Omaha daily bee., 1911-09-17

state has 100000 acres of Ignite. Its coal beds
large South Carolina Indiana, and they
be easily mined. Montana has about 800, 000,-
600 900 tons of such coal, New Mexico has 1870 OOO-
600 900 tons, while Texas has 2S, 900 900 900 BY
the gas producer this all be turned into power,
and that in the places where power is much needed,
and where, at present 1t is produced by costly east
coal, transported hundreds and thousands of
miles for the purpose.
The future of the gas engine or rather of the
internal combustion engine, the officials of the
bureau of mines prefer to call it, is beyond concep
ton. Prof Fernad, the engineer in charge of the
gas producer tests, says that it will down
bills somewhere between 800 900 900 and $500 OOO
900 year. He says that some day there will be
great central plants situated at the coal fields
throughout the country which will generate power to
railroads and factories Each of these will
be connected with electric system which can dis
tribute the power radius of $50 miles, each
center covering possible of five times that of
Ohio Kentucky, much either Germany or
France.
With ten twelve such plants located at the vari-
GUS mine centers, the great railroad systems could
send their trains from the Atlantic the Pacific and
from Hudson bay to the Gulf Of Mexico Then the
will move by electricity, the smoke nuisance
will be obliterated, and will be able to cross the
continent without 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 II is
testlnB locomotives between Rochester and
Buffalo The Pennsylvania is operating electric trains
between Atlantic City and Philadelphia and the New
York, New Haven & Hartford is running its trains
from New York to Stamford by electric power The
great steel plant at Gary Ind, has gas engines which
developing loo, 900 horsepower They are
operated by the gases which would ordinarily waste
They come from the furnaces and the fuel costs moth
Ing 1t will be with every large plant of the future
three thousand horsepower can be found in all our
They are putting gas engines the great ships of
the world, and they will be eventually used by the
naves of the future Prof Fernad says that the
United States will probably distance the other nations
in this regard He advises that gunboats be run
by gas instead of steam, saying that the gas will make
no smoke, and that it be used in the producer
which has no chimney and needs none. He says the
coming war vessel will be a swift, smokeless noise
less craft lying low 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 being used on some of the
big ocean liners, and it is said that the steamships
OF the Great Lakes are about to adopt them One of
the big freighters there has plans for 2 OOO-horse
power gas engine of the marine type the idea being
ocean liners OF them consume as much as 10 600
tons OF high-gTade coal on a round trip With gas
engine this could be cut to 5000, with saving of
hundreds OF dollars a day.
The gas producer experiments show, so I am told
at the Bureau of Mines that smoke can be practically
obliterated from our large manufacturing cities As
II is now the most of the smoke comes from the rail-
roads and factories 1t is estimated that 500 tons OF