Too much credit cannot be given Messrs. Holmes and Wilson, and other officials of the Technologic Branch of the United States Geological Survey, for the investigations described in this paper. They are establishing reasonable standards for many structural materials; they are teaching the manufacturer what he can and should produce, and the consumer what he has a right to demand; with scientific accuracy they are pointing the way to a conservation of our natural resources and to a saving of life which will repay the nation many times for the cost of their work.
When these facts become thoroughly appreciated and digested by the average citizen, these gentlemen and their able assistants will have no further cause to fear the withdrawal of financial or moral support for their work.
HERBERT M. WILSON, M. Am. Soc. C. E. (by letter).--The Fuel Division of the United States Geological Survey has given considerable attention to the use of peat as a fuel for combustion under boiler furnaces, in gas producers, and for other purposes. It is doubtless to this material that Mr. Allen refers in speaking of utilizing "marsh mud for fuel," since he refers to an address by Mr. Edward Atkinson on the subject of "Bog Fuel" in which he characterized peat by the more popular term "marsh mud."
In Europe, where fuel is expensive, 10,000,000 tons of peat are used annually for fuel purposes. A preliminary and incomplete examination, made by Mr. C. A. Davis, of the Fuel Division of the Geological Survey, indicates that the peat beds of the United States extend throughout an area of more than 11,000 sq. miles. The larger part of this is in New England, New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Virginia, and other Coastal States which contain little or no coal. It has been estimated that this area will produce 13,000,000,000 tons of air-dried peat.
At present peat production is in its infancy in the United States, though there are in operation several commercial plants which find a ready market for their product and are being operated at a profit. A test was made at the Pittsburg plant on North Carolina peat operated in a gas producer--the resulting producer gas being used to run a gas engine of 150 h.p.--the load on which was measured on a switch-board. Peat containing nearly 30% of ash and 15% of water gave 1 commercial horse-power-hour for each 4 lb. of peat fired in the producer. Had the peat cost $2 per ton to dig and prepare for the producer, each horse-power-hour developed would have cost 0.4 of a cent. The fuel cost of running an electric plant properly equipped for using peat fuel, of even this low grade, in the gas producer would be about $4 per 100 h.p. developed per 10-hour day.