i 7 6 



FUELS AND THEIR USES 



2. TO MAKE AN ORDINARY SAFETY MATCH. 



3. TO MAKE A FIRE BY PRIMITIVE MEANS WITHOUT MATCHES, 

 BURNING GLASS, OR FLINT AND STEEL. 



4. DIFFERENT METHODS OF BUILDING A FIRE AND REGULATING 



IT WHEN BUILT. 



Sources of fuel. Everybody is familiar with the mate- 

 rials used commonly as fuels such as coal, gas, oil, wood, 



and alcohol. Most 

 fuels come originally 

 from plants, that is, 

 they are organic in 

 origin. Coal, which 

 seems like rock, is 

 really nothing more 

 or less than gradually 

 transformed bodies 

 of dead plants. 

 Prints of leaves and 

 sometimes whole 

 trunks of trees all 

 now transformed 

 into coal are found 

 in coal mines. 

 Specimens of them 



may be seen in our museums. Millions of years ago vegeta- 

 tion became collected in swamps, sank into the earth, and 

 other materials came to lie over this mass of organic matter. 

 Then came pressure, heat, and moisture acting together on 

 this plant material, gradually driving off some of it and leav- 

 ing a hard substance made up very largely of the element car- 

 bon. In some places simitar swamps exist now and are called 

 peat bogs, a poor kind of fuel being dug from them, which, 



Coal beds in the earth. 



