52 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1359 



the requirements of the pufelie. This is particu- 

 larly so in regions where natural gas has been 

 used. Gas is more convenient, more economical 

 and safer to use than any other fuel. There are 

 in nature three potential sources of raw materials 

 adequate for the production of a future domestic 

 supply of manufactured gas. These three poten- 

 tial sources are bituminous shale, oil and coal. 

 Artificial gas, as produced on a commercial scale, 

 consists of the following varieties: Shale gas, oil 

 gas, producer gas, water gas, carburetted water 

 gas, coal and coke oven gas. The manufacture of 

 a domestic supply of water gas, enriched with nat- 

 ural gas, serves two purposes — (1) It conserves in 

 the highest possible manner our natural resources 

 of coal, oil and gas and (2) it insures to the public 

 an adequate supply at all times of a clean, uniform 

 gas at the lowest possible cost. Natural gas com- 

 panies should no longer be permitted to sell nat- 

 ural gas as such at ridiculously low rates but 

 should be required to utilize it in the highest pos- 

 sible way, viz.: as a means of enriching artificial 

 gas. Such use of this natural resource wUl insure 

 to the public, for many years to come, a supply of 

 gas at a cost othervrise impossible. 



The commercial realisation of low temperature 

 carbonisation : De. Hakrt A. Curtis. The carbo- 

 eoal process for converting bituminous coal into 

 a uniform, smokeless fuel resembling anthracite 

 was developed by the International Coal Products 

 Corporation at its experimental plant in Irvington, 

 N. J. Both small apparatus and commercial size 

 units have been in use there for the past four 

 years, and there has been an opportunity to com- 

 pare the results obtained in laboratory tests with 

 those of plant operation. In the carbocoal process 

 the crushed coal is carlbonized first at a low tem- 

 perature (900° F.), the resulting semi-coke is then 

 ground and briquetted with pitch. The briquets 

 are finally carbonized at somewhat below coke- 

 oven temperature (1800° F.). The resulting fuel, 

 carbocoal, is hard, dense, smokeless, and free- 

 burning. More than a hundred coals, including a 

 wide range of bituminous coals and lignites, have 

 been tried in the process, and apparently any coal 

 can be used successfully. Construction of the com- 

 mercial plant at Clinohfield, Va., was begun during 

 the war aa a government war project. It was 

 finally completed and put into operation in June, 

 1920. Its capacity is between five and six hun- 

 dred tons of raw coal per day. (Lantern slides 

 showing construction of commercial plant, yields 

 of by-products, etc.) 



Fuel conservation, present and future: Horace 

 C. Porter. 



Some factors affecting the sulfur content of coke 

 and gas in the carionisation of coal: Alfred R. 

 Powell. 



The distribution of the forms of sulfur in the 

 coal led: H. F. Yancey and Thomas Fraser. A 

 study has been made of the quantitative distribu- 

 tion of the forms of sulfur, namely pyritic and 

 organic sulfur, in coal as it occurs in the various 

 sections or benches of the seam. About 120 

 samples were collected at twenty working places in 

 three mines, one operating in the number six seam 

 in southern Illinois, one in the number nine and the 

 other in the number twelve bed in western Ken- 

 tucky. At each face the seam was divided into 

 from four to eight benches and was represented by 

 a corresponding number of samples. Some of the 

 samples were taken at places in the bed which 

 showed the coal intergrown and interbedded with 

 lenses, bands, and cat-faces of pyrite. The pur- 

 pose of the work was to determine if a relation 

 exists between pyritic and organic sulfur, and in 

 case segregations or concentrations of organic 

 sulfur were found to exist, to associate such occur- 

 rences with other impurities or specific recogniz- 

 able conditions. The data secured indicate no defi- 

 nite and absolute relationship between quantitative 

 amounts of pyritic and organic sulfur in a given 

 bed or sample. Samples taken at five faces in 

 one mine indicate, in the majority of instances, 

 that an increase in pyritic sulfur is accompanied 

 by a decrease in organic sulfur. This is not uni- 

 formly true and the data do not warrant any such 

 generalization, except to say that high pyritic sul- 

 fur and visible segregations of iron pyrite are not 

 indicative of high organic sulfur content. 



Charles L. Parsons, 



Secretary 



SCIENCE 



A Weekly Journal devoted to the Advancement of 

 Science, publishing the official notices and pro- 

 ceedings of the American AssociatioD for 

 the Advancement of Science 



Published every Friday by 



THE SCIENCE PRESS 



LANCASTER. PA. GARRISON. N. Y. 



NEW YORK. N. Y. 



Elnteied in the po«t-«fficc At Lancutcr. Ps.» u Kcond dan Dimtter 



