At the present time there is not the least reason why either wood, coal, or any other solid fuel should be used for the burning of brick. This style of burning brick belongs to a past age. The art of brickmaking has made tremendous progress during the past quarter of a century. It is no longer the art of the ignorant; brains, capital, experience, science, wide and general knowledge, must in these days be the property of the successful brick manufacturer. There are some such progressive brick manufacturers in Chicago, who use neither coal nor wood in the drying or burning of their clay products. Crude oil is the fuel which they employ, and with this fuel they obtain cheaper and better brick than do manufacturers who employ solid fuel. Some of these manufacturers have expressed themselves as preferring to quit the brick business rather than return to the use of wood or coal as fuel in brick burning.

This shows plainly that progress in our art, when it does come, comes to remain. It is true that crude oil for brick-burning purposes is not everywhere obtainable. But there is a fuel which is even better than crude oil, namely, fuel gas, and which can be produced and employed on any brick yard at a saving of seventy-five per cent. over coal or other solid fuel.

The Rose process for making fuel gas gives a water gas enriched by petroleum. Roughly, about half the cost of this gas as made at Bellefonte, Pa., was for oil. The gas cost 6.68c. per 1,000 cu. ft., with oil at 2¼c. a gallon. At double this price the gas would cost but 10c., and show that in practice, foot for foot, it equals natural gas.

Fuel gas means a larger investment of capital than does any of the other modes of brick burning, and is, therefore, not within the reach of the entire trade. The cost of appliances for burning brick with crude oil is not very large, and as all grate bars, iron frames, and doors can be dispensed with in the use of crude oil fuel, the cost of an oil-burning equipment is but little in excess of an equipment of grates, etc., for coal-burning kilns.

At works using small amounts of fuel, especially if cost of fuel bears but a small proportion to total cost of the manufactured product, oil will be in the future very largely used. It is clean, as compared with coal, can be easily handled, and when carefully used in small quantities, is safe. There are several methods of burning oil that are well adapted to the use of brick manufacturers and other fuel consumers.

The Pennsylvania Railroad made some very thorough experiments on the use of petroleum in their locomotives, and while the results obtained are reported to have been satisfactory, it was the opinion of those having the experiments in charge that the demand for the Pennsylvania Railroad alone, were it to change its locomotives from coal to oil, would consume all the surplus and send up the price of oil to a figure that would compel a return to coal.

It is true that production has enormously increased in the last three years, and the promise for the near future is that a high rate will be maintained. It is further true that the production of Russia has increased enormously, and will probably be larger this year than ever before. This Russian oil must go to markets and supply demands that have been met by American oil, and this will still further increase the amount of oil available for fuel purposes.

There is no doubt, therefore, that petroleum has a future for fuel uses. Many brick manufacturers are ready to use it, notwithstanding the possibility of an advance in its cost.

While there are some objections to the use of petroleum as a fuel, growing chiefly out of the risk attending its storage and conveyance to the point of consumption, it is undoubtedly true that the chief objection is the fear that with the increased demand that would follow any extended use for this purpose would come an increase in price that would make its continued use too expensive.

Just four years ago, when the fuel oil industry was first projected, it was cried down because, as its enemies claimed, there was not enough oil fuel to be obtained in America to supply the New York City factories alone, to say nothing of other territory, and because of the high prices for oil that were sure to follow its substitution for coal fuel. Since then the industry has experienced a magnificent success, the sales exceeding 20,000,000 barrels a year, while the price is lower than ever.

A curious impression seems to have gained ground to the effect that the Standard Oil Company does not want to sell oil for fuel. It may be stated authoritatively that the company is not only able but willing to sell and deliver oil for fuel purposes in any quantity that may be desired. It is now delivering oil for fuel purposes in fourteen States of the Union. For its sales in Chicago and the West and Northwest, the delivery is by tank cars from the terminus of the pipe line at South Chicago, to which point it is pumped from Lima, O. The Chicago price is 1-2/3c. per gallon, or 70c. per barrel of 42 gallons, f.o.b. cars at Chicago.

A great many of the brick manufacturers here and throughout the Northwest are beginning to use crude petroleum as a substitute for soft coal. It is smokeless, for the fine spray of oil which comes from the injector consists of such minute drops of the liquid and is so thoroughly mixed with oxygen that when it burns the combustion is complete, and only steam and carbonic acid gas go out of the top of the kiln. Not a speck of soot comes from the kiln or the smokestack or soils the whitewashed purity of the boiler room. Oil fuel is absolutely clean. It is labor saving, too. No fireman has to keep shoveling coal, there are no ashes to be dragged out from under the furnace grates, and there are no clinkers to clog up the bars. One man, by turning a valve, may regulate the heat of a kiln containing one million brick.