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The Use of Peat

The use of peat for fuel is a more important question in this country than that of briquetting city waste, for it has been clearly demonstrated that peat can be extracted and compressed in commercial forms at less than one dollar a ton in cost. Briquetted peat has been used for furnace and stove purposes since 1859; but in this country little attempt until recently has been made to utilize this fuel. There are extensive deposits of peat in the East and West that have a higher combustible quality than much of that used in Europe. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan have enormous peat bogs containing from fifteen to twenty-five per cent of combustible material. Fully 80 per cent of the bog is composed of water, which when extracted leaves a highly concentrated fuel. In the West, peat extracting and compressing plants, chiefly experimental, are now in operation.

All through New England and New Jersey there are peat bogs, which contain, according to scientific estimates, as much heating power as the Pennsylvania coal mines. In parts of New England the beds extend to a depth of thirty feet,

growing richer and more valuable at the greater depths. This peat can be dug out and used when dry, in its crude form; but to prove of commercial value it has to be compressed. Canada likewise has extensive peat bogs, and several plants are in operation there in preparing it for market. This great natural supply of a new fuel promises to prove a formidable factor in regulating the price of coal in the near future. In Germany, peat briquettes sell from $2.50 to $4 per ton. The ash of the peat fuel represents seldom more than 4 per cent. This fuel does not cause any deposits of clinkers, nor does it leave any slag behind. When thoroughly heated, it glows at a white heat until fully consumed. In parts of Europe, peat is now being converted into coke on a large industrial scale. It is also used for making tar products, methyl alcohol, acetate of lime, and sulphate of ammonia; but these are chiefly by-products, and are extracted after the heat energy has been used for power purposes. In Russia about 4,000,000 tons of peat is mined and burnt annually; and in Germany, about 2,000,000 tons. Throughout the rest of Europe, from five to six million tons is used. Yet

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The peat comes from the converter in rolls like these, but contains an excess of water, which is removed by sun-drying.

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SOLAR MOTOR FOR PUMPING WATER ON OSTRICH FARM NEAR PASADENA, CAL. A type of machine in use in Southern California and Arizona. By means of the mirrors on inner side of umbrella-like reflector, the sun's rays are concentrated on the boiler shown in the central framework. The device is self-focusing, by means of clockwork machinery.

in America the peat bogs are larger and richer than in any country of Europe, and the amount of heat energy locked up in the bogs exceeds that buried in coal mines. For the capitalist and scientist who can first establish a monopoly of peat briquettes, there certainly awaits a fortune scarcely measured by seven or eight figures.

Petroleum and its Products

The next natural raw product which falls under the second group of new fuels, is petroleum, with all its by-products and derivatives. Crude and refined petroleum are employed to-day for operating machinery, to an extent never dreamed of ten years ago. The perfection of the crude petroleum or kerosene oil engine is a present-day accomplishment. The low-flash oil can be burnt in these engines without danger, and at small cost of operation. The engines are coupled directly to electric generators; and, without the need of boilers for water or innumerable other parts of the steam engine, there is a decided economy of practice. In parts of the country where both water and coal are scarce, crude petroleum engines have been the means of building up industries never before considered possible.

The perfection of oil furnaces, which enables the manufacturer in all parts of the country to burn oil alternately with coal or alone, has been realized within the past two years. The oil is delivered to the burners installed in an ordinary furnace, and is sprayed by a jet of steam so that when ignited every part of the fluid is consumed. There is no waste through imperfect combustion or by leakage. A furnace designed for using coal and oil fuel, guards against coal-strike troubles and excessively high prices for coal. The manufacturer can quickly change from one fuel to the other. Oil is cheaper for fuel purposes on the Pacific coast, in Texas, and in many of the other Southern and far Western States; but on the Atlantic seaboard it has not yet demonstrated its economy over coal except in the matter of handling, storing, and equipment of the furnaces. On the Pacific coast, crude oil has been so cheap that its use for power production has enabled it in places to compete with power transmitted from water-power stations.

