The Dickinson press., 1899-12-09
Sold by H. A. A v SEQ.
The New Fuel.

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 return
ed east from their trip to Dickinson and
Bismarck and other points in the state.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press says:
The officers of the American Ignite
company, if that name is adopted, are
now on their way to New York to perfect
the financial organization after a trip to
the Ignite fields in the vicinity of Dick
inson and Bismarck, and Julius Mocrsch
of St. Paul, who is one of TIE associates
in the enterprise, expects to hear in a
week or two that all the preliminaries
are accomplished.
Mr.. Moersch, who is one of the factory
inspectors in the state labor bureau, has
been working on the project nearly two
years. 1t began by his reading a paper
before a meeting of engineers in St. Paul,
describing a process by which the Italians
CONVEX 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 near
ly worthless commercially.
The paper got to New York and at
tracted the attention of Herman Wolff,
who was working on a similar scheme,
and a correspondence between Mr..
Moersch and MI. Wolff followed. The
difficulty for a long time was to find a
bond that would not crumble in the heat
of a furnace and let the dust choke the
fues. That is nov accomplished and
patents have been taken in the process,
though the composition of the bond is a
secret
A few weeks ago a test was made pri-
vately in St. Paul in the presence of en-
gineers of the Northern Pacific road,
Moersch, Wolff and Alexander Menke,
the president of the company. The tests
were said to be thoroughly satisfactory.
The Ignite b%ricquettes burned with the
hardly any smoke, with almost perfect
combustion and with greater heat units
than the best lump bituminous coal.
The Northern Pacific undertook to use
$4,000 tons a year right from the start
on its division from Glendive to Bis
! marck.
Since then the promoters have been to
Bismarck and Dickinson and have their
plans we'll under way. Some of the pa
pers have said they would spend $4,000
on their plant. They don't know how
much they will spend. 1t may be
100000, it may be s2,ooo,ooo. They
have all the money they can use offered
to them.
Nobody knows how much Ignite there
is in North Dakota. A geologist says
there is enough to supply heat for all the
people in the United States for a thou
sand years, which is near enough for the
present. 1t can be laid down in North
Dakota and Western Minnesota for
much less than bituminous coal, and the
supply for present reckoning 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 underlying, but
nobody ever found out. A "mine" may
not be more than four feetdeep. 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 new company proposes to
put out 1900 to 1000 ton daily.
The new process drives off the sulphur
and evaporates the water, then compress
es the dust into bricquettes, it burns with
out any Stag and with less clear ash than
bituminous coal. In the bricquettes it is
not swept into the hues in small particles,
dong away with both smoke and sparks,
the latter a considerable advantage for
locomotives. And it is right at hand and
cheap.