The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1937-10-07
BY WILLIAM c. UTLEY

By WILLIAM T.. UTLEY
CHORTS may come and un-
- dershirts may go, but with
the first twinge of frosty wealth
er there are still $4,000 men in
the United States who are walk
ing up to store counters and de-
handing red flannel underwear,
adding one hundred thousand
dollars to the $4,000, 900, 900 fund
which this country spends every
year in the business of keeping
warm.
Gone, however, are the days when
digging ear-muffs out of a trunk
in the attic and chopping enough
stove wood to fill the back yard con-
stituted the average mans prepa-
rations for the winter months Then
he was not troubled with the knowl-
edge that has now come to light
through medical research that the
temperature of the human body can
not drop more than five degrees
without causing death in most
cases.
Getting hot''-1937 style-in-
wolves not only coal miners and
wood choppers, but scientists delv-
ing into the mysteries of new kinds
of heat, architects porting over blue
prints for automatically heated
homes, and engineers supervising
the operation of huge machines that
work with machine-gun rapidity,
stamping out the parts for boilers,
burners and electric stoves.
In the first place, there is the
matter of supplying enough fuel to
heat the 100000 homes and g.
100000 commercial structures that
require artificial heat when the
mercury slides down towards the
freezing point.
$500, 00O, 900 for Coal.
All during the summer and fall,
more than 100000 men have been
working with pick and shovel in
mines throughout the country, piling
up mountains of coal for protection
against the arctic blasts to come.
Coal dealers estimate that be-
tween so and go per cent of the coal
bought for heating purposes is SHOW
eled into furnaces during the win
ter months, bringing the United
C&o+o.J ooo1 hill Gov fbie eooc0p Of
the year alone to about $500, 000, 900.
In the oil and gas fields of Okla
homa, Texas, California and Penn
sylvania, an army of 100000 labor
ers is kept busy extracting gas and
fuel oil to aid in the business of
keeping warm. So rapidly has the
heating of houses and buildings with
fuel oil and gas increased in the
past few years, that it is estimated
35,000,0 900 barrels of fuel oil will be
needed this winter to keep modern
furnaces roaring, and the bill will
reach the staggering total of more
than $50, 1000, 900.
Shivering house owners will dig
down into their pockets for another
$3.50 ,OOO, 900 for gas, and additional
thousands of dollars for electricity
to run the most modern of all heat
ing equipment.
Such tremendous expenditures for
fuel were unheard of a generation
or two ago, and in fact the mod
ern trend towards automatic heat
ing which is now sweeping the coun-
try, and piling up huge fuel and
equipment bills, did not begin in
earnest until after the World war.
The Two Kinds of Heat.
Almost all the modern improve
ments in heating equipment which
make life not only possible but COM
Portable in the temperate zone, stem
from experiments conducted not by
isolated research experts, but by
scientists working in the labora-
tories of one of the country's largest
electrical companies that present
day Americans are indebted for
improvements that have come from
the amazing discovery that there
are essentially two kinds of heat:
radiant and convicted.