Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1904-01-14

have a water-power. The factory
can be built beside the fuel supply and
there will be no need of a dam, with
all its expense, which is essential for
all water-run factories. The report
which was issued yesterday is long
document OF % folio pages, and the
conclusions which are reached, with
bit of humor added as advice, are as
follows:
First. That the numbers and areas
of the salt and fresh water boys are
so great that there can be no success
full effort to combine, control or buy
them up, to the exclusion Of small
operators.
Second. The production of domestic
fuel may be started with very small
and inexpensive plant, by single fami-
lies, or for neighborhood, on very
small investment of capital safely ex-
pended and devoted to the sale of fuel,
and not to the sale of paper stock.
Third. All the apparatus for making
domestic fuel may be made by any
good mechanic who has saved his
gumption by not giving up the control
of his own faculties to boss.
Fourth. The cooking process may
be adopted at very small additional
cost for apparatus of very simple
kind.
1t must not be inferred that large
undertakings may not soon be requir-
ed and may not be very profitable, but
in the large undertakings, since the
main purpose is the removal of water
from the crude material and it would
not be judicious to transfer the water
to the stock issued by any company
as 1t is hoped that no distrust may be
created in dealing with this subject
because there have already been
number of circulars issued of the in
flated kind, which do not appear to be
directed to the conversion of bog
mud into fuel but rather of the ordi-
nary peat mixed with the waste coal
and other substances. These cir
culars are now being worked as If
they had anticipated the investigations
which we have reported their purpose,
however, being apparently to sell pa
per stock rather than to sell fuel.
Mr.. Atkinson thinks it is strange
that we in this country have permitted
Europe TO get the start of us in the
commercial preparation of this fuel,
as 1t has by two or three years. The re-
port further says: eff it shall prove
cheaper for our farmers to cut mud
than to cut wood, we may save our
woodlands, and it only now remains
for some other non-scientific observer,
like myself, to stumble upon better
and cheaper material than wood
pulp for paper-making and we may
then save our forests" He has a.
vision of utilizing street sweepings
and city garbage. Referring to the
brick made of peat and tannery waste,
he says: 81 may now venture to sug
gest that street sweepings may be
mixed with salt marsh sod and mud,
cut and mixed together and then
worked into meal for fertilizers. Again
dealing with city garbage has been a
difficult problem, it's conversion by heat
generating offensive gas. May not a
Geld process be substituted? May not
this garbage be treated in the manner
described below; worked up with mud
and then converted into briquets for
fuel, corresponding to the briquets
made in Germany from spent tan and
mud? But would not burning for fuel.
again, be waste? May not garbage and
mud, with lime or potash combined,
be converted into fertilizers?"
Published with the report is an
article by H. H. Wotherspoon, Jr., of
New York, "a mechanical engineer of
high repute," upon the art of making
bog fuel. One of the attractive
features of the expected revolution is
that almost any person who owns
peat or mud bog can undertake the
business. Complicated machinery is
net necessary. The material must be
got out, beaten or mixed in some way
to break up its structure, and then
dried. Then it is to be shaped in
blocks in whatever way the owner
may fancy. and it is ready for fuel in
any apparatus which will burn wood
or soft coal. The extent of the revo-
luton is almost bewildering as it
stretches before the mind of Mr.. At
kinson.
EX-United States Senator Murphy