Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1899-12-08
THE new FUEL.
Northwest Aroused to the Possibilities
of the New Fuel to be Made From
Ignite.
Capital for the Establishment of Con.
verting Plants Assured to the
Owners Of Process.
How the Idea Was Observation-Disclosures
ance Of the Project to the
Northwest.

The northwest is becoming aroused
to the possibilities Of the new Ignite
fuel and the owners Of the process,
Messrs. Moersch, Menke and Wolff
have returned east from their trip to
Bismarck and west. The st. Paul
Pioneer Press says:
The officers of the American Ignite
company, il that name is adopted, are
now on their way to New York to per-
feet the financial organization after a
trip to the Ignite fields in the vicinity
Of Bismarck, and Julius Moersch Of
st. Paul, who is one of the associates
in the enterprise, expects to hear in a
week Dr. two that all the preliminaries
are accomplished.
Mr.. Moersch, who is one of the fac
tory inspectors in the state labor
bureau, has been working on the pro-
ject nearly two years. 1t began by
his reading a paper before u meeting
OF engineers in ST. Paul, describing a
process by which the Italians convert
peat into charcoal, which is the only
fuel in Naples and other districts. He
raised the query then whether a SINH
lar process might not be applied to the
Dakota Ignite deposits, heretofore
nearly worthless commercially.
The paper got to New York and at
tracted the attention OF Herman Wolff,
who was working oh a similar scheme,
and IL correspondence between Mr.
Moersch and Mr.. Wolff followed. The
difficulty for Il long time was to- find a
bond that would not crumble in the
heat of Il furnace and let the dust
choke the fues. That is now accom-
plished and patents have been taken OH
the process, though the composition of
the bond is a secret.
A few weeks ago a test was made
privately in st. Paul in the presence
OF engineers Of the Northern Pacific
road, Moersch and Wolff and AleXan-
der Menke, the president of the COM
pany. The tests We're said to be thor
Oughly satisfactory. The Ignite
bricQuettes burned with hardly any
smoke, with al ost perfect combus-
tion and with greater heat units than
the best lump bituminous coal. The
Northern Pacific undertook to use 49,
600 tons a year right from the start on
it's division from Glendive to Bis
marck.
Since then the promoters have been
to Bismarck and have their plans well
under way. Some Of the papers have
said they would spend $4,000 on their
plant. They don't know how much
they will spend. 1t may be $1,000 900.
A. may be $2,O00,O0O. They have all
the money they can use offered to
them.
Nobody knows how much Ignite
there is in Dakota. 4 geologist says
there is enough to supply heat for all
the people in the United States for Il
thousand years, which is near enough
for the present. 1t can be laid down
in North Dakota and Western Mime
sofa for much less than bituminous
coal, and the supply for present reck-
oning is unlimited.
At that there is not a boring in the
Ignite beds to determine what lies be-
meath. There is a fair chance that
there may be coal measures under
lying, but nobody ever found out. A
''mine" may not be more than four feet
deep. In fact there are no mines
worth mentioning. At Lehigh, near
Dickinson, there is one that yields
about 200 tons a day, but most Of them
are mere holes in the ground. The
1ICN SOAIpo1S purposes w puC ouC LOW
to 1000 tons daily.
Ignite is something like petrified
wood, it is brown and shows the grain
ing of the wood, but crumbles on ex-
posure. Some of it is good fuel, and
one company handles it in st. Paul in
its natural state. But it has sulphur,
which makes an undesirable smell for
household purposes and which forms
sulphuric acid and attacks the boiler
plates in a steam plant. Besides ii
carries too much water, sometimes rs
much as 40 per cent.
The new process drives off the sui
phur and evaporates the water, then
congresses the dust into bricquettes.
1t burns without any Stag and with
less clear ash than bituminous coal.
In the bricquettes it is not swept ln,o
the flues in small particles, doing away
with both smoke and sparks, the lat
ter a considerable advantage for loco
motives. And it is right at hand and
cheap.
DICLIES 0LI HADJl NONE