:32 PM

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William Butcher

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Feb 18, 2026, 4:52:03 AMFeb 18
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Wishing you the best of luck tomorrow! Bill


On Wednesday, 18 February 2026, quentin skrabec <qrsk...@gmail.com> wrote:
I found robba and Saltaire in some local histories which have more referneces. What I havnt found is a good connection with verne other than the patent descirption for robba is same as verne. Going to he University of Michigan tomorrow, they have powerful AI programming and database connections. 

Quent


Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2026 7:32 PM
To: Jules Verne Forum <jules-verne-forum@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: [JVF] Re: Just when you thought i was done another question on Begums Millions
I searched my hard disc, which has 10s of thousands of documents, for rodda and saltaire - but not a single hit i'm afraid, bill



Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2026 5:49 AM
To: Jules Verne Forum <jules-verne-forum@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: [JVF] Re: Just when you thought i was done another question on Begums Millions

One thing I would note Verne was probably aware of the technology of the burner as described with some detail. My research does in my mind support that Grousset would have the technical chops, but Verne would easily apply technology to healthy smoke control that may have been extremely important as noted by Richardson and possibly used by Grossett . Who ever wrote it - I believe had knowledgably of the science and patent details.

I'll leave the authorship debate to literary scholars - I m focused on the origin of the engineering of smoke control suggested. - in any case I will add Richarson to my search  rat holes to links.
Thanks Quent

Sent: Monday, February 16, 2026 4:18 PM
To: Jules Verne Forum <jules-verne-forum@googlegroups.com>

Subject: [JVF] Re: Just when you thought i was done another question on Begums Millions
Hi Quent,

I think that you minimize the importance of Grousset in the writing of Begum's Fortune. After all, Verne had only 4 weeks to rewrite the whole novel (see his Correspondence with Hetzel) and he certainly did not spent much time to realize deeper investigations on the sources, Krupp or others. I doubt that he ever noted the names of Rodda or Charles Salt. The primarily source of Franceville is Benjamin  W. Richardsons Hygeia (1876), quoted even in in a note in chap. X of the novel, a fact known over 26 years when Piero Gondolo della Riva published a short article on the subject (Revue Jules Verne no. 7, 1999, pp. 43-47). Anyway, Grousset who lived at that time in GB was able to read English texts, but Verne was not. So, most time when you refer to Verne you should write Grousset.

Best, Volker

On Monday, February 16, 2026 at 8:00:21 PM UTC+1 qrsk...@gmail.com wrote:

Even though I published a major work on Begum’s Millions, tech, I continue to find more rat holes to explore. One of these was Verne’s chimney smoke system in Franc-ville, which is discussed in my paper on Verne and the clean environment. Since then, related to some other research, I found a description of Verne’s system at Charles Salt’s urban utopia (Saltaire) of the 1850s. Salt installed these burners (“Rodda Smoke Burners’). Most credited Salt as the inventor, so they stopped there.  Now, thanks to the research power of AI, I found a local history. The inventor was Richard Rodda, who in the 1840s patented the system in 1841. I was even able to get a copy of the patent, British Patent Specification No. 7765/1838, which fits Verne’s description.

 

To go deeper and confirm a link, I am looking for information from you guys that:

1.     may link to Charles Salt or Saltaire to Verne from letter etc

2.     links to Richard Rodda or his burner

Any piece of info could help me dig further

Quent

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