April 26, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



401 



firing of a pile of 100,000 tons at Superior, 

 Wisconsin. 



A number of chemists and engineers have 

 been quite diligently at work for a number 

 of years on this problem of the storage of 

 coal, and the interesting point is that these 

 results are now available in such form as 

 to furnish a practical contribution to this 

 very important problem and it is certainly 

 an opportune time for this work to have 

 been completed. The summarj-^ of it all 

 seems to be : 



First: That coal can be stored in large 

 masses with a very fair degree of safety 

 from spontaneous combustion, and 



Second : That the loss of heat values due 

 to weathering or other deterioration proc- 

 esses is practically negligible. 



As confirmatory at least of the first of 

 these conclusions the ease may be cited of a 

 large power and lighting concern which for 

 some time has been putting in practise the 

 principles involved in the proper storage of 

 coal and indeed had a very considerable 

 stock on hand. During the recent freight 

 embargo due to weather conditions this 

 company was able to continue its service 

 without interruption by drawing upon its 

 reserve supplies. Only an occasional car of 

 coal was received from the mines by this 

 concern for 30 days immediately following 

 the 5th day of January, 1918. What this 

 meant to the operating end of the system 

 and the community which it served may be 

 realized when it is known that the fuel de- 

 mand of their boilers amounted to from 

 6,000 to 7,000 tons per day. Here in fact 

 was a storage supply that could be drawn 

 upon and was drawn upon to the extent 

 of over 200,000 tons. The practicability of 

 storing western bituminous coals was thus 

 strikingly demonstrated. The chemists 

 have worked out the fundamental prin- 

 ciples involved. It is up to the engineers 

 to apply them. The storage of coal having 



been shown to be possible it at once be- 

 comes an industrial as well as a war meas- 

 ure of very great importance. 



Not greatly distant from the coal ques- 

 tion is the subject of coke. We can not 

 win wars without iron and we can not make 

 iron without coke. Previous to 1914 the 

 by-product method of coke manufacture 

 was making steady but slow gains upon the 

 almost criminally wasteful process as car- 

 ried out in the bee-hive oven. Approxi- 

 mately 75 per cent, of all the coke produced 

 in the United States came from bee-hive 

 ovens. For the current year, 1918, it is 

 estimated that the by-product ovens will 

 produce 50 per cent, of the total yield. 

 Something can be understood as to the 

 magnitude of this change when it is re- 

 called that an equipment of bee-hive ovens 

 can be built and put into commission for 

 a few thousand dollars while for a by- 

 product equipment the cost is hardly less 

 than from $3,000,000 to $5,000,000. It is 

 doubtful if anything has occurred during 

 the last four years that will more profoundly 

 affect our industrial activities than this 

 revolution in our coking process. In the old 

 bee-hive oven all of the volatile constituents 

 of the coal were burnt and lost unless we 

 count the heat produced as having some 

 value in the formation of the coke. But 

 that procedure was like burning up five 

 dollars' worth of high-grade material to 

 produce five cents' worth of low-grade heat. 

 The only product of the bee-hive oven was 

 coke. In the by-product oven the coke has 

 almost come to be the by-product while the 

 volatile or liquid material might be looked 

 upon as the item of chief interest. For 

 illustrating a point a little further along it 

 will be worth while at this point to men- 

 tion a few more important of these constitu- 

 ents. We will not stop to name them all, 

 since potentially at any rate, their number 

 would be about 7,000. 



