Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1911-09-17

e--ra AsHINGToN D. c., Sept. 16.-(special
INAYk Correspondence of The Bee.)-I have
WV l Just weighed one of my eyelashes. 1t
was a little red hair, half an inch long,
IECNEglH and it tipped the beam at one one-hun-
VE&GIGyN dred-thousandth of The
scales were among those of the labora-
tory of the bureau of mines, some of which are SO
fine that a pencil mark, sheet OF white paper
will make their balances wobble. Their disks are
gold plated and the weights bits Of platinum and
platinum wire
These are among the testing arrangements which
Uncle Sam is using to discover the heat ana
power values of coal supplies He has all sorts
of instruments which determine the amount OF mos-
ture and ash in each ton of fuel and just how much
work it will do.
1t used to be that coal bought upon the repu-
tation of the mine from which it came. The price
was so much per ton, and the manufacturer or do
mestc consumer thought nothing of the ashes and
moisture Today the country is fast coming to esti-
mate the coal by heat units, and this is the basis
upon which all government purchases are made We
are spending something like $1O,00O,0O0 year
the fuel used by the and navy and the vari-
Gus government departments, and 1t is through such
tests that saving at least 100000 over the
of the coal in the past
The great factories and foundries are beginning to
buy their coal the way, and the bureau OF
mines will eventually be able to show every man Just
where he get his fuel the cheapest, and what
price should pay for the kinds needed for his spe
eal plant 1t will also give such information that
every who buys coal for his home will know Just
what buy and how to burn 1t to get the best and
economical heat 1t will tell you how your coal
can be used produce the most power, and how our
fuel supplies, fully one-half Of which are now going
to waste, may be saved
Leaks Which Equal u Million Dollars a Day
How would you like to have one of Uncle Sans
tax collectors appear your bedside morning
all the year through and force you to pay him sSY
Thot en- whit nita State
loses from the waste it's COAL to say nothing of
the losses the mining of iron, copper, silver and
gold, and other metals of various kinds. These fig
ures given by Or. Joseph A. Holmes, the d.
of the bureau of mines who knows more about
our fuel than any other in the country
He says fully half the coal is left in the mines
and that of the amount gotten out in the production
lose from 80 to 95 cent of its energy
Prof Fernald of the chief engineers of the bu-
reau, compares our use of coal to that OF house
wife who took whole barrel of flour and out OF it
got only one biscuit. We are now consuming between
500 900 900 and 500. 900 900 tons of coal
and annual coal bill amounts to something like
$500. 900 900 one-third of this goes to produce
power 1t is of this that 80 per cent more is
lost
The Age of the Gas Engine.
In order to cut down this waste Uncle Sam has
been testing eur various Goals and making expert
ments to get more power out of them. He has
great heating station at Pittsburgh with all kinds
OF apparatus for testing the coal and he has been
making special work OF what known the gas
producer and gas engine, which show that can
get three times much doing.
The gas producer, which tested by the govern
ment at the Louis exposition, is we'll known
that 1t is in all the country and it is doing
much to drive out the steam boiler It has aided in
the development of the gas engine and today four
cycle. twin-tandem, double-acting engines of 1000
200 horsepower be found in all up-to-date
steel plants and there some installations where
the engines contain several units each rated at $500
horsepower.
In the production of gas the coal is put into what
looks like mighty steel boiler stood upon end. II
is great furnace cylinder Of steel The coal is
put in at the top which is then closed and a forced
draft soon converts it into There lie smoke,
the combustion is perfect, and the gas passes out
through pipe into engine IN which It produces
the In this the saving s great that
60e-horsepower gas engine will $4,000 a year
in its coal bills over the power steam engine,
and the saving on a s.00o-horsepower gas engine
would amount TO something like ST.. 900 year In
deed, the saving 10 great that many OF our fac
tories dseardng the steam plants introducing
the gas producer It is now used in the svbways of