The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-05-08
SUBSTITUTE FOR COAL.
SOIidified Petroleum. Which Gives an
Immense Heat.
Extraordinary Advantages TO Ships.
Railroads and Factorfes-Fuel
For Army Camps.

| Science now comes TO the front with
a substitute for coal. A French en-
gineer, Paul D'Humy, knows how to
solidify petroleum. He reduces it into
small blocks, which, when burned, give
| out intense heat. These burn only on
the surface, give out no smoke OF
smell, and produce but or 3 per cent
| of ashes. The process is, of course, his
/ own secret.
| The finest grades of anthracite coal
make at least 10 per cent. of ashes. In
this respect solidified petroleum has an
| immense advantage as a fuel suffl-
cient to render it far more preferable
| to coal. In household use, on steam
ers, on railroads and in manufacturing
the removal of ashes is an expensive
! item.
The new fuel is also cheaper and
far less bulky. A single ton of it,
in blocks of whatever size may be
wanted, represents at least thirty tons
of coal, possibly nearer forty, and its
cost to the consumer as now figured
out, will be only So to SO ton.
1t has still one other admirable quail
ity; it requires very little draught to
II
it ablaze. A cubic inch of it will pro-
duce a light blue flame many hundred
times larger in volume and a fame
which with a strong draught will trav-
ell a long, distance. The experiments
already made have proved that after
oxygen it supplies the greatest heat OBJ
tainable.
From this it follows that it's great
I0 Tryhn
is required, where there must be great
supplies of fuel and wherever every
inch of space has it's value. Nowhere
are these conditions more evident than
in the cases of warships, ocean steam
ers and the colossal steel factories that
dot England and the United States. |
Ship designers are now greatly handi-
capped by the provision they are forced |
to make for the coal-bunkers. Men-of- |
war carry from 5000 to 5000 tons of |
coal.
Then, too, every war vessel must |
stop frequently for coaling. This has |
enormous expense. England |
has very nearly the whole surface of |
the globe punctured with coaling sta
tons. The necessity OF coal has stared |
her in the face at every step of her for
eign policy.
The space saved could be devoted to
extra machinery, guns, ammunition
and men, and it would at once re-
ieve the present cramped quarters in
which officers and others have to live
On board the ships of today. To the
transatlantic greyhoundS petroleum
would also be of the greatest import
ance. A big ocean liner now uses tIom
}, 500 to 5000 tons of coal trip.
Compressed petroleum is especially
adapted for use in the manufacture of
steel, for it contains no sulphur. InEng-
and coke is generally used in the steel
furnaces. About two and a half tons
If coke are required to make a ton of
steel, and the cost of this is from
$3.50 to SIS. To get the same luanti-
y of unvarying. intense heat necessary
% manufacture a ton of steel about |
500 pounds of solidified petroleum
would be necessary. This would cost
lbout $1.50, equal to 10 per cent. of the
present cost.
D'Humy estimates that the produc-
ion of petroleum is now more than
ZOO times in excess of the consump-
ion, and that further supplies are
AVAILABLE. D'Humy has also made a
uel out of coal tar and pitch. This
Ilso is smokeless and cheap. Another
Ievice of his is disintegrated wood mix
ID with solid petroleum. Another is a
block of common oil for domestic use,
fuel that can be mixed with ashes of
,arth and burned in any ordinary
,itchen range or CRATE. This fuel, it is
can be put on the market
1t dollar a ton, a ton being equal in
BURNING capacity to three tons of coal,
which would cost in New York SIS.
This, too, is smokeless, without smell,
nd leaves practically no ashes at all.
Perhaps the most interesting one of
)'Humy's inventions is his ready ref
renee fire for soldiers on the march,"
troops in bivouac often find it hard to
ather sufficient wood for fires. DHu-
ny offers them kind of soIidif1ed pc
roleum, to be cut into small cakes of
n ounce or so each. These, he says,
an be put into each soldiers knapsack.
Zach little block will stand being mix
d with 900 times its volume of COM
1on earth, and thus in a few minutes
fires could be made to spring
p all over camp with practically no
rouble at all.-New York World.