Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-10-31
D. c., Oct 2s.-Any one

UTASHINGTON, D. c., Oct. 26.-Any one
wv who imagnes that prohibition has
materially diminished the Importance
of alcohol is sadly mistaken. Alcohol has
an immense industrial future. If you want
to get rich, start an alcohol still. Provided
you are making industrial alcohol, which
is not potable, the law will not interfere with
you
Within a comparatively short time, alcohol
will be running all of automobiles and
tractors. 1t will be used to produce heat
and light in practically all situations where
kerosene and other petroleum derivatives are
now used
In a recent Haskin letter it was explained
that we would soon have to go direct to
the for heat in order to make
power, because the supply of heat stored
up in coal is steadily diminishing and be-
coming harder to reach We must, there
fore, tap the sun, which is the permanent
source of heat. 1t was explained how this
sun heat can be converted into either steam
or electricity. 1t will then light our homes,
run our factories and pull street cars,
wherever this work cannot be done by water
power. But it will not, of course, run our
jitneys and our motorcycles.
The petroleum upon which we depend for
transportation is diminishing in amount even
more rapidly than coal. Gasoline is becom-
ing more and more expensive and scarce
The government experts say that we will
surely be out of gas in a few years unless
great new deposits of petroleum are dis
covered.
Therefore, we must now discover a per-
manent source of motor fuel to take the
place of the temporary one upon which we
have been drawing, and to supplement the
sun as permanent source of power. Scen-
fists seem to agree that alcohol will furnish
this permanent source of motor fuel. Gov
eminent experts have been studying both the
production of alcohol and yus use as fuel in
motors. Reports on both cases, will soon
be available.
Alcohol will furnish a permanent supply
Of motor fuel because it can be made out
of vegetation, and vegetation can be pro-
duced on the earth Indefinitely. 1t now costs
more to produce alcohol than it does to pro-
duce gasoline, but gasoline is becoming more
expensive all the time, while the cheap and
large-scale production of alcohol, in this coun-
try especially, is just beginning.
Alcohol has already begun to replace gaso-
line abroad In France a fifty-ffty mixture
of alcohol and benZOl is in common use as
motor fuel, and some mixtures of so per
cent alcohol and 20 per cent benzol are
used. In this country alcohol has been tried
as motor fuel both in automobiles and in
tractors. You can use alcohol in an ord-
nary automobile designed to use gasoline,
but you will not get very good results
In a motor designed for the use of alcohol
it will give just as much work, gallon for
gallon, as gasoline. 1t has not as high a
fuel value gasoline, but there is less waste
about it. An alcohol engine Is more efficient
than gasoline engine. 1t is also cleaner
AS you may know, there are two kinds of
alcohol. ethyl alcohol and methyl Cor wood
alcohol. Ethyl alcohol is the kind we use
to drink in the old days. MethyI alcohol
is the kind that some misguided persons drink
these days, causing blindness in some cases
and sudden death in others.
Ethyl alcohol is also the kind that will be
used as a motor fuel. Do not infer from
this, however, that you will have always a
few gallons Of cheering beverage in the gas
tank when alcohol comes into general use
as fuel In order to be made drinkabIe,
ethyl alcohol must be rectified, which con-
sists in distilling it in special way so as
to eliminate fusil oils and other impurities
Most of this industrial alcohol will pre-
sumably contain some of these impurities
and therefore be unfit to drink