April 15, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



617 



the coalescence of ' brood families or oachiras.' 

 He detailed the rights and privileges of the 

 oachiras and those of the clan which are more 

 extended. Clan names are of some attribute 

 of an animal rather than the name of the ani- 

 mal. In this connection Mr. Hewitt said that 

 game animals were believed to be in duty 

 bound to sustain man. The phratry , was de- 

 scribed as made up of several clans forming 

 a unit for the celebration of festivals and 

 ceremonies. The names of the Seneca clans 

 with their meanings were given. The Iro- 

 quois League was organized like the clans by 

 the rank or age of each unit giving a right 

 to a certain place around the council fii-e. A 

 very interesting branch of Mr. Hewitt's sub- 

 ject was the description of the method of 

 transaction of business in council, when the 

 matter imder discussion was ' thrown across 

 the fire ' from side to side by the representa- 

 tives of the different tribes. This valuable 

 paper will appear in a forthcoming number 

 of the American Anthropologist. 



Walter Hough, 

 General Secretary. 



THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OP SCIENCES. 

 SECTION OF GEOLOGY" AND MINERALOGY. 



A REGULAR meeting of the section was held 

 at the American Museum of Natural History, 

 Monday evening, March 21, with the vice- 

 president. Professor James F. Kemp, in the 

 •chair. Two papers were upon the program 

 for reading. The first of these was by Mr. 

 H. H. Wotherspoon, Jr., upon ' The Recent 

 Advances in the Utilization of Peat and 

 Lignite.' 



The author said in part that the question 

 as to the derivation of the fuel supply of the 

 world is becoming more and more important. 

 Por years Europeans have been striving to 

 devise a fuel to take the place of wood and 

 coal. Eeeent advances in the price of coal 

 in the United States have directed attention 

 in this country along the same lines. In 

 Europe, and particularly in Germany, many 

 factories have been established for the com- 

 pression of lignite, or brown coal, and peat 

 into briquettes. 



The principal deposits of lignite are near 



Berlin and Cologne. The larger of these is 

 south and east of Berlin and is known as the 

 Lausitz district. About 280 factories for the 

 manufacture of briquetted fuel, with a total 

 of 680 presses, have been established in these 

 two regions, and their output in 1902 was 

 approximately 12,438,000 metric tons. The 

 briquettes are about 7 inches long, 2J inches 

 wide and IJ inches thick, with rounded cor- 

 ners. Their wholesale price in the larger 

 German cities is between $2.10 and $2.25 per 

 metric ton. 



Excellent briquettes have been made from 

 the lignite of Alabama, but the experiments 

 with the lignites of North Dakota have been 

 less successful. The calorific value of the 

 Gei-man briquettes is from 7,500 to 9,000 

 B.T.U.'s. True peat and other bog matter 

 is becoming of importance in the manufacture 

 of briquetted fuel. The process of manufac- 

 ture which has been employed in Canada has 

 depended upon heat for the expulsion of the 

 major part of the contained moisture. This 

 has been an unsatisfactory method, because 

 the temperature (280° P.) necessarily em- 

 ployed has weakened the natural cementing 

 qualities of the bog material. 



The German method which has been very 

 successful is to break up rapidly and thor- 

 oughly the cellular structure of the partly 

 decomposed vegetable matter. This sets free 

 the water from the plant fiber without injur- 

 ing the cementing material. In the process 

 part of the moisture is squeezed out of the 

 mass, and the remainder evaporates rapidly 

 on exposure to the air. The briquettes are 

 ready to use in about two weeks after leaving 

 the machine. Their calorific value is greater 

 than that of the briquettes made from lignite. 



The briquettes made from American bog 

 matter seem to be as good as the European. 

 The percentage of ash is high, but the ash is 

 very free in character. This characteristic, 

 together with the absence of sulphur, makes 

 the fuel work well under boilers. Wherever 

 transportation charges bring the cost of coal 

 up to seven or eight dollars a ton, it is ad- 

 visable for Americans to investigate the mat- 

 ter of utilizing neighboring bogs as a source 

 of fuel supply. 



