Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1906-07-14
now ALCOHOL is ode
NATURED.'

amount OF money vi fhS annual iuel
Hi of the mining and milling indus
.,;es of this country is a subject well
.olculated to arouse popular interest
IN the act to remove the present tax
an denatured alcohol, says Mines and
Minerals.
During the last few years hundreds
Of mining companies have installed
Gasoline engines to u power and
lighting machinery. In competition
with cheap fuels, such as coal and
wood, gasoline has not made a marked
advance, but in regions remote from
such fuels and sources of cheap water
or electric power, it has been extern
sively adopted. Whether or not the
rapidly increased price of gasoline was
justified by the danger of a shortage
on account of the greatly increased
demand, is a question. The fact re-
mains that the price of gasoline has
nearly doubled in a few years time,
and the retail price today varies from
20 cents per gallon in the vicinity of
the oil regions to from 40 cents to GO
cents in most of the mining camps of
the west.
The public has only just awakened
to the fact that the removal of the
present tax of 1000 per cent on dena-
turized alcohol may be briefly described
as pure grain alcohol mixed with from
10 to so per cent of such liquids as
wood alcohol, gasoline, ETC., in order
to make it nondrinkable. At prices
ranging from IS to 80 cents per gall
lon, it can be made as a byproduct at
any place where potatoes, sugar beets,
corn or grain can be grown. For
hosting, pumping, power machinery,
etc., at isolated mines where other
fuels are dear, this alcohol will make
possible a considerable reduction in ex-
pense.
Contrary to the popular belief, how
ever, the carlorific power of alcohol is
considerably less than that of gasoline,
gallon of pure ethyl alcohol having
but 1000 heat units compared with II,
600 to Is, 900 heat units in gasoline,
50 that for strictly heating purposes
alcohol is inferior to gasoline.
By mixing the pure alcohol with
IRON 10 to so per cent wood alcohol,
gsSoline, OF ~turpentine, the mixture is
rendered nondrinkable and the calorifc
power greatly increased over the plain
alcohol. En- France and Germany,
where there has been no tax to impede
the development of alcohol engines
and locomotives, experiments have
shown that a so per cent mixture,
having some II, 900 heat units, gives
the best results. For a given power,
the consumption of this so per cent
naturized alcohol is about equal to that
Of pure gasoline, thus showing that
II, 1000 heat units in a gallon of dena-
turized alcohol furnish the same
amount of power as Is, 900 heat units
IN a gallon of gasoline proving a
greater efficiency of the alcohol when
used in internal combustion engines.
This efficiency Professor Musel of Ber-
lin gives as nearly one third greater
than that of gasoline, which is prob
ably due to the expansive force of the
'oPOI SCllSl dICu dJ CIlC illOillGIil
OF explosion. Thus, it is seen that in
Internal combustion engines denatur-
lied alcohol is the equal, if not the su-
perior, of gasoline.
Hitherto the Objectionable stencil
from gasoline locomotives has been
one of the items contributing to pre-
vent their extensive adoption for un-
foreground mine work.. But loco mo-
yves having the manifest advantage
" THIS type and burning alcohol, thus
enmlnating the only objection of
STENCIL will rapidly gain the favor of
mihing men, as there are many mining
situations to which they are admirably
adapted.