Biomass Minerals • A New Look at Elemental Nutrition

Unconventional Biomass Mineral Fuel That Won't Burn

The Indians of the time called it by various names in their native dialects whenever they happened to come upon partially exposed surface deposits of the black material. The Spaniard had their own phrase for it: "El carbon que on quema" ["The carbon that won't burn!"] This was mentioned in passing by Fray Benavides in a memorial he prepared in the year 1630 and sent back to his religious superiors in Spain. This Catholic padre or father had been appointed the custos of all the missions then situated throughout the New Mexico territory.

In the epistle he wrote, that after three decades of effort by the friars in his province, he was able to report fourteen monasteries, serving fifty-odd pueblos, each with it's own school, where the Indians were all taught to sing, play musical instruments, and read and write. Besides these things, he said, "[They also learn] all the trades and polite deportment," all imparted by "the great industry of the Religious who converted them."

In two bottom lines on the back of one page, he reported of some Native Americans finding a black substance "similar to carbon fuel" near the desert surface in one locale, that "refused to burn" when several attempts were made to ignite it for warming and cooking purposes. In disgust, they tossed it aside, but brought several fist-sized chunks to the learned padre for closer inspection.

He too, described it as being the most "miserable specimen of carbon fuel" he had ever seen because it wouldn't burn like regular coal should. However, being of a more curious and somewhat scientific bent than his Indian charges, he went further than they did with his own simple investigation instead of abandoning it altogether out of sheer disappointment and disgust. He pulverized some of the carbonized material into powder and sprinkled it over some of his food, but reported tasting no difference in the meals on which he put it.

However, if it hadn't been for an unfortunate circumstance that had recently happened to him, it would probably have soon been discarded, even by such a smart cleric as himself. He had accidentally brushed one of his scandaled feet against the side of a low growing cactus a short while before this, receiving some of its prickly hairs in to his flesh. Most of these had already been extricated with the exception of a couple that had gone deeper into the skin. This soon caused festering to set in.

The idea occurred to him one day as he sat resting his limp foot, to sprinkle some of the crushed, black powder of this "fuel that won't burn" over the troubled area. He did this for several days in succession and reported, to his own amazement, that all of the purulent matter issuing forth from the injury had promptly ceased. Furthermore, the infection cleared up and "the skin became new again." He attributed this stroke of inspiration to the Heavenly Powers with whom he regularly communed, and claimed miraculous healing properties to this black substance. (The preceding information came from the Spanish narratives he wrote, the English title of which is "The Memorial of Fray Benavides in The Spanish-Controlled Southwest." Some of his history has been cited in Bolton and The Spanish Borderlands. Published by the University of Oklahoma Press at Norman in 1964.)

No further mention of this "unburnable" coal-like substance would appear in print for several more centuries until the editor of The San Juan Times in Farmington, brought it to light in 1894. Fred E. Holt made passing reference to a "black mineral surface deposit" that some wandering miners had come upon, attempted to use for fueling a fire, but then quit in disgust shortly thereafter "while filling the air with unprintable oaths and profanities!"

--------------------- John Heinerman, Ph.D. is the Director of the Medical Research Center in Salt Lake City. He is the author of 57 books on health and nutrition, which have been translated into 17 languages and have about 22 million total copies in print worldwide. His areas of expertise are in folk medicine, food therapy, and general nutrition. He is also involved in ongoing medical and scientific research in different areas of healthcare interest.

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