INTRODUCTION. 
By J. A. Holmes. 
ORGANIZATION. 
The authority for continuing at St. Louis, Mo., the investigation of the fuel values and 
possibilities of the coals and lignites of the United States, inaugurated at the Louisiana 
Purchase Exposition in 1904, is contained in the act of Congress making appropriation for 
the sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1906. This 
act carried an item of $202,000 "for the analyzing and testing of the coals, lignites, and 
other fuel substances of the United States in order to determine their fuel values, and so 
forth, under the supervision of the Director of the United States Geological Survey." 
This appropriation became available within a few days subsequent to the passage of the 
bill (March 3, 1905) and the investigations were resumed May 1, following. The appropri- 
ation covers the period from May 1, 1905, to July 1, 1906, but the present preliminary 
report covers the period from May 1 to December 31, 1905. During this period the work 
has been carefully conducted and the methods of procedure improved, as compared with 
those used during the Exposition period, but the scope of the work has, as heretofore, been 
largely limited to a series of comparative tests, made as nearly as possible under similar 
conditions, of the samples of bituminous coal and lignite collected from the different coal 
fields of the United States. 
LOCATION AND BUILDINGS. 
The plant in which these investigations are carried on has remained at its original loca- 
tion in Forest Park, in the city of St. Louis, Mo., the grounds formerly occupied by the 
Exposition. 
The preliminary installation of the plant included a chemical laboratory, a boiler and 
engine house, a storage and washery building, two buildings for briquetting purposes, a 
drying plant, and three full-size beehive coke ovens, all of which, with the exception of 
the building containing the chemical laboratory, were, as previously reported, furnished at 
the expense of the United States Government. The chemical laboratory, during the Expo- 
sition period, was installed in a building occupied during the Exposition as a metal pavilion, 
but now utilized for cement-testing investigations. To the group of fuel-testing buildings 
have been added two others left from the Exposition — one a foundry building, 100 by 125 
feet, for coking investigations, into which the chemical laboratory has been transferred; 
the other a building now used for offices which was formerly the State building of South 
Dakota. The foundry building was supplied by the Exposition company without charge; 
the office building, a 12-room house about 150 yards from the boiler plant, was leased from 
private parties, and a small monthly rental is paid. 
The facilities at the plant for the storage of coal received for testing purposes have been 
largely increased. In the original washery building there were four 35-ton and two 17-ton 
bins. To these have been added five 35-ton bins on the northwest side of the washery 
building, immediately over the railway track; four 25-ton bins on the northwest side of 
the boiler room, and three 50-ton auxiliary bins on the ground adjacent to the coke ovens. 
Two 5-ton bins have been added on the gas-producer platform. These have brought the 
storage capacity from 175 tons in 1904 up to 610 tons in 1905. 
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