BRICKS SOAKED IN OIL FURNISHING HEAT.
We have gathered the following from reliable sources as an aid to domestic economy in the present scarcity of fuel:— An establishment in Baltimore is known as the Infusorial Earth Manufacturing Company. Their plant is on the Rappahannock River, in Virginia, where there is a peculiar, porous earth. From this they manufacture bricks. One day last week a representative of the firm exhibited a brick twelve inches long by five inches deep and five across. This he soaked in three pints of kerosene. In a few minutes the oil was absorbed. The brick was then placed in a kitchen stove and ignited by a match. Immediately it began to flame, and for three-quarters of an hour burned slowly and steadily. No finer fire for either cooking or heating could have been desired. Ordinarily three pints of oil are enough to burn a brick for an hour. All you have to do at the end of that time is to take the brick out, rub the soot off with a piece of paper or a cloth, and soak it again in oil. It will never wear out and the brick will not burn. If it is dropped on the floor, however, it will break; but the pieces when soaked take up the oil in the same way, and when burned give the same results, presenting the aspects of coal. Francis H. Whitney, Postmaster-General Payne's private secretary, has tried the bricks, and found that they answer all the purpose of a hod of coal, make a hotter fire, and leave no ashes, and on the next morning after the success of the experiment he telephoned to the Anacostia Brick Company and the Washington branch of the Standard Oil Company and ordered a cartload of porous brick and a barrel of oil. An amateur experimenter, taking a “porous, hollow brick,” whose dimensions were eight inches long, three and three-quarters wide, and two and one-quarter thick, soaked it in kerosene oil. This brick burned fully forty minutes, giving a bright flame and emitting great heat. From the amount of oil he used he calculated that there was sufficient to cook a meal and heat the boiler, at a cost of less than one cent.—The Christian Advocate.