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pg a003a: Preliminary report on the utilization of lignite Publication 15176693.

 
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empires of Germany and Austria, show to what extent these browncoals were used during the year 1890:

Tons mined. Value at mine. Germany ....................................... 15,468,434 $9,967,812 00 Austria........................................... 15,329,056 12,482,603 00 Total ................ .................... 30,697,490 $22,450,415 00 Of which- Rhine Provinces .............................. 661,590 $381,139 00 Halle, a. S. .............................. .... 14,077,382 9,031,238 00 Styria ................. ......................... 2,270,023 2,942,327 00 Bohemia......................................... 12,190,932 8,240,780 00

This amount, over three hundred thousand car loads, is nearly thirty per cent of the entire coal (stone coal and browncoal) production of these empires, which was (for 1890) 104,702,370 tons. Of the total amount of browncoal mined, the district around Halle, Germany, and Bohemia and Styria, in Austria, produced eighty per cent.

The amount of browncoal used in the manufacture of briquettes, coal bricks, tar, paraffine, etc., during the year was a little less than seven million tons, and the remainder—over twenty-three million tons —was used "raw," or just as it came from the mine, without preparation of any kind.

USES OF EUROPEAN BROWNCOAL.

As has already been stated in our circular No. 8 and in the various reports of this Survey, the uses of browncoal are as varied, general and important as those of stone coal. The results of my personal investigations not only fully confirm the statements made heretofore by myself and other members of the Survey, in regard to the availability of the Texas browncoal for fuel purposes, but add greatly to them.

LIGNITE.

When lignite is found in sufficient quantity, it is charred in meilers, kilns or retorts, in the same manner as ordinary wood, and yields a charcoal of similar quality and equally suitable for all fuel purposes. Thus, in lower Styria, where it occurs in great quantities as a part of a browncoal deposit, having a total thickness of over three hundred feet, it is charred in ovens arranged for the recovery of the by-products as well as the charcoal. The charcoal made here is used in iron smelting.

Where the lignite occurs in smaller quantities, as in the province of Saxony and on the Rhine, it is used with the browncoals under steam boilers and for various other fuel purposes.

COMMON BROWNCOAL.

The Schweelcoal, as has already been stated, contains large amounts of tarry matter, and for this reason is especially desired by the Schweeleries or factories which manufacture from it the tar and its derivatives, paraffine and oils of various grades. These oils vary in quality from one especially adapted for the manufacture of gas for lighting purposes, through heavy and light oils to a solar oil about equivalent to

 

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