To further emphasize the extent of the present enormous waste of gas in coke making operations, and as a confirmation of the fact that I was well within bounds, in my previous figures in reference thereto, the following data is submitted, taken from another report of the U. S. Government, which was issued from the Department of the Interior, on "Illuminating and Fuel Gas and By products," by Mr. William B. Phillips, dated 1899, and giving results for the year 1898.

It shows that the returns from 433 gas companies in various States, sent in as called for by the Government, were as follows:— Massachusetts heading the list with 45 companies; New York State and Ohio with 41 each; California and Illinois 26 each; Pennsylvania 22; Michigan 21; Indiana and Missouri 13 each, and so on.

The production of gas in these 433 cities and towns, is given in round figures as follows:

The coal used in making the above quantity of coal gas was 2,042,698 net tons, showing an average production in coal gas of 9,531 feet per net ton. So that the coal used in coke making in the United States (as given by Mr. Parker at 30,219,343 net tons) is upwards of fourteen times as great in quantity as that used in coal gas making, in the 433 cities and towns just referred to. And. the gas wasted therefrom (taking it at 4,000 feet per net ton, which could easily and profitably be recovered) would supply the 433 cities and towns with gas at their present total rate of consumption of coal, water and oil gas 23 times over; which greatly exceeds my previous conservative calculations. When this gigantic stream of waste shall be converted into a stream of profit, as it will surely be in the not distant future, it will very considerably alter the present aspect of gas affairs in many sections of the United States. There have been some notable and costly experiences to gas companies in this country, in the past, and history has a remarkable tendency to repeat itself, especially along favorable lines; it will

be well for us, as gas men, to do all in our power to use any new forces that may be developed along the lines of the industry in which we are all so deeply interested, rather than let them get away from us.

Another indication of the possibilities of the extension of the coke business; only recently the Erie Railroad Company has given out that it will abolish the use of soft coal on its passenger trains, out of consideration for the traveling public, and there can be no question but that such a step will remove one great discomfort in railway travel.

It can safely be predicted that other railroad companies will follow suit. In fact, one of the New England railroad companies has already, to a considerable extent, adopted coke as locomotive fuel. And when coke can be made and sold with a reasonable margin of profit, at considerably lower prices than hard coal, (except for the buckwheat and smaller sizes of anthracite, which until the last few years have been mostly waste) the coke business will grow.

That this enormous waste just referred to, can, and will eventually be avoided, is beyond question. In some parts of Europe the By-product Retort Oven has practically driven the beehive oven out of the field, because the fact has been so abundantly proven, that a considerably larger percentage of coke, from a given quantity of coal can be produced from the Retort oven than from the beehive, for the reason that in the beehive there is a large waste, partly by the admission of air, to burn the gases inside the oven, to heat the oven itself, and also in other ways that need not be detailed here; while the retort oven is externally heated, by a portion only of the gas produced, which is entirely wasted in the beehive; and to-day it is a great anomaly to find that this great progressive country has, in this respect, lagged so far behind other countries, by sticking to the old beehive oven. Fortunately for the great coke making industries of Pennsylvania, they have been so prosperous, and profits have been so satisfactory, that the savings to be effected by the recovery of the by-products, have hitherto been almost entirely ignored.

But the conditions of modern commercial enterprise and activities, make it impossible for such known waste to be permitted for very long.

As existing sets of ovens wear out, and renewals have to be

effected, the shrewd and able men at the head of the coke business cannot afford to overlook the possibilities of improvement; nor are they likely to do so, because the matter is no longer one of doubt or question, but of abundantly demonstrated facts, the proofs of which are easily obtainable. And if they do ignore the matter there are others who will probably not be slow to take advantage of the opportunities presented.

The efforts being made in all progressive cities and towns for the suppression of the soft coal smoke nuisance is opening such a field for smokeless fuel, that with hard coal at present rates, it should create such a demand for vast quantities of coke as may, and probably will, change the factor of the problem from the gas to the coke side of the question, in the not distant future.

A very significant remark in the report of Mr. Parker, is as follows:

"There seems to be no reason to doubt that the by-product ovens will eventually supersede the beehive, at least in great part. The question as to whether the coke from these Retort ovens is the primary product or the by-product, is determined by the location of the plant, and the demands of the particular locality."

It seems to me quite safe to take a step further than this and say, that as coke for foundry and other purposes is used in all parts of the country, and has to be freighted there, from the centres of coke production, there is no reason whatever why the coal should not be freighted instead of the coke, to the centres where the gas and other by-products can be more readily and profitably disposed of. And therefore, as the use of the by-product oven is extended, as it will be, the gas aspect of the question must not be lost sight of by gas men, who must be prepared to meet the changing condition of the gas business due to the use of retort ovens for coke making.

The products from retort ovens are practically the same as from the ordinary retorts; analyses in the appended table abundantly prove that the gases from the oven and the retort are so similar in every respect, as to enable it to be said, that there is practically no difference between them; except that in the gas from the retort ovens, mainly on account of the larger mass of coal carbonized at a time, the longer periods of distillation, and the leaner coals generally dealt with, the illuminating power of the average

ANALYSES OF COAL GASES, AND GAS FROM SEMET-SOLVAY RETORT OVENS.

NOTE. The figures for the Paris and British Gas Companies are taken from Mr. Norton C. Humphry's "Chemistry of Coal Gas."

gas during the whole period of distillation, is not quite so high as that from the retorts; with coals of the same high percentage of volatile matter as ordinarily used in gas making, and with gas as a consideration, there is no reason why gas of quite as high illuminating power should not be obtained from ovens as from retorts.

The retort oven offers one great advantage from this standpoint over the retort, in that it permits a very simple and effective method of separating the gases at different periods of distillation, which is not practicable with the retorts and would be no advantage with them. Every gas man knows, that in coal gas making, the richer gases come off from the retorts in the first half of the charge; as a matter of course it also does the same from the ovens; and two separate hydraulic mains being provided the rich gases are taken off for lighting purposes and the later, non-illuminating portions which are of great heating value, are utilized for heating the retort ovens. Not only so, but as the gas from the latter half of the charge, contains a considerable portion of Benzene which has a very high illuminating value, this Benzene can be readily and economically extracted from the poorer gases that are to be used for heating and added to the richer portion set apart for lighting, enriching the latter to such an extent as to enable gas of say 20 candle power or over, to be obtained from a coal that, from the retort gas making standpoint, would be considered a very poor one, and scarcely worth the handling for gas making.

As the By-Product Retort Oven has been so frequently and so ably dealt with by others, from the standpoint of its construction, especially by Mr. W. H. Blauvelt, of the Semet-Solvay Company, whose excellent paper on that subject will be found in "The Mineral Industry" for 1895, and by the exhaustive work of Mr. John Fulton, whose treatise on “Coke and the saving of By-Products" contains a mine of information on the subject, and by many others, and the fact proven over and over again that coke can be produced at cheaper rates per ton in a retort oven than in a beehive oven, and how a retort oven will produce coke in 22 to 24 hours equal to the 72 hour production of the beehive oven, I need not deal further with that phase of the question. The subject has impressed itself on my mind more from the gas side of it than any other, because I realize what it means to the gas industry in the future.

I would here refer to the paper of Mr. Peter Young, presented to the