Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1902-10-11

Patent officials have heretofore paid
but little attention to schemes for
manufacturing substitutes for coal,
says special dispatch from Washing
ton to the st. Louis Globe Democrat.
There have been many devices and
formulas for products that would
serve as a fuel substitute, but in most
cases they have been worthless, cost
ing more than the average coal. With
anthracite at over $50 ton, soft coal
scarce and advancing in price and
wood on the boom in the fuel market,
there has been throng of inventors
at the patent office with applications
for patents on all sorts of artificial
fuel. There has also been a rush of
inventors with plans for converting
CRATES and burners so that they may
be adapted for fuel oil and liquid sub
stitutes. Out of the plans offered it is
! the hope of the patent officials that
some scheme may be found which will
serve as a substitute for anthracite
coal and remove the people from the
nightmare of a coal famine for the
coming winter.
a relative of Thomas Edison, the IA
nous electrical expert, is in the field
with what is probably the most unique
scheme to rid the public of the burdens
of the long coal strike. If his plan
should be found practical, every house
wife will be able to go out into the
| front yard each morning and gather
the chief component of the Edison sub
stitute for coal. This is nothing more
nor less than grass. The inventor is
Simon Ogden Edison of East Orange,
n. J. He promises to convert the nat
ural or dried fiber of all kinds of grass
es, grain, corn, sugar cane, etc, into
artificial fuel. He has obtained pat
ent on the process for treating such
materials by which he claims to be
able to produce a smoldering flame
simiIs4sto that resulting from burning
coal instead of blaze caused by the
ignition and consumption of wood.
z. J. Mead of Philadelphia has pat
ent on plan to make Il combuStible
briquet from comminuted coal, coke or
other burnable material by the use of
mOlasses as binding agent Molasses
has been employed for this purpose be-
| FORE but there are certain objections
to it, one of which is that it will usual
ly disintegrate on coming in contact
with water or moisture. Mead's proc
ess avoids this result by heating the
molaSSeS when used as bind. An
other scheme is for making poor
quality of soft coal available as n high
grade fuel. A Denver man has in
vented a process which requires con-
siderable machinery for removing the
water, volatile hydrocarbons and am
/ M r1io 10
material, which is pressed into briquets.
A Baltimore man has plan for using
sawdust in a compressed brick form
suitable for stoves and CRATES. A pre-
scription for compromising fuel has
been drawn up by resident of Fort
Worth, Tex, and he claims the prod
uct is superior to the best grade of
bituminouS coal and at the same time
is far cheaper. In addition to all these
advantages, he calls attention to the
fact that it possessed the highly de-
sirable quality of being nonexplosive.~
A great many schemes of artificial
fuel call for the use of peat as one of
the parts of the compound. A British
subject by the name of Gillian has just
taken out letters patent on device for
drying and condensing peat for fuel
the Fort Worth man, consisting of a
mixture of lot of ingredients to pro-
duce a substitute for anthracite OF
the material he employs the principal
is peat, mixed with which is the oxide
Of an alkaline earth. finely divided car
bon, sugar and an alkali salt This is
pressed into blocks and sold in that shape. |
A Chicago man has a process for con-
verting earth or soil into fuel by adding |
to such disintegrated material certain
quantities of pitch and resin, saw
dust, sulphuric acid and hot water. |
Another scheme is to heat coal dust |
to the point of ignition and afterward |
mix it with paraffin residuum, sborax, |
antimony, acetic acid, oil cake meal |
and crude potash. Still another recipe |
for making artificial fuel is an admix- |
ture of the following: Resin, talloY, |
sal soda, alum, cider vinegar, flour |
paste. coal dust and sawdust
An inventor with an economical turn |
of mind and a desire to utilize trash 4
has secured a patent on coalmaking |
scheme that ought to appeal to every |
housewife. He proposes to convert |
floor sweepings and the refuse of the |
ash pits and dust boxes into fuel. The |
process is to grind these materials |
along with charcoal and then mixing
oil so that the whole mass will assume
a consistency of paste. This is then
nodded into shapes and dried, after
which it is ready for the stock.
The inventors of the country seem to
believe that revolution is about due
in the present method of heating
houses, hotels and large buildings.
There is phenomenal rush for patents
on all sorts of devices for converting
furnaces and stoves into consumers
of gas and liquids. 1t viii be an easy
matter now for a man to have his fur
mace converted into a burner of oil or