Fuel oil as an auxiliary is now used in hundreds of factories and mills all over the country. At one dollar a barrel it can be burnt with economy; but its increasing use is gradually tending toward higher

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prices. In 1901, the average price paid for the 69,000,000 odd barrels produced in this country, was 95.7 cents per barrel, against an average of $1.19 in 1900. This decrease was due to the sudden exploitation of the new Texas and California oil regions. The increased demand for oil as a fuel is now slowly driving prices up to a point where it cannot enter actively into competition with coal as a fuel for power production. However, for special purposes where oil engines are employed for driving electric generators, crude and refined petroleum have come to stay as economical fuels, and their use will continue to increase. Like gas for the gas engine, crude oil is a fuel which, when burnt in the oil engine, has advantages that more than compensate for any difference in cost of the crude product. The present production of oil in the United States averages 70,000,000 barrels a year, and there is little present indication that this amount will be materially decreased in the near future. The supplies of mineral oil are not inexhaustible, but there are outcroppings of oil rocks in many parts of the country which furnish scientists with basis for their belief that there

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In the last group of power sources, we have heat produced by the action of wind, sun, tides, and river currents. These furnish speculative dreams for the scientist which are almost daily being realized by some actual accomplishment. turies the wind has been harnessed for pumping water for irrigation purposes, but in recent times it has been utilized for driving electrical generators and dynaIn parts of the arid West, wind

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mills have been successfully employed for this purpose.

What seems even more wonderful is the harnessing of the sun to do man's work. The heat energy of the sun's rays is great, and, when focused upon a single point, it is sufficient to raise water to the boiling point. Solar motors have been successfully operated in Europe and on the Pacific coast. Large burning glasses or reflectors are used for concentrating the rays on a small boiler surface, where the heat imparted is sufficient to boil water. The need of a solar motor is greater in hot, dry regions where mechanical power is needed for mining, manufacturing, or agricultural purposes. In Southern California, where the sun shines almost continuously the year round a solar motor has been in operation for several years. The reflector is a huge disk of glass 33 feet in diameter at the top and fifteen feet at the bottom. Inside of this reflector there are over 1,700 small mirrors, all arranged so as to concentrate the sun's rays upon a central or focal point. At this point is located the boiler, which holds 100 gallons of water and has room for eight cubic feet of steam. Within an hour after the sun's rays are focused on the boiler, the register shows 150 pounds' pressure of steam. The motor pumps water as successfully as any engine run by coal or fuel. It lifts 1,400 gallons of water per minute, or shows a working force of from ten to fifteen horse-power.

shore there are promised groups of new industries entirely dependent upon electric power derived from the waves and tides of the ocean and its tributaries. In the Niagara district, new industries have been created through the use of cheap electrical power of large current, and in the aggregate they represent a capitalization of hundreds of millions of dollars. Where electrical energy derived from water power will ultimately end, no one can predict to-day; but it is rapidly solv

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PHOTO BY AYDELOTTE, SANTA CRUZ, CAL.

WAVE MOTOR IN OPERATION ON COAST NORTH OF SANTA CRUZ, CAL. Invented by E. J. Armstrong. Two wells, open to the ocean at the bottom, are sunk in the cliff to below low-water mark. In one, a counterbalanced float, rising and falling with the waves, operates a force pump plunger in the other well, which is capable of driving a 4-inch stream to the 5,000-gallon tank standing 125 feet above. In ordinary weather the pump fills the tank in an hour; in stormy weather, in 35 minutes.

The harnessing of tides and currents of rivers and bays needs no description, for, since Niagara was made to work for man, scores of lesser streams have been harnessed, and their waste power converted into electrical energy. In California the mountain streams have been thus enlisted to do man's bidding, and the longest electrical transmission in the world successfully accomplished. The great Central States have built up new industrial conditions through the employment of waste water power; and along our Atlantic

ing one branch of the fuel problem.

The sources of new fuels are thus so great and extended that the fear of an industrial panic through high cost of power production has little foundation in fact. Not even the exhaustion of our coal mines in the next fifty years, could turn out the fires and lights of our great industrial plants. Before such a condition could be realized, the sun, wind, tides, and new raw fuels of the earth would be abundantly able to turn every wheel of commerce, and supply us with all the heat and light we needed. As a storehouse of heat energy, the world is beyond compare, and its exhaustion can never be brought about so long as chemical action and affinity are existent laws of the uni

verse.

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Smokeless Powder

Details of Its Manufacture as Conducted at the Government Naval
Powder Factory, Indian Head, Maryland

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