I think that as much has been said in regard to my subject as is necessary; but permit me to add that I believe there is a future for liquid fuels. I do not say tar, but more concentrated fuels, such as crude naphthas, paraffins, and pitch oil. When you see one of our large steamers taking coal into her bunker, it must have appeared to you that there was great waste of power here. Every ton of coal laid in must require a certain amount of power to carry it; and every ton of coal so laid in reduces the cargo-carrying power to this extent. A few gallons of oil will give you the steam-producing power of a ton of coal; and this is a fact which the owners of non-paying steamships should note. Take our locomotives also. Everything I have said in regard to steamships applies to them; and the comfort to the stokers and the general reduction in labor would be very marked indeed. Of course, it may be argued that if there were such a large demand created for oils for furnaces, the old fashioned law of supply and demand might come into play, and so force up the price of the article for which the increased demand had taken place. But I think this state of matters is rather remote, when we bear in mind the great oil wells only now becoming developed, and the oils from which can be run in bulk direct from the wells into ships, and brought to this country at very low rates.--_Journal of Gas Lighting._
Fitness Digest
Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 — Part 28
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