Not only is it cleaner than coal and calls for less labor, but it is actually cheaper as a fuel. A barrel and a half of crude oil is equal for furnace fuel to a ton of the best Illinois bituminous coal, and at 70c. a barrel any one can easily calculate the advantages petroleum has over its smoky rival. Theoretically, two barrels of oil equal in heating power one ton of best Pittsburg coal.

An examination into the relative cost of the Pittsburg and Chicago coal to the oil consumed shows that the price of oil at Pittsburg is 59c. per barrel of 42 gallons, and slack coal can be purchased at from 70c. to 80c. per ton, and the best quality of lump coal at from $1.10 to $1.25 per ton, while the same quality of fuel can be bought in Chicago at about 70c. a barrel, as against coal at from $2 to $3.50 per ton. It would, therefore, look as though there could be no question whatever as to the economy and advantages to be derived from the use of oil as a fuel in this vicinity.

The weight of oil required is less than half that of average coal to produce the same amount of steam.

A great advantage in using oil as fuel in brick burning is that the fires are always under the absolute and direct control of the man in charge of the burning, who can regulate the volume of flame to the nicest degree and throw the heat to any part of the arches that he may desire.

From present indications, oil will be the fuel adopted generally for generating power and for brick burning in Chicago, as it saves the boilers, avoids grate bars, saves dirt and cinders, and reduces running expenses, etc.

Much skepticism was at first exhibited in Chicago only a few years ago when one of the leading brick manufacturers attempted to burn a kiln of brick with coal for fuel. Nearly all the brickmakers then in business put on wise looks and predicted the failure of the experiment with coal. But coal proved to be a better and cheaper fuel than wood, and in five or six years wood was used only for the kindling of the coal fires.

Then came the attempt to burn brick with crude oil, and the experiment having proved a success, coal has been banished from the leading brick yards in Chicago and vicinity.

The Purington-Kimball Brick Co., Adams J. Weckler, Weber & La Bond, the May-Purington Brick Co., the Union Brick Co., and the Pullman Brick Co., all having headquarters in Chicago, as well as the Peerless Brick Co. and the Pioneer Fireproof Construction Co., both of Ottawa, Ill., are using crude oil fuel for brick burning.

Lima crude oil is used, and it is atomized by means of steam in small furnaces extending about two feet from the face of the brick kilns, and in which furnaces combustion occurs, and the conversion of the oil and steam into a gaseous fuel is secured. There is little doubt that the fuel employed in the future by the successful brick manufacturer must be in the gaseous form. Owing to the enormous cost of handling coal, wood, and other crude fuel, and of removing the ash resulting from such fuel, it has been demonstrated in practice by the use of crude oil that the expense connected with the burning of brick can be reduced fully 60 per cent. This large saving is made by converting crude petroleum into gas and utilizing this fuel, either directly in the arches of the kiln or by converting the crude oil into gas in a gas producer, and drawing this fuel gas from the producer and burning the same as required in kilns of suitable construction.

Crude oil fuel must in the future play an important part in all branches of manufacture requiring high, constant heats, and in which the cost of wood, coal, and other solid fuels, together with the labor cost of handling them, forms a considerable part of the cost of production. Where coal is required to be hauled in carts from the wharves, or from a line of railway to the brick yard, located a mile, more or less, from the places where the coal is received, the cost of handling, haulage, and waste is an important item. Added to these costs, the deterioration of soft coal under atmospheric influences and the waste from imperfect combustion and from the particles which fall from the grate bars into the ash pits, all eat a large hole in the brickmakers' profit.

Mr. D.V. Purington, of Chicago, Ill., in speaking on this subject, says:

"I will say that my fuel bill for oil is cheaper than it would cost me for coal. There is a very wide difference in the cost of unloading, hauling away ashes and cinders, and getting my coal around to the kiln, or boilers, or drier, or wherever I use it, and I get very much better results by being able to put the heat from oil fuel just where I want it."

In order to secure the best results with any fuel it is not only necessary that a cheap fuel should be used, but that it should be always obtainable, and that all of it should be burned and turned to commercial account in the operations of brick manufacture.

Owing to the losses which we have previously mentioned, and resulting from the use of coal, this fuel is destined to be superseded by some form of fuel which will avoid such losses, and which will dispense with all of the inconveniences now encountered in the handling of coal and of the ashes resulting from combustion. Wood is rapidly becoming too scarce and high near the great centers of man's habitation to be regarded in the present discussion.

Fully two hundred million of brick a year are being burned in the city of Chicago with crude oil fuel, and a clamp kiln containing one million brick can be burned with crude oil in Chicago at a labor cost of less than $100, and at a total cost for labor and oil of about 40c. per thousand brick.

There are not, however, many places in the world where brick can be burned with oil at such a low cost as in the city of Chicago; the reason being that oil is not everywhere obtainable so cheaply as in this city, and because few clays in the world are so easily burned into brick as are the clays of Chicago. In Milwaukee, Wis., and in other places within a distance of 100 miles from Chicago, the time required to burn building brick with crude oil fuel averages from sixteen to twenty-one days, whereas the time of burning the Chicago clays averages only about five days, and splendid "burns" have been secured there with crude oil in three and one-half days. It is evident, therefore, that the advantages of using crude oil fuel for the burning of brick will vary in different parts of the United States.

Where circumstances and the nature of the clay permit of its use, crude oil is, next to fuel gas, the brickmakers' ideal fuel. - The Brickmaker.