Apatite. [Volume: 8, Issue: 5, 1889, pp. 298-301]

298

UNITED STATES ASSOCIATION OF

[VOL. 8,

ject should not be dismissed without considering the possibility of
employing charcoal as fuel, and considerable discussion has, from
time to time, been had upon the utilization of the enormous waste
from the mills at Ottawa, by converting it into charcoal. The slabs
and larger refuse could be charred in kilns, but most of the timber
now used in the mills is of a character producing charcoal of inferior quality for blast-furnace use. Improvements in manufacture
are also utilizing much of the waste for special products, which reduce the chances of a permanent supply for this purpose.
There seems to be more encouragement to convert the saw-mill
refuse and saw-dust into gaseous fuel, as in Sweden, and use it for
manufacturing iron and other metallurgical purposes. Gas producers for this purpose would have to be equipped with condensers,
for the refuse material supplied to the producers would carry 40 per
cent. or more of water.
If pig-iron is produced in the vicinity of Ottawa, there would
seem to be good encouragement for investigating the economical employment of this waste material, and also the possible utilization
of some of the water-power available in the vicinity.
As noted before, the production of charcoal pig-iron apparently
offers greater advantages at some of the localities where the ores
and hard-wood timber are contiguous. The charcoal required for
smelting a ton of pig-iron would probably cost from $7.00 to $8.00
at Ottawa, from $1.00 to $2.00 in excess of the cost at the other
points indicated. As this charcoal-iron would be used for special
purposes, it should command a corresponding price in the market.
Apatite.
IN many instances where the proportion of phosphorus in ironores is large, it is present as apatite or phosphate of lime. This is
particularly the case in some magnetites and altered magnetites,
where the apatite crystals are intimately associated with the ore.
In considering the features of iron-ore concentration attention has
been directed to the possibility of utilizing the apatite which would
be separated from the ore, and a late visit to the phosphate-mines
in the Province of Quebec, Canada, offered opportunities for col