1070 THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



some: of the: various types 01^ FOREIGN BRIQUETS 



Briquets range in size from little fellows no larger than a small hen's egg, intended for 

 domestic use, to blocks considerably larger than an ordinary building brick 



weather for almost an indefinite period. 

 Briquets do not deteriorate, either in 

 physical quality or in heat value, in being 

 stored for several years in the open. A 

 briquetting plant established at the mines 

 w^ill allow an operator to produce coal to 

 the maximum of his lump-coal require- 

 ment and briquet such of the fine coal 

 as does not find a ready sale. These 

 briquets can be stored and shipped when 

 coal cars are idle to some common dis- 

 tributing point, there to be held in stor- 

 age until the price warrants their sale." 



REMARKABEK RESULTS FROM GOVERNMENT 

 EXPERIMENTS 



The government's experiments and in- 

 vestigations with reference to briquets, 

 like other phases of its fuel inquiries, 

 have been productive of astonishing re- 

 sults. Based on these tests made by the 

 Geological Survey and now being con- 

 tinued by the new Bureau of Mines, 

 briquetted coal, for use at least by rail- 

 way locomotives and steamships, has a 



bright future. Briquets are shown to 

 have produced greatly increased energy, 

 and, under forced drafts, proved them- 

 selves much more nearly smokeless than 

 run-of-mine coal of the best quality. It 

 has, indeed, been confidently predicted 

 that the war vessel of the future will 

 have its smoke problem solved as effect- 

 ually as has been the smoke question on 

 the firing line since the introduction of 

 smokeless gunpowder. 



In 1 6 comparative test trips on the At- 

 lantic Coast Line Railroad, made under 

 the supervision of the Geological Survey, 

 aggregating 1,984 miles, briquets proved 

 superior on every count. Ton for ton, 

 the briquets ran the cars more miles than 

 did the coal, and ran them faster. The 

 following figures tell the tale : 



Pounds consumed Car miles run 



Briquets 161,980 12,896 



Coal 172,700 10,912 



Stated another way, it required, to run 

 each car mile, 15.8 pounds of coal, but 



