Mr. Paterson. Yes.
Mr. Dallyn. And, after the system was generally adopted, is it not so that they could find no demand for it? Do you not think that if this process were generally adopted the value of the by-products would decrease on account of the large volume offering?
Mr. Paterson. I do not think so, because of the nature of the by-products. Take this continent, and you import an enormous amount of sulphate of ammonia. The recovery of nitrogen is one of the problems which the United States Government has taken up within the last year. We have to have nitrogen, and you can not get it much cheaper than you can out of sewage, because you have to get rid of the sewage anyway. I do not think that nitrogen will ever depreciate in value. They are trying to take it from the air to-day, and have been fairly successful. Oil will always be valuable, gas will always be valuable, potash, phosphorus are all absolutely essential for the human race, and everybody is straining his brains and experimenting genius in trying to discover methods of getting oil and nitrogen. It seems to me to have been wicked that the English-speaking races should have been throwing this material away for so many years and looking upon it as a curse instead of a blessing. We can imitate the Germans in a great many respects, and that is one of them—to keep what is valuable instead of throwing it away.
Mr. Mignault. Did you read the testimony of Mr. Hatton given before the commission?
Mr. Paterson. Yes.
Mr. Mignault. Comparing your process to the one he spoke of, what would you say?
Mr. Paterson. I came to the conclusion, in reading Mr. Hatton’s report, that he had the same difficulty which we had in Great Britain—that is, as to treating sewage. He complained that there was not sufficient sun. He said that after he had dried it that it was worth $20 a ton—I think he placed the minimum at $15 a ton. But his difficulty seemed to be with the process of drying and the difficulty of drying. In some of the plants I visited—in the plant at Baltimore—they have a drying plant there, and, perhaps I should not say it, but they have not got any further than we did four years ago. They had not discovered yet how to get over the difficulty in drying this material. If you have to wait in the summer time for the material to air dry, then you have the difficulty of bad smells, putrescent material lying about, and complaints. The material should be treated as soon as it is recovered.
Mr. Mignault. According to your system, do you get rid of these difficulties?
Mr. Paterson. Yes; we get over the difficulties. Formerly it used to take us two months to dry it, and if we tried to force the drying by most of the machines that have been invented we would lose most of the valuable constituents. Glasgow spent £6,000 on a drying machine, and then it had difficulty, and they were still in that difficulty five months ago. The difficulty about drying the material is that you must not drive off the valuable constituents, because if you do you lose money—you lose the volatile oils, you lose several things of value—and after it gets dry to a certain extent it becomes extremely inflammable. This material here that I have shown you could be used quite suitably as a fuel. It burns beautifully. That brick there, if you put a match to it, will burn quite easily and make an excellent fuel. If you want to augment the heating qualities of it, you can add coal or slack or anything like that to it, because it is a very excellent fuel.
Mr. Mignault. Has this system any distinctive name?