The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1877-09-08
Adding to the Nations wealth.
UTILIZING WHAT HAS BEEN COAL WASTE
AND DRIVING OUT ENGLISH CEMENT.
From the N. Y. Sun.

E,
AND DRIVING OUT ENGLISH CEMENT.
From the N. Y. Sun.
",Opt of every four tons of coal
brought to the surface of the earth, one
ton is ground to powder in breaking,
and goes to waste" says the President
OF prominent coal company in Penn
sylvania. Prizes have been widely Of
fered for the best means of utilizing
culrn,, as the waste is technically called.
No attempts to utilize culm economical.
ly have heretofore been Successful. In
Belgium and England. however, btu
minous coal dust, called slack" has
been for few years past made into
bricks to be used for fuel. It is used in
stead of bituminous coal. II remained
for an American firm to toexperjment with
anthracite coal dust. The f6stlt was
hr>t publicly shown Thursday to Geo.
S. Page, coal tar refiner Z. H. Ward
well, of Page, Kidder & Fletcher j. C.
F. Cheever, experimenting Chemist of
Palisade Chemical Works j. S. Hath.
away, 10 Pearl street Jas. H. Boyn.
ton, 35S Broadway Captain Fred. P.
Benson, Engineer of Nassau Gaslight
Company, Brooklyn w. II. Carter,
Treasurer of Newark Savings Institu.
ton DR.. II. Endemann, Chief of San
itary Bureau, Board of Health and l..
Deane. They were the guests of Messrs.
L. l.. Crounse and S. D. Coykendall,
the active managers of the Anthracite
Fuel Company"
The steamer Thomas Cornell took the
party on Tuesday night to Rondont,
and Wednesday morning the works were
inspected. They are on the Hudson
river at Port Even, a mile below Ron
dout, and are surrounded by water.
The process of converting the culm
into fuel is simple. An elevator, sim
liar to that used for storing grain, trans
fers 1t from canal boats coming from
Honesdale into two lofty bins, holding
26O tons each. A third receiver is for
citumen, brought also in canal boats
from Page, Kidder & Fletcher's refine,
~, 2 few miles down the river. This is
Used mainly to stick the culm together
so that it may be made into blocks. Ten
per cent. is used to ninety of culm. 1t
Is crushed nearly as fine as culm, and
Immediately mixed before it can solid
ify. A screw conveyor dumps the mix
ture into large upright cylinder, where
it is heated to 600o Fahrenheit. The
pitch Is liqtefed, and is fused with and
absorbed by the coal dust. Then the
mixture drops into moulds in a revolF.
ing horizontal wheel at the bottom of
the same cylinder. The wheel, revoly-
ing, catrles the moulds and contents
around where a pressure of thirty
thousand pounds is obtained, the brick
is made, and, being carried around still
further, Is punched out and, with thou.
sands of brother bricks, immediately
packed, away in tiers in canal boats
ready for transportation. Each brick
weighs 10 lbs. The capacity of the
works is 250 tons day, running double
time. The production for this year
will be, IL is estimated, 40, 900 tons.
These bricks are used for bltuminous
coal locomotive engines on the Delaware
and Ulster, Waikiki Valley, Albany
and Susquehenna, Rhinebeck, and
many other railroads, and are favorably
received by firemen. They cost nearly
half as much as anthracite coal and
much less than bituminOus coal. The
culm costs nothing but transportation to
the manufacturers. Experiments in
producing the fuel have been making
since July, 1875. The works at Port
Even we're built in 1875.
A practical test of the fuel was m ade
Thursday by pulling the inspecting par
ty to the top of Pine Hill in the Cats.
Kills, thirty-eight miles from Rondout,
on the Delaware and Ulster Railroad.
The train made thirty miles an hour up
a. grade in places l5S feet to the mile.
After luncheon in the private residence
Of Major. Thomas Cornell, the new
cement works of the National Portland
Cement Company were visited. The
rocks of that region are ground TO pow
der, pressed into bricks, baked in kilns,
ground again and packed in barrels for
transportation. 1t is said that this
cement will drive out of the market the
English cement now largely used in