The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-23


 as fuel. though Pittsburg now uses half-bllion feet every twenty-four hours for both purposes the Carnegie plants alone using 100000 GOO feet a day. The Ap- palachlan and middle west states use 9S per cent of the natural gas of the United States. The first gas piped any distance was from the Harvey well In Butler county, Pennsylvania, to a mill near Pittsburg a distance of seventeen miles. This was in 1S75 In 1893 gas came into use as fuel Now over 1.0O0000 domestic fires are supplied with this fuel Now wood and coal to the value of $50,000O00 are displaced by natural gas at less cost, making a saving of S9,O00 GOO. New York uses the least coal and the most gas per capita of any city.
 Following the lead of Europe, the Uni ted States is making tests of briquettes of various kinds. The briguettes are of con venient size, of clean surface and con taining the average heat giving properties of coal The materials used are widely varied and in many instances evidence the nations recently acquired economical trend of mind by utilizing what were for merly waste products. France has TOT many years been dredging the peat from river beds and moulding 1t into bricks for fuel, while in SaXony Ignite dust has been very satisfactorily compressed into blocks, France and Germany have made cakes from spent tanners bark and from exhausted dye woods, while Belgium has more recently tried compound of eighty pounds of garden mold to twenty of slack coal over which was poured a pound of common soda or salt in solution to vitrify it. the resulting briquettes having only one advantage over coal-they lasted longer. Another foreign made briquettte that has proved popular Is composed of 95 per cent coal dust with per cent clay. or rye flour or slaked lime used as a binding material, the mass moulded into Jumps the size of an egg and soaked in mixture made of paraffin residue soaked in Senzine to protect it against the action of the atmosphere.
 The west long ago tried many plans for devisng fuel when none existed. Tray elers over the trails resorted to grass, greasewood and chaparrel; early settlers In the west found twisted hay excellent for "mending'' a fire, and corn stalks and corn cobs have not proved poor sub- stitutes, although the combustion Is rapid. During the coal famine of last Minter many farmers of the west burTs4 the corn. kernals and all. The United States has left few artificial devices untried. Coal dust, Ignite, peat and waste prod ucts from mines have been made into sub stantia briquettes, The binding mater ials have been as widely varied as tho principal ingredients of the bricks, the objectt bein gto reduce the entire cost to a point as near zero as possible. Gum arabic waste. rye flour and waste gluten from starch factories have all proved practicable as binders while a water profing agent of rosin or some kind Of gum dissolved in benzine has proved high ly satisfactory. Cotton stalks. straw, sane and trash of various kinds have all come under the experimental eye Of the briquette maker, and have stood the test more or less well when other materials were not at hand. Science and economy are ready to protect the average house. holder from the sin of wastefulness that comes through ignorance or indifference and will soon find him a ready partisan Tn their cause.