Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-02-06
70 DEVELOP Ignite
Iowa Men Form a Company to
Make Briquettes Of Da-
kota Coal
GOOD FUEL AT A Low PRICE
Project Thought to Be Entirely Feast
BILE and rofitabe-Experts in Ger
many Consulted and Give the Scheme
Unqualified Endosement-som
About Its Manufacture.

Des Moines, Feb. 6.-Northern Iowa
capitalists are planning to enter on an
important movement for the develop
ment of the Ignite fields of North Da-
kota. 1t is proposed to install briquet-
ting machinery and turn out briquettes
at New Salem, N. D. The company
that is undertaking the project is the
North Dakota Ignite Coal company.
The men interested are A. d. Clarke
of Algona, Mayor Eugene Schaffter of
Eagle Grove and other capitalists who
were associated with Clarke In the
purchase two or three years ago OF
$4,000 acres of land in the region OF
Bismarck. The speculation turned out
to be enormously profitable. The syn
dictate sold out about three-fourths
of its land and plans to sell the rest,
but it will retain about 10000 acres
near New Salem for coal lands.
Mayor Schaffter of Eagle Grove, has
taken deep interest in the possibili-
ties of briquetting the Ignite of North
Dakota and has been making extensive
investigations. He has carried on a
correspondence for some time with the
American consul-general at Berlin and
with the German manufacturers OF
briquetting presses. Samples of the
Ignite have been sent to Germany.
The experts in Germany who have seen
these samples say that the experiments
show the Dakota Ignite can be made
into clean and excellent briquettes, that
and without the use of any binder
of matrix to hold the material together.
Encouraged on every hand, the North
Dakota Ignite Coal company will in
stall plant at New Salem that will
turn out about 100 tons day.
AS result of his Investigations,
Mayor Schaffter estimates that aside
from the actual cost of the Ignite 1t
will not cost to exceed S1.25 to make
a ton OF briquettes. A ton of this
product would be twice as efficient
from fuel standpoint as soft coal.
The process of briquetting consists in
pulveriZing 1t thru machine which
presses it into small bricks of blocks
of coal. The briquettes are much
more highly carbonized than the Ignite
and in fact the briquetted Ignite is a
dangerous rival for anthracite.
The new company is confident it will
be able to supply Minneapolis, st. Paul.
Sioux City and other large cities within
an easy radius of the Dakotas with
an excellent fuel and at low figure
and that 1t will be able to do this in
spite of the competition of Illinois and
eastern coal and in spite of the gross
determinations in freight rates that the
Northern Pacific and Great Northern
are said to be guilty of. The Northern
Securities merger tends to hurt the
prospects of the company and its Off
GERS indicate pretty plainly that the.
would like to see the merger dissolved.
1t is common practice for coal COM
ing to the system from the Burlington
to be allowed to go thru for an ex-
tremely low freight rate.
The anthracite famine of the present
winter in the United States has served
to direct our attention to the various
forms of artificially prepared fuel which
in other countries take the place of hard
coal. Among such products, the bril-
QUOTES made in Germany from Ignite.
peat, and the dust and waste of coal
mines probably represent the highest
form of technical skill in manufacture,
as we'll as the greatest economic gains.
The fact that these briquettes form the
principal domestic fuel of Berlin and
other German cities-that they are used
for locomotive and other steam firing,
and are employed for heating in various
manufacturing processes-has an added
significance for American readers when
we consider that vast Dogs Of peat and
unmeasured stores of Ignite remain
undeveloped in several of our central
and western states.
In description of the German made
briquettes contributed to Casters for
January, Mr.. Frank II. Mason ascribes
to them these practical advantages:
They are clean, and convenient to
handle; they light easily and quickly,
and burn with a clear. intense flame,
when made of Ignite or peat, they burn
practically without smoke, and are,
withal, the cheapest form Of fuel for
most purposes"
The briquette manufacture, like most
other important German industries, is
by a syndicate, which in
cludes thirty-one firms or companies, or
more than nine-tenths of the producers,
and regulates prices and output. From
the official report of this syndicate for
1901, ii is learned that the total output
for that year was 1,566,3S5 tons. In
Guiding the product of manufacturers
outside the syndicate, the grand total
of the output in all Germany during
1901 was 1,643,416 tons.
The average selling price in large
quantities was 1888 marks (about $3.20)
Il ton, and this was the highest price
that had been realized since 1891 Near
ly half of the years output was abb
sorbed by the German railroads; APP
p1oximately, 100000 tons went to fac
tories and workshops; retailers took
124.3S0 tons, and the remainder was
by German merchant ships
or by the navy, or was exported.
There were in operation in Germany
at the close of 1900 eighty-nine manu-
factories of fuel briquettes, some Of
which had a capacity of more than
100000 tons per annum. In respect to
the material employed, briquette works
are divided into two general classes
those which make briquettes from lig-
mite or carbonized peat, with or with
The NOn-Irritatin9|
Cathartic