The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-12-23
A CHAPTER ON COKE.
What 1t Is, How It Is Made and What
It Is Used For.
from the chicago Record.

Some one has called coke mineral char
coal" He meant that coke was soft coal
from which the gases had been expelled
by heat out of contact with air, Just as
wood is made into charcoal by being burn
ed without air
The crushed coke which is becoming a
favorite fuel with housewives and cooks
is the coke left as a residue in the making
of Illuminating gas. 1t is soft dun black
and has pumice-like texture; but the
coke which is made for foundries and
blast furnaces is hard and is of a silvery-
gray color, almost metallic in it's luster
This is the Connellsville coke, produced
in the coke region of Pennsylvania, made
famous by its bloody labor strikes and
fatal conflicts between the Huns" and
militia. Thousands upon thousands of
tons of coal are mined in the Connxlsville
country and burned in the thousands of
ovens into coke. and when any labor
trouble checks the output of this region,
foundries, machine shops and blast furn-
aces all over the country shut down. The
two experimental ovens which were built
in this district ffty-three years ago have
grown into 10000 ovens, and the few bushels
of coke which the pioneers tried Vainly to
sell have expanded to over 100000 tons
yearly.
The very nature of the industry connects
the coal mine and the coke oven with the
closest intimacy. The ovens stretch out
from the shaft top on either side of the
railroad tracks, built so close together
that the "bank'' looks like a solid wall,
pierced with low-arched windows set in
at short intervals. over the bank of ovens
runs a narrow-guage track and steam and
smoke cloud the perspective. The Con-
nellsville coke region is the largest coke
producing district in the world, and there
cokemaking has reached its highest point
toward perfection. The ConnellsVille
ovens are what are known as the bee
hive" type, varying from 1917 feet to 1912
feet in diameter and from to feet in
hight. Each oven produces at a charge
from three to four and half tons of coke
each forty-eight hours. which is the length
of time required to produce coke from
coal. All coal will not coke, for non
coking coal will not crumble with the heat
whereas a Cooking coal will hold it's sub
stance and become mineral sponge when
the gases are driven out
When the coal is brought to the shaft
top from the bottom of the mine it is
dumped into chute which conveys the
coal to the "larries" as the small dump
cars which run on the track over the ovens
are called. Small locomotives draw the
larry wagons to the ovens in the larger
plants but in others steel cables, horses
or mules are the motive power used to
carry the coal to be cooked. Time and
labor are saved by machinery in the mine,
on the shaft top and around the ovens.
The mine cars brought up on the cages
from the bottom of the shaft are pushed
off the cage and an empty car run on au-
"
ing cages are used. The coal slides down
the chute and over the screens into the
bins from which the larry wagons are
loaded.
When the larries reach the ovens they
are dumped and the coal slides down
When an oven is charged the coal Is leveled
down. and the door is brcked up, and all
chinks and openings are closed with loan
except a space of about two inches at the
top Of the door, which extends across the
full width of it. The heat of the oven-for
a charge of coal is put in as soon as the
charge Of newly made coke has been taken
and course of the air are so regulated that
the coal burns from "out to in" and the
amount Of air necessary to keep up a slow,
smoldering combustion is regulated by
closing or opening airways in the door.
In forty-eight hours the coal is cooked, and
the door is broken open and the glowing
coke in the oven is drenched with water
to cool it, so that iEwill not set fire to the
cars, for the coke is loaded directly into
the freight cars standing on the tracks
before the bank of ovens.