SYMPOSIUM OX SCIENCE AXD RECONSTRUCTION 79 



manufacture has been heretofore the chief generator fuel 

 used in water-gas manufacture, and therefore the require- 

 ments of the water-gas process liave had an important 

 bearing on the selection of coal for coal-gas manufacture. 



To be suitable for use in water-gas making, a fuel, 

 wliether coke or coal, must have fairly good physical 

 strength, so that it will stand transportation and will not 

 break up too much in the generator. It must be low in 

 sulphur, since usually at least one-fourth of the sulphur is 

 transmitted to the gas made. When burned in the water- 

 gas generator, it must not produce a clinker which is too 

 difficult to handle or which obstructs the passage of air too 

 much within a reasonable operating time, nor should the 

 amount of clinker be excessive; /herefore the ash content 

 of the fuel should be as low as possible. 



These specifications as to fuel quality, both for coal-gas 

 and water-gas manufacture, have heretofore narrowed the 

 production of coal for these purposes to certain rather 

 limited areas. Among these the most notable ones in the 

 eastern part of the United States are the Pittsburgh dis- 

 trict and certain areas in West Virginia and eastern Ken- 

 tucky. The enormous growth of the steel industry which 

 uses roughly one ton of coke for every ton of pig iron pro- 

 duced, and the steady growth of the gas industry, even in 

 the face of electrical competition have drawn heavily upon 

 the resources of the best coking coals, and already the 

 necessity is felt for using coals from other regions which 

 even if somewhat inferior to those from the localities just 

 named are at least usable without too radical changes in 

 the gas-making methods and equipment now in use. 



The State of Illinois has enormous bituminous coal re- 

 sources, estimated at about 200 billion tons. This is one- 

 third more than West Virginia, nearly twice as much as 

 Pennsylvania, and more than twice as much as Ohio. Of 

 this enormous amount of coal, very little if any fulfills 

 completely the rigid requirements of the gas and cooking 

 industry. 



In general, it may be said that most of the central dis- 

 trict coals, under present operating methods, produce a 

 softer, more fragile coke, and about 20 per cent less gas 

 per ton than the best eastern gas coals and while the by- 

 product yield is good, most of the central district coals 



