Reel and Slide (Jan-Sep 1919)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

REEL and SLIDE 17 Two-Reel Picture Illustrates By-Products of Coal Barrett Company Releases Interesting Educational Subject for Benefit of Farmers; Uses of Sulphate of Ammonia Featured to Stimulate American Food Production "F |ROM Coal Mine to Cornfield," a two-reel film production being widely circulated before farmers, is an educational reel of the highest type and is attracting the attention of agricultural colleges in all parts of the United States. This film shows how coal is mined and manufactured into coke, which is the only suitable fuel for smelting ore into pig iron and steel, and how important chemicals are produced from the gases which are given off during the coking process. Thousands of years ago Providence created for us a practically inexhaustible supply of fuel so that we might have light, heat and power. The first pictures show the forests of the coal age, reconstructed from what geologists have found concerning the trees, ferns and grasses whose petrified remains we know as coal. These forests were swept away by storms, great quantities of the rotting debris being deposited in deep layers where it was gradually covered with earth. There it waited while other vegetation grew and formed new layers, until with the passing of the ages, the mass gradually hardened into a bed of nearly pure carbon. We catch a glimpse of a mining town, typical of the many similar ones scattered through the mountain districts of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, before descending into the mine. There we watch the miners drilling and loading shot holes, handling the explosive with apparent disregard for its destructive power. The foreman, using an electric spark, fires the charges. A great mass of coal is blown down, which is ■loaded into cars and removed. Above ground, once more, the loaded cars, now formed into a long train drawn by an electric locomotive, emerge from the mine and proceed to the tipple, where the coal is dumped into freight cars for transportation to the coke ovens. Leaving the mine, we journey pictorially to the coke oven plants to see how coke is made and why some ovens are called "beehive'' 2nd others "by-product." The "beehive" ovens, which we see first, represent the older type of coking oven which is gradually being replaced by the by-product recovery form. Since coke is the sole product, these ovens are, of course, much simpler in design and less expensive to construct than are the latter type, although very wasteful. The pictures which follow show one of the great, modern, by-product recovery plants in full operation. (In explanation, it should be said that when bituminous coal is heated, as in the coking process, gases are driven off, from which a long series of important products may be derived.) In the more recent type of coking ovens, these gases are recovered and refined. _ Interesting views of the plant and coal reserves are shown, indicating the scale of operations. Having made the rounds, we are ready to see the plant in action. Standing on top of them, we watch the coal larry filling the long, narrow ovens. The coal is leveled by the leveling arm, located on tfie pusher. The heat which drives off the gases is confined to the thin chambers between the ovens, and the evenness with which the coal is heated determines largely the quality of coke subsequently obtained. The foreman is thus shown inspecting the flues in the heating chamber. As we see a workman cleaning the coke away from a nearby oven, we know an adjacent one is about to be "pushed" and draw near to watch this interesting operation. The oven doors are han By W. L. Stranker Tracing the progress of sulphate of ammonia from the mine to final commercial use, the sequence of pictures in this film should be interesting and instructive to students. died by machinery and are taken off bodily. The pusher, a long, heavy arm on the other side of the oven, is shown entering and we see the coke, guided by a frame, emerge and fall, flaming and red-hot, into a coke car. A locomotive hauls it to the quenching tower, where several large streams of water drown it, sending up clouds of steam. It is emptied on a drying platform and later transferred to railroad cars for shipment. In the main which leads the gases from the ovens to the saturators, lumps of pitch collect and must be removed. The saturators contain sulphuric acid, and when the ammonia gases bubble through it, fine crystals of sulphate of ammonia are formed. When dried, it is ready for use as a nitrogenous fertilizer. Ammonia is also recovered as liquor for use in refrigeration, in the manufacture of chemicals, explosives, etc. In 1916, 325,000 tons figured as sulphate were produced in American-owned plants by American manufacturers. Always one of the most valuable of commercial fertilizers, sulphate is a most important resource of American farmers during the existing nitrogen shortage. Before leaving the plant we visit a few last points of interest — the storage room for sulphate, the stills for making ammonia liquor, the plant for treating benzol extracted from the gases, etc. Of the several elements necessary to plant growth, three are essential, phosphoric acid, potash and nitrogen. Of these, nitrogen is most important, because, when lacking, growth is severely handicapped. Nitrogen, as well as the other plant foods, may be obtained in various forms from a number of sources. Sulphate of ammonia, which contains a little over 20 per cent of nitrogen, is among the most important of these. Large quantities of sulphate are used each year by farmers in all parts of the world. The pictures showing the results obtained by its use were taken on farms in widely scattered sections of this country. Coal Mine to Cornfield," has been instructive and interesting manner It is intended, primarily, for The film, "From prepared to tell in an about sulphate of ammonia. students in agronomy, soil fertility, agricultural chemistry, agricultural economics, etc., for short courses, summer schools and extension work in general. A number of state fairs have exhibited the film successfully. The film, in two reels, is 2,000 feet in length and requires about forty minutes for projection. It is practically self-explanatory, but a short lecture is provided upon request. Care has been exercised to exclude objectionable advertising matter. Orrin G. Cocks, advisory secretary of the National Board of Review, returned recently fram Eagles Mere, Pa., where he addressed the students of the summer school of the American city bureau and chambers of commerce secretaries. Two pictures, loaned by the industrial department of the Universal Film Manufacturing Company, were shown by Mr. Cocks to indicate to the conference the possibilities of the screen as a method of acquainting the general public with ideas regarded as important by civic and social leaders. These pictures were "The Hope of the Hills," acted by hill people in the mountains of Kentucky, illustrating the power of the multigraph, and "Heads Win," a drama reviewed in a recent number of Reel and Slide magazine. The conference was an important one. Twenty different states, besides Canada, Hawaii and the Philippines were represented.