Show IF THIS STORY IS TRUE commenting under the above heading upon the story of the alleged disco discovery ery by a man named benson whose home is in niles mich of a means of converting coal into power without the great attendant waste and entirely eliminating the smoke nuisance nuisance of present methods the rural weekly says we all know that when we burn coal to make steam most of its energy goes up in smoke and is wasted in other ways we waste it in a manner like that of eating the skin of the fowl and throwing away the bodaford body ford or drinking inking the foam from the glasso glassband and throwing away the liquid with our coal supply in danger of exhaustion the story from niles becomes interesting the inventor is to ito arird up the coal into po p powder o der and force it into a hot retort with cal laden air where it suddenly explodes and enters a rh chamber amberst at a pressure of five hundred pounds to the square inch being all consumed and driving the engine with no smoke or other waste aste the united states government has discovered that co aldust is explosive plo long ago agn it was found by the blowing up of several faoul homing ing emills in minneapolis that the dust of cheat is as explosive as gunpowder scientists have long 1019 considered consid e red the explosion of powder dynamite and nitro nitre glycerine a possible modes mode of run iring machinery so that the ex of powdered fuel in a chamber ae as a d driving rr ing force for mechanism is incredible a it may at first seem even if th the michigan stor story Y be not ibue the direct con conversion of coal to pow r may be looked for in F some ome alad similar r way abany at any time what would be the effect of such a discovery all the steam engines would be at onse once out of date ships and locomotives would carry only a pound of fuel where they now carry a tho thousand lisand electricity would become w cheap that it would be cheaper to heat and cook wit with h it than to burn coal power from plants using coal would be cheaper than water power the sawdust from a it furniture factory powdered and converted into po power aoud run the machinery machiner y for half a dozen factories of equal size the tile independent coal operators would be aole to furnish all the tile coal needed in the country and the trust would have to buy all the mines or go 30 out of business the lil li anite bite beds of the festl west 1 would yield more coal than the whole I 1 nation could use warships would be able to sail twice around the world with a tenth of their present quota of fuel firemen would be out of jobs the stoking would be done with a little dust carrier the size of a toy the car shortage on the railways would be a thing of the past the farmers could powder their straw convert it into power and generate electricity to light and heat their houses and do their cooking the inoke of the cities would be a thing of the past london fog would pass away with pittsburg smoke the standard oil company would be put out of business by cheap electricity tri city baer would be strip stripped ped bare coal enough for great grea t factories could be shipped anywhere at a nominal cost post A new era would be ushered in the effect on the man who has nothing to sell but his labor would be what Fig figure figureoa on that a minute |