SCIENCE-SUPPLEMENT 



this problem is the task of the twentietli century 

 and demands the cooperative effort of scientists 

 in all fields. 



' ' The destiny of civilization is guided hj and 

 reflects the amount of available energy, ' ' Dr. 

 Spoehr will say. ' ' When coal and oil are ex- 

 hausted the dailj' ration of solar energy will rep- 

 resent almost the entire means of livelUiood ; our 

 mushroom civilization must pass like the historic 

 empires of the past and we may expect the re- 

 appearance in the world once more of galley slaves 

 and serfs. ' ' 



There is as yet no adequate substitute known 

 for the fossil fuel that we have been using sio 

 lavishly during the last half century. A year 's 

 consumption of coal at the present rate repre- 

 sents the accumulation of hundreds of years. The 

 date of depletion of the petroleum supply of the 

 United States is clearly in sight. "Water power 

 would be insufficient, even if we oould use every 

 drop that fell in the country for running ma- 

 chinery. Alcohol seems the most promising sub- 

 stitute for mineral oils as a motor fuel and this 

 can be made in any quantity by the fermentation 

 of various kinds of vegetable matter. But this 

 in any case requires the setting aside of large 

 areas of land for the purpose. If, for instance, 

 corn were to be used for the manufacture of fuel 

 alcohol it would require more than four states the 

 size of Ohio to grow the corn necessary to pro- 

 duce the seven and a half billion gallons of alco- 

 hol that would be needed to replace the five billion 

 gallons of gasoline now consumed iannually. But 

 we can not afford to reduce our food to furnish 

 our fuel. 



Nature's method of utilizing solar energy by 

 means of the green leaf is, as Dr. Spoehr ivill 

 point out, "exceedingly inefficient and wasteful." 

 But "it is the duty of the scientist to learn the 

 precise manner in which this is accomplished. He 

 need not be timid about competing with nature. 

 He has many cases to his credit of surpassing the 

 processes of nature both in efficiency and relia- 

 bility. The most promising outlook for success 

 in this field would be offered through an organ- 

 ization by which information from the various 

 allied fields can be collected and focussed on the 

 chemical and energy changes taking place in the 

 process of photosynthesis. ' ' 



PEAT MAY SERVE AS LOCAL 

 EMERGENCY FUEL 



Science Service 

 Facing a cold winter with many consumers 

 none too certain of their coal supply, the country 



has had its attention called to the fuel resources 

 of the country as never before. People who 

 have thought of peat as a product of the bogs 

 of Ireland and a poor substitute for wood and 

 coal are beginning to learn that this excellent 

 fuel lies in rich deposits in New England and 

 the lake states, the very regions expected to be 

 hardest hit by the present coal shortage. 



About 20,000,000 tons- of peat are used in 

 Europe every year, but in the United States there 

 are deposits estimated to contain 14,000,000,000 

 tons, an amount sufficient to supply Europe 's 

 present annual rate of use of this material for 

 700 years, it has been estimated by geological 

 experts. 



A large part of this peat is well adapted to 

 power production or for use at the bog for the 

 generation of electricity. The enormous de- 

 posits in New England could be used by the lime 

 and textile industries cheaper than coal, experts 

 believe, while those private consumers living near 

 the peat fields could be economically supplied 

 with peat for open grate fires, fall and spring 

 furnace fuel, kindling and auxiliary fuel for use 

 ivith coal during the severe winter months, and 

 cooking'range fuel. 



Peat represents the arrested decay of vegetable 

 matter. When plant remains fall upon drained 

 soil they are promptly attacked by bacteria and 

 soon disappear, but when the plant falls into 

 water the change is different from decay when 

 exposed to air. The acids formed slow up the 

 decay by destroying the bacteria. 



Peat is produced by this arresting of the de- 

 composition of roots, trunks of trees, twigs, 

 shrubs, mosses and other vegetation saturated or 

 covered with water. It contains a large propor- 

 tion of the carbon of the original plant material. 

 It is almost always a surface deposit, formed 

 under conditions favorable to luxuriant growth 

 of plants and their incomplete decay. 



Most coals were once peats, but it does not 

 follow that the peats will necessarilj' become coal 

 in course of time. When the peat is formed, car- 

 bonization is largely stopped, unless it starts 

 a.gain and the peat bed is buried beneath muds, 

 sandstones, Hmestones, or other deposits of sedi- 

 ment and subjected to heat and pressure, coal 

 will not be created. A twelve or fourteen inch 

 seam of coal is equivalent to a good peat bog 

 twenty feet deep. The largest peat deposit in 

 this country is in Minnesota and covers nearly 

 4,000 square miles or about 2,500,000 acres. 



This fuel has a higher heat value than wood, 

 is more easily ignited than coal, requires less 



