If factory owners who use steam power could realize that the gases, the highest heat-producing part of the coal, escape with the smoke, and that by using smoke consumers they not only prevent all the evils of the smoke nuisance but save fully half of the value of their coal, they would gladly put in this equipment. What manufacturer would not eagerly welcome any device that would cut his fuel bills in half? The other cause of waste of coal in the manufacturing industries is recklessness in the use of fuel, filling the furnaces with the drafts so disposed that much of the heat is wasted. Every factory owner should learn (from the government reports if he has no other means of learning) the best methods of firing furnaces, and should employ them in his factory. The last great waste of coal is in households. In stoves and furnaces, and to a certain extent in kitchen ranges, this waste is through carelessness in firing, as it is in factories. There still remains a large amount of wasted energy in cooking that is unavoidable. The amount of coal consumed before certain articles can be cooked, the heat remaining after the meal is prepared, are wastes that it seems impossible to prevent, though wise management will prevent undue waste even here. Fireless cookers, an invention of recent years, go far toward solving the problem of waste by long hours of cooking single articles, and each year we see more prepared food bought in order to save the cost of heat. Housekeepers find that it does not pay to bake their bread themselves, since a dozen loaves can be baked in a large oven with the fuel used in baking one at home. Briquettes are a new form of fuel made from coal, principally for household use. They are made from the low-grade coals, culm, slack and lignites, blended with coal-tar pitch. They are commonly used not only in households, but for locomotives and ships, in several European countries, especially Germany; but in this country the cost of making them--about a dollar per ton--makes the retail price higher than the cheaper grades of coal, and their general introduction at the price of the higher grades is rather slow. Let it always be kept in mind that we must not check the careful use, only the waste, and the best way to avoid an unnecessary drain on the coal and at the same time increase our manufactures is to substitute other power. Coal is only a form of energy that came originally from the sun. The same causes that produced coal still exist. Scientists tell us that coal is still being made, but it will take thousands of years to perfect it. If we could only learn to take the sun's heat directly and use it for our heat, light, and power, it would be one of the greatest discoveries in the history of the world, greater even than the discovery of electricity.