coal: the resource and its full utilization. 
13 
plishment waits upon a constructive economic policy which recog- 
nizes in true perspective the pivotal importance of coal products. 
The significance of the coal-products field and the need for its 
adequate expansion has been dwelt upon at length, because this 
matter concerns not merely the portion of bituminous coal made into 
coke, but bears with peculiar meaning upon the utilization of the 
much larger portion consumed as fuel. 
Having examined the coke industry and observed its main pur- 
pose, the production of metallurgical coke, and the incidental recovery 
of by-products on the part of nearly half of the activity, we may ask 
if this industry can not extend its scope so as to produce a surplus 
of coke which may be applied to fuel use. The answer is in the 
negative. Coke, being designed for another purpose, is not a satis- 
factory fuel. While smokeless in combustion, its cellular structure 
gives it an intensity of combustion and susceptibility to chill that 
renders its control troublesome. Even a radical change in furnace 
design can not be expected to overcome this difficulty. Moreover, 
the coke industry is centralized, subject to marked fluctuations 
according to the demand for iron, and has not yet succeeded in mod- 
ernizing more than half of its practice. Besides, its by-product 
manufacture is complicated and costly. Metallurgical coke, then, 
must be dismissed as an impracticable general-service fuel. The 
by-product coking practice, however, illustrates the principle of full 
coal-value utilization and therefore points the way toward progress 
in respect to fuel coal. Modified by-product plants, simpler than 
by-product coke ovens, producing a non-cellular carbonized residue 
and located near the points of utilization, represent the lesson to be 
drawn from the coke industry. 
Ill, 
We may turn next to the gas industry to ascertain if this activity 
is capable of adaptation so as to contribute an adequate smokeless 
fuel for domestic and power consumption. This industry consists 
of a great number of separate plants, distributed, one or more each, 
among the cities of the country. 1 In the aggregate these plants con- 
sume about 1 per cent of the annual coal production of the country. 
Their prime purpose is to manufacture gas, and this they do without 
adequate regard to the complete recovery of by-products, although 
many plants effect a partial recovery of ammonia and tar, and some 
gas-house coke is put upon the market. Apart from the oil-gas 
plants on the Pacific coast, in which petroleum is used because of its 
relative cheapness in that region, the gas industry of the country 
employs coal as its raw material. 
There are over 900 artificial- gas plants in the United States, exclusive of hy-product coke ovens. 
