NEW USES FOR BROWN GOAL.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 132, 7 June 1906, Page 4

NEW USES FOR BROWN GOAL.

The London correspondent of the Melbourne Age writes:— -^ There are great commercial possibilities, according to experts (among them Professor R..W. Emerson MacIvor), in a method of converting brown coal into a fertiliser which has been discovered by Mr J. Simpson, a Scotch engineer and chemist, who has been concerned with various inventions in London for some years. The discovery arose naturally, it appears, out of a process which he has lately invented for removing volatile sulphur from coke. The great steel makers of England, Germany, and the United States have been- trying at intervals extending over more than 50 years to purify the fuel used in their industry, but they have never quite succeeded. The best coke they can produce still contains nearly 1 per cent of sulphur, and, in order to obtain this result, they are obliged to make their coke from a limited variety of coals in which the proportion of sulphur is small. Mr Simpson deals with the coke in a vacuum, and claims that he has succeeded in totally eliminating the sulphur, and that fuel of the necessary purity for the manufacture of steel can now be made from any class of coal.

In the course of his tests with a small plant constructed for this purpose, he experimented with some Victorian lignite, and found that, besides desulphurising it, be was able to reduce it to a state of perfect calcination, and yet retain practically the whole of his carbon. In this form it should become a fertiliser of high value, especially for clayey soils. An analysis of Morwell coal treated by the process has been made at the laboratory of the Imperial Institute, and found to contain no less than 91 peFcent. of carbon. Another sample was submitted to Professor Maclvor, and he reports as follows:—"The sample of lignite charcoal sent to me the other day is in excellent physical condition for agricultural and horticultural purposes, being porous and highly absorptive. The percentage of fixed carbon is most satisfactory. Mr Simpson's discovery of a practical method of calcinating lignite without appreciably losing carbon I regard as very important. This lignite charcoal should prove as efficient and useful for agricultural purposes as the powdered wood charcoal with which extensive experiments were made years ago by scientific agriculturists and chemists. The discovery of a method of producing so pure a quality of lignite charcoal, in my opinion, solves a great industrial problem; and having regard to the vast and practically inexhaustible quantities of lignite in Australia and elsewhere to be obtained at nominal cost, the commercial aspect of the discovery is most important." It will be- remembered that Professor Maclvor was for a period principal of the Government Technical College at Sydney, and that h P acted at intervals as consulting chemist to the Governments of New South Wales, Victoria uid bouth Australia, and to the Aeri?u!tural Society of Victoria The opinions of and other experts on the value of powdered charcoal as a fertiliser have been recorded in various scientific publications from time to time. They all agree that it is not only one of the best known enrichers of the soil but by far the most lasting. Its value consists chiefly in is power of absorbing carbonic acid and ammonia from the air and supplying them to tho growing plants and crops. According to "Morton's Cyclopaedia of Agriculture," a frae ment of freshly burnt charcoal "condenses as much as 90 times its bulk of ammoniacal gas and 35 times its volume of carbonic acid—the prin cipal food of organic plants." Though long recognised to be a valuable restorative for exhausted soils, powdered wood charcoal has been little used hitherto owing to the relatively high cost of preparing it, and efforts made in the past to use lignite as a substitute have failed because the methods of purification and calcination employed have deprived it of most of its carbon, the coal having usually been al-

most reduced to ashes. This difficulty appears to be completely overcome by Mr Simpson's process, judging from the reports of the analysts to whom he has submittel samples of his calcined coal, which, in its finished state, closely resembles ordinary black gunppwder. A company has been organised to put the process into operation on a large scale in the United States, and other companies are now being formed in London to work it in England, Australia (beginning in Victoria), Germany, France, and Belgium. It is anticipated that there will be a large sale of the fertiliser in view of its cheapness, and that its intrinsic merits will, apart from considerations of cost, ensure its being preferred to nitrate of soda in many cases. An idea of the extent of the field open to it may be inferred from the fact that 1,500,000 tons of nitrate of soda, valued at more than £12,000,000, were imported into Great Britain last year. Of the same fertiliser the Continent and America imported about 4,000,----000 tons. Mr Simpson and other experts, who have considered the matter, estimate that the lignite fertiliser can be sold for £3 10s per ton. They calculate the cost of making and marketing it at about 30s per ( ton, and believe that a considerable separate profit will be derived from certain by - products to be obtained in the course of manuturo. The Australian company how in course of formation will start with £25,000 capital, and later, when the business has been established on a commercial basis, it will be taken over and extended, according to present arrangements, by a larger company.

A former resident of Wellington who now occupies an important position in Natal, writing to a friend in that city, thus refers to the poll-tax:—"l suppose you have heard of the poll-tax imposed on us by this intelligent Gevornment. It applies to all males, black and white, over the age of eighteen, and of all the outrageous taxes ever devised, this one, I think, ' takes the biscuit.' The poor unfortunate coolie, in receipt of his £6 per year, has to pay his £1 as well as the most fraudulent millionaire. The natives are now paying the tax very reluctantly, but not before its collection has cost much more than the tax will produce. I don't believe one-half the tax has been collected yet, and people are being continually accosted by policemen, who are the collectors, and asked if they have paid yet. If the tax is continued next year, the natives will almost certainly rise, but I think the Government have already got a good lesson, for they have shot fourteen natives, and are still chasing Bambaata who, with four or five hundred followers, has hidden away in a thick forest, which has never before been trodden bjr man. ... It really looks as if the Government were trying to force the natives into rebellion. . . . In spite of all the talk about the 'black peril,' there are over 30,000 indentured Indian coolies about to arrive, though the country is swarming with them already; in fact, there are now more Indians than whites in this colony, and the number is increasing annually. I could tell you much more about the doings of our intelligent Government, but my letter would be too long. I am determined to return to good old New Zealand, never to leave it again, for no New Zealander would consent to live under such a Government as ours is."