The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1911-09-17

The gas producer, which will revolu-
tionize our railroads and factories.
the gas passes out through pipe into
gas engine In which II produces the
power. In this process the saving Is
SO great that 600-horsepower gas en-
CINE will save $4,000 a year in It's coal
bills over the same power steam m
CINE. and the saving on a .000-horse-
| power gas engine would amount to
something like $4,000 year. Indeed.
the saving Is so great that many of
our factories are discarding the steam
plants and introducing the gas pro-
Queer. 1t is now used in the subways
/ of New York, and at hundreds of other
stations over the country.
VIII Turn Ignite to Money.
| These improvements in the use Of
coal will turn our Ignite into money.
and will add billions OF dollas to our
national wealth. The Ignite coal Ia
too poor for profitable use in connec-
ton with steam. but by means of the
| gas producer 1t will develop a much
power as the Pennsylvania and West
| Virginia bituminous coal when used
| under a steam boiler. Now we have
| 100000, 900 acres of Ignite. In North
| Dakota alone we have five times as
much, weight for weight, as there is
coal IN Pennsylvania. The former State
has 2o,oooooo acres of Ignite. Its
coal beds are a. large as South Carolina
| or Indiana. and they can be easily
mined. Montana has about 500, 200, 000.-
100. 900, 100000 tons. while Texas has
| $4,000, o00,o. BY the gas producer this
| can all be turned into power, and that
| in the places where power is much
needed, and where, at present, 1t is
produced by costly Eastern coal. trans
| ported hundreds and thousands of miles
for the purpose.
| How Gas PInnts VIII Run the Rail-
| ronds.
| The future of the gas engine, or
rather of the internal combustion en-
CINE. as the officials of the Bureau OF
Mines prefer to call 1t. is beyond con-
ception. Professor Fernald the en-
gineer in charge OF the gas producer
tests. says that It will cut down our
/ coal bills somewhere between 100000
1 900 and S2oo,oOo.ooo a year. He says
that some day there will he great CEN
trail gas plants situated at the coal
fields throughout the country, which
| will generate power to run our rail-
roads and factories. Each of these will
be connected with an electric system
which can distribute the power over
| a radius Of ESQ miles. each centre COW
| ering possible area five times that
| of Ohio or Kentucky. or as much as
either Germany or France.
With ten or twelve such plants To-
! Gated at the various mine centres, the
| great railroad systems could send their
| trains from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
| and from Hudson Bay to tho Gulf OF
| Mexico. Then the cars will move by
electricity, the smoke nuisance will
be oblterated. and one will be abls
| to cross the continent without a cinder
| in his eye. This work of electrifying
the roads has already begun. The New
York Central has substituted electric
power on Its lines for some distance
out of New York. and 1t is testing cleo
| trio locomotives between Rochester and
Buffalo. The Pennsylvania is operating
| electric trains between Atlantic City
| and Philadelphia, and the New York,
New Haven and Hartford is running its
| trains from New York to Stamford by
electric power. The great steel plant
at Gay. Ind. has gas engines which
! nreldeveloping over 100000 horsepower
They are operated by the gases which
would ordinarily go to waste. They
come from the furnaces, and the fuel
costs nothing. 1t will be so with every
large plant of the future.
GINS for Our Navy.
They are putting gas engines on the
great ships of the world. and they
will be eventually used by tn navies
of the future. Professor Fernald says
that the United States will probably
distance the other nations In this re-
gard He advises that our gunboats be
run by gas instead OF steam. saying
that the gas will make no smoke. and
that it can be made in the producer,
which has no chimney and needs none.
He says the coming war vessel will be
swift, smokeless. noiseless craft. ly-
ing now in the water, the entire deck
being given over to the work of the
guns. At night there will be nothing
to show the presence of the ship to the
enemy.
Gas engines are now being used on
some of the big ocean liners, and 1t Is
said that the steamships OF the Great
Lakes are about to adopt them One OF
the big freighters there has plans for
1000 horsepower gas engine of the
marine type. the Idea being that It's
use will save a great deal OF coal. AS
to the ocean liners. some of them con-
sumo as much as 10000 tons of high
grade coal on a round trip With a
gas engine this could be cut TO 5000.
with a saving OF hundreds OF dollars
a day.
The Passing OF the Smoke.
The gas producer experiments show.
so I am told at the Bureau of Mines,
that smoke can be practically obliter-
ated from our large manufacturing
cities, AS II Is now the most of the
smoke comes from the railroads and
factories. 1t is estimated that 500 tons
OF SCOT n day are dropped into Chicago
by the locomotives and that 40 per cent.
OF all the smoke of that city comes
from the railroads. With gas produc-
Ing plants the immense switch yards
there could be operated by electricity
and the same force could be supplied
to the factories. The saving to the
buildings would be enormous. Chicdgo
is snid to be damaged to the extent OF
s6o,00o.0oo year by its smoke, and
Cleveland loseg 100000 from the