All About Engines

Fuel and Its Problems 339 from certain clays in England. Again, benzol ob- tained from coal tar can, as we have seen, be used in place of petrol in the smaller internal combustion engines. There are also Diesel engines running quite satisfactorily on the heavier oils obtained from tar. So that by distilling some of our coal we can pro- vide the amount of gaseous and liquid fuels we re- quire. Since not only fuel in its different forms, but many other substances essential to manufacture, are obtainable from coal, it is clear that one of the great pioblems of the future for this country is to secure that coal shall be burnt or distilled in just those proportions which satisfy our various needs, and that the processes should be carried on in such a way that not a pound of the precious rock is wasted. We are not doing this now, because few people know the facts or understand the principles involved. It is nobody s business to see that fuel is not wasted, and everybody plays for his own hand. And yet the action of a few thousand people and the pre- judices or ignorance or indifference of a few million are hurrying the whole nation towards industrial bankruptcy. Within the next hundred years—perhaps even sooner matters to which no one will listen to- day will, in all probability, overshadow in their magnitude and their menace every other topic of human interest. Let us now take a rather wider view of the fuel question and look at it as it affects the world and its distant future. The same process of exhaustion