Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1902-10-15
ARE USING MORE L|GN|TE.
Minneapolis Using Ignite From the
North Dakota Coal Fields
fl This Winter.
General Washburn Believes a Means
of Successful Bricquetting
Will be Found.

Minneapolis Journal: The Ignite
pcultice may soothe the aching heads
Ct Minneapolitans who are figuring up
their winters fuel bill. Because they
will soon be able to get the North Da-
kota Hooking in any reasonable guam
tity and at very low price Even
now one company is selling here a
hundred tons of Ignite daily at 81 so
a ton. Within a month the company
will be able to supply twice or three
times as much at the same price. And
one ton of Ignite, even in hard coal
furnace. is equal to 60 per cent of a
ton of hard coal. H. ~
We've had some difficulty in get
ting miners enough at our Ignite
mines in North Dakota said General
w. D. Washburn today. But at the
end OF thirty days we expect to be pro-
ducing 1000 tons daily. OF this 1000
tons, several hundred tons can be
shipped to Minneapolis.
But we must supply North Dakota.
Up there Ignite is practically the only
fuel In Bismarck, a town of 1000,
where the weather, too, is sometimes
more than cool, no one thinks of burn
ing anything but Ignite. In Fargo
the same fuel is generally used. All
the electric light works, watel'works,
pcwerhcuses and other big plants in
Fargo and throughout the state depend
on Ignite
We use Ignite in all locomotives
of the Washburn & Bismarck road. ex-
cept in very dry weather. Then the
sparks would set too many fires. But
we are trying to overcome this diff
Guilty by COMPRISING the Ignite into
little cubes OF bricquettes.
Experiments up to now have not
given full satisfaction. The brio
quettes could be made easily enough,
but the process requires that some
binder be added to the pre-lignite
after it was ground up so as to hold the
particles of the fuel together. Coal
tar and other gas house products were
utilized, but they added excessively
to the cost. When 1 made inquiries
in Europe. where bricquettes are
burned on a large SCALE especially in
locomotives, l was told that the COM
pressing machinery would be very ex-
pensive
But we've kept trying to get a
cheap. effective process of bricouetting
our Ignite. Because in that form
the natural. output of the mines would
be freed from the moisture that adds
considerably to the present weight of
Ignite. Besides the fuel can be
handled more easily as bricquettes
and can be used as effectively as an
thracite in any furnace"
1.-TWO new processes have come to
our attention lately. We sent a
small quantity of Ignite to a New
York man, and he has returned to us
some bricquettes that appear to be
success.
Here's one of them added the
senator. throwing little black, four
inch cube towards the ceiling. The
bricquette came down sharply on the
hardwood floor but did not fracture.
You see this bricquette will stand
plenty Of rough handling. And spec
linens that we've soaked in water sew
eral hours at time appear none the
worse. But the Ignite bricquettes
that used to be made would dissolve
easily under water or sudden pressure.
Now the New York man insists
that he can make these new brio
quettes for TO to Is cents ton. He
fuses some binder. / don't know what
it is. But we've sent him more lig-
mite, and he intends to provide us with
sufficient amount of the bricquettes
experiment. Still, the few bricquettes
we got from him appeared to burn ad-
mirably. think they are just what
we want.
The other process is being perfected
by a sPittsburg experimenter At first