The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-09-21
THE PROMISE OF A CHEMIST.

A German chemist in Baltimore is insist
ing in the papers of that city that he can
and will announce a discovery that will
ruin the monopoly Of the anthracite coal
operators and deliver cities now enveloped
in bituminous smoke from the. cloud that
hangs over them day and night. He claims
that he has discovered and about perfected
a process by which ordinary street dirt
can be chemically treated so as to make a
fuel which will be better and cheaper than
any fuel now known. The result of this
chemical treatment by which fuel is to be
made literally 'dirt cheap is a brick made
by high pressure. costing $3.50 a ton, and
which can be treated and retreated chemi-
cally so as to be burned over and over. He
is certain that it can be produced at the
price named at an enormous profit.
1t will be remembered that inventors, or
those who imagine that they are such, are
often very ~sanguine in their promises and
correspondingly tardy in performance. Be-
sides, there is an element of the miraculous
in the announcement of the Baltimore
chemist, but those who recall the solved
mysteries of the telegraph. telephone and
other modern inventions are more than will
ing to give any man a chance. Assuming
tina the chemist is not the victim of his
own delusion, he will be the revolutionist
of the period and the very man almost
everybody is waiting to welcome. The an
thracite coal monopoly and it's President
Baer, with their ponderous solemnity and
grasping instincts and coal strikes, would
be forgotten. The loss of natural gas would
no longer be deplored. and the gas-meter
issue, which has been used by demagogues
to elect one mayor and has been the terror
of timid local statesmen for years, would
be solved. Natural gas companies would be-
come so entirely inconsequential that they
would risk being threatened by city fathers
with fine and Imprisonment If they should
fail to furnish an abundance of gas for all
the bored mixers when the reservoir of
natural gas has been emptied. Then, as to
street dirt, there Is not a city in which
the people do not complain of dirty and
filthy streets and implore the newspapers
to din their complaints into the ears Of
boards of public works. When street dirt, so
disa greeable to all and said by boards of
health and the promoters of the microbe
theory to be laden with disease, shall have
a greater value than anthracite coal for dis
pensing heat, light and power. one of the
chief causes Of municipal complaint will be
removed. Instead of troublesome contracts
with s-treet-sweeping companies. there
would be bidders for the right to collect
and use street sweepings whose bids would
become an asset to the city treasury. In
deed, it may be expected that the owners
of real estate on streets would claim the
ownership Of the street filth in front of
their possessions. Those who insist that
city governments should own and operate
the sources Of natural utilities could effec-
lively demand that monopoly shall not con-
vert the sweepings into heat, light and
sweetness, but that the city shall do so for
the benefit of the people. selling the product
at cost.
1t is feared that the Baltimore chemists
proclamation contains too many elements
of the promised millennium for the present
age. 1t is more than possible that he is
the victim of his imagination rather than
a student Of practical chemistry. Still, a
Embarrassed people may confidently ex-
pect that the inventive power of man will
discover a heat and light-prod1cing ma
terial that will cause coal operators to be
forgotten. Such a discoverer would be
hailed as even a greater benefactor than
the Hon. Tom L. Johnson is p~roclaiming
himself to be.