Virginia, Virginia, Alabama, Illinois, Colorado, and a half dozen other states. It is this latter, metallurgical coke which has played such an important part in the country's industrial development. The great bulk of the coke in the United States is made solely for metal reduction, for the blast furnace, the smelter, the foundry. It has taken the place of charcoal and anthracite coal as a melter of ore and metal, a gasless fuel being required for such work.

The traveler passing through the great coke states is at once struck with the long lines of coke ovens, pouring out their dense volumes of smoke and fumes

sands of blazing coke ovens denotes an almost unexampled squandering of a natural resource of great value.

In 1910 the United States produced 41,708,810 tons of coke and in making 33,229,253 tons of this at least $35,000,000 was lost, according to the United States Geological Survey. How can this be when the entire coke industry was reported as prosperous? The answer is that 82 per cent of the coke was in "beehive" ovens, so constructed that all the by-products of gases, tar, ammonia, valuable materials burnt off into the

the cokeand other

- were

atmos

phere. In making the remaining 18 per cent, however, in by-product coke ovens, these by-products were saved to the value of $8,479,557. In the past four years, as estimated by E. W. Parker, the coal statistician of the Survey, with all the coke which has been produced made in by-product ovens, the value of the byproducts saved would have amounted to $135,000,000. Had this saving process been applied to the entire coke production since 1880, the gain to the country would have been $550,578,000.

Ultimately we shall save all these byproducts, for the by-product oven must certainly crowd the antiquated "beehive"

159

ily every year over beehive production, although the latter still has a long lead.

In making a comparison of the coke industry in this country and in Europe. Mr. Parker says:

"The United States is much behind European countries in the abandonment of the wasteful beehive method of coke manufacture and still clings to this method, which may well be called antiquated. In Europe, particularly in Ger

oven out of existence. In Europe the by-product oven has completely superseded the wasteful beehive type, but the investment represented by the more than 90,000 beehive ovens in the United States is enormous, amounting to $40,000,000, or more, and there is, moreover, some prejudice against by-product coke, early ironmasters having become accustomed to the beehive product. Mr. Parker Mr. Parker states, however, that the quality of the coke from the by-product oven is actually better than that from the beehive, while the yield is fully 15 per cent greater. Byproduct-coke production is gaining stead

many and Belgium, the beehive oven has passed out of existence. In those countries the retort oven, with or without by-product recovery, is now exclusively used. Where the byproducts are not recovered, the sur

plus heat from the combustion of gases is used in the generation of power, and it is estimated that about 15 horse power can be obtained from each oven. Applying this average to the more than 90,000 beehive ovens in the United States, it would appear that 1,350,000 horse power is going to waste in the coke regions of the United States every day in the year. In the Connellsville and lower Connellsville districts of Pennsylvania alone the energy available from the 38,000 ovens would exert 570,000 horse power."

Not every grade but only certain grades of coal are capable of pro

ducing really good coke-the highest grades of bituminous coal. It is therefore apparent that such coals are of great importance. In fact they are the most valuable of all coals from the standpoint of national worth, even more important than anthracite, which while the latter is the most perfect fuel because of its smokeless quality and highest percentage of carbon, is in reality a domestic luxury. But the prosperity of the metal industry depends upon the supply of coking coal. In its classification of the public coal deposits, the United States Geological Survey places high-grade coking bituminous coal at the top of the list and on a par with anthracite. The great bulk of this coal is found in the Appalachian coal fields but there are good smaller deposits in a number of the Western states. Moreover, under recent improved methods. coking of coal is being

carried on in the metal

mining regions of the

coke from Pennsylvania at a heavy freight cost.

The great coking fields include fifteen or sixteen Appalachian and Middle-West states with some deposits in four or five of the regular mining states and one deposit on the Pacific Coast. Coke is also manufactured in a number of states having no coal deposits. Alaska also has excellent coking coal and this is destined some day to be an important factor in the development of her own industries

as well as those of the Pacific Coast. On this subject Dr. A. H. Brooks, geologist in charge of the Alaskan work of the Geological Survey says: "The high-grade coking coal of Alaska stands without a rival as to quality in any of the coals except of the Eastern coal fields of the United States or

those of inland China. We have iron deposits in Alaska and in the Coast states and the time is approaching when there will grow

coke was imported from Pennsylvania. It is in

teresting to note that investigations of the Geological Survey and the Bureau of Mines have shown the feasibility of making good coke out of certain western coals which it was supposed were practically non-coking in character.

Coke was actually made in the government fuel testing plant from a Colorado coal obtained at a point where metal reduction works had been importing all their

on the Pacific Coast. When that time comes Alaskan coke will be a prime factor in steel making."

As delivered from the ovens and used in smelting it is in large pieces, but a considerable portion of the coke manufactured in the United States, aside from gas-house coke, is crushed in the same manner as anthracite coal, screened and sold for domestic consumption. It makes a very fine fuel.

A

DAM INT-HOUT, of Chicago, is, by profession, a chemist, and the probabilities are that he can and does devise as sweet, or as ill smelling, and as marvelous concoctions as any of his predecessors, ancient or modern. But that's another story. His chief claim to fame rests upon a small wonder house, or "folding bungalow," designed and built by himself, in which he and his family live with as much ease and elegance as the average dweller in a mansion or a three-bathroom apartment.

Mr. Int-Hout's bungalow is peculiar in this respect. He simply touches a button. or a lever, and presto-the partitions of his house move backward or forward,

china cabinets, book cases, dining room table and other articles of furniture appear or disappear as if by magic, until the bewildered guest begins to wonder if he is "seeing things."

In this folding bungalow probably more of the essentials of fine living are compressed into a smaller space than in any other similar structure ever built It also eliminates many of the causes of friction which from time immemorial have beset married couples who keep house. All of the useless steps taken and the useless energy expended by the average housewife in preparing and clearing up after three meals a day are reduced to a minimum.

The bungalow is twenty-six feet

square, has a living porch eight feet by ten feet in front, and a side entrance porch and porch seat. It stands in the middle of a fifty foot lot and is shaded by two immense, arching elm trees. The house is divided into living room, kitchen, bathroom, down-stairs bedroom, and a furnace closet. There is no sign of a dining room, nor can you find one indicated on the floor plans which the enthusiastic owner shows his guests. Nevertheless such a room exists and you are likely to find yourself in it when you least expect it. That's a little joke which Mr. Int-Hout delights in playing upon the unsuspecting visitor.

The easiest way to understand it is to imagine that you have been invited to dinner at the Int-Houts. After you have been welcomed, the hostess, leaving you in the living room, excuses herself to go into the kitchen. As has already been stated no housemaids upset the scheme of harmonious living that this family is working out.

Perhaps the first thing that catches your attention is the stairway next to the entrance door, and you notice the clever

way in which the balustrade forms a set of book shelves running clear down to the floor. Next to this is the closet for outdoor wraps, then the opening of the small hall leading to the bedroom where you took your things off, and next there is an attractive grill which extends from floor to ceiling just in the middle of the long wall space that forms the back part of the living room.

This grill, while very unusual and artistic, seems to serve no particular purpose, and while you are wondering what it is for your eye travels along to some water colors hanging on the next six feet of wall space. This partition and a swinging door, which leads to the kitchen, seem to complete all that there is to be seen along the back wall. But just then Mrs. Int-Hout appears and hooks the kitchen door back-and immediately you begin to rub your eyes.

Heavens, is the wall really moving? Your hostess stands there calmly with her hand on the door casement, seeming barely to touch it, and yet the whole piece of wall is turning round into the kitchen. You know this because the pictures are