Science: Powdered Coal

Gaunt and grimy stokers, silhouetted in furnace glare, are no longer an integral part of a ship's bowels. Even coal burners can do without them. Last week members of the Fuel Conservation Committee of the U. S. Shipping Board sweated in the test furnace room of the Todd Dry Dock Co.; peered at an intricate machine which was busily pulverizing soft coal and blowing it into furnaces. Hitherto, on the experiment freighter Mercer, the coal has been pulverized in one machine, then distributed to three furnaces, but the latest improvement provides each furnace with its own pulverizer and does away altogether...

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