A handbook on the winning and the utilization of peat. Translated from the 3d German ed. by Hugh Ryan

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENTIFIC
AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH

Fuel Research Board

A Handbook on
he Winning and the
Utilization of Peat

By A. Hausding

Translated from the Third German Edition

by HUGH RYAN, D.Sc, Professor of

Chemistry in University College, Dublin

i

m

I

LONDON

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY
HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE

I 92 I

/DEPARTMENT OF SCIENTIFIC

(AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH
C^V, forth. Fuel Research Board

>. »

A Handbook on

The Winning and the

Utilization of Peat

By A. Hausding

Translated from the Third German Edition

by HUGH RYAN, D.Sc, Professor of

Chemistry in University College, Dublin

LIBRARY

FACULTY OF FORESTRY
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

LONDON

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE,

and to be purchased at the addresses given overleaf

1921

To be purchased through any Bookseller or directly from H.M. STATIONERY
OFFICE, at the following addresses: IMPERIAL HOUSE, KINGSWAY,
LONDON, W.C.2, and 28, ABINGDON STREET, LONDON, S.W.I ;
37, PETER STREET, MANCHESTER; 1, ST. ANDREW'S CRESCENT,
CARDIFF; 23, FORTH ST., EDINBURGH; or from EASON & SON, LTD.,
40 &41, LOWER SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN.

Price £1 10s. Od. Net.

7N

fTM3

mi

CONTENTS

PAGE

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv.-xxiii.

PART I.— THE WINNING OF PEAT

I. — General Remarks on Peat

1 . — Origin, occurrence, and varieties of peat . . . . . . . . . . 1

2. — Composition of peat, percentage of ash, and constituents of the ash 7

3. — Weight and density .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 14

4. — Properties of peat affecting its use . . . . . . . . . . 14

II. — Preparation for Peat Winning by Drainage of the Bogs

1 . — Natural drainage ; arrangement of the drains . .

2. — Erection and working of pumping machinery for artificial drainage

(a) Centrifugal pumps

(b) Steam-chamber pumps or steam-pulses (pulsometers)

(c) Water-elevating wheels
3. — Disadvantages of over-draining

17
20
20
21
21
22

III. — Winning and Properties of Hand Peat

1. — The winning of cut, stroked, trodden, dough, and dredged peat . . 23

2. — The winning of cut peat in the South German and Austrian bogs . . 31

3. — The winning of lump and crumb peat . . . . . . . . . . 35

4. — The winning of cut peat (cut peat machines) . . . . . . . . 37

5. — Peat-cutting machines and peat winning under water . . . . . . 38

6. — Contrivances to ensure drying.

(a) " Poling " in South Germany (especially Bavaria) and Finland 42

(b) Drying on spiked poles in Carinthia . . . . . . . . 43

(c) Drying trestles of Carinthia, Tyrol, and other places . . . . 45

(d) The " peat horses " of Sweden and the drying sheds of Sebastians-

berg (Erzgebirge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

(e) The drying huts of Styria . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

(f) Drying on drying ramparts . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

7. — Size of the drying ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

8. — Cost of the various drying contrivances .. .. .. .. .. 51

9. — Costs and results in the hand peat industry (Oldenburg peat-cutting

industry, Feilenbach Peat Wrorks, peat factory of the Rosenheim and
Reichenhall Salt Works, Burmoos, Rottenmann Peat Works, near

Worschach, peat works of the Aussee Salt Company) . . . . . . 51

10. — Percentage of water in various bogs and kinds of peat; quantities of

water to be evaporated in drying, and yield of moist or dry substance 57

11. — Shrinkage and "condensation" of hand peat on drying .. .. 59

12. — Defects of hand peat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

IV. — Winning of Artificial, Press, and Machine Peat for Pro-
duction on a Large Scale and for getting rid of the
Defects of Hand Peat

1 . — Summary of the methods proposed and on their value in general . . 67

2. — Description of the various methods . . . . . . . . . . 74

A. — Manufacture of washed-out peat (Challeton's process) . . . . 74

B. — Versmann's sieve process . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

C. — Manufacture of press peat (peat briquettes) . . . . . . 78

1 . — The Exter-Gwynne dry press process . . . . . . 78

2. — Resumption of dry pressing by Peters, Stauber, the

Buckhau and Zeitz Machine Factory, &c. . . . . 79

3. — The various wet press processes (Koch and Mannhart,
Schoning-Heine, Ekenberg, Brosen, Wet Press Company,

the Society for the Utilization of Moors and Peat, &c.) 85
4. — Press processes with simultaneous electrical dehydration

(electrosmosis, osmone, pentane, etc.) . . . . . . 89

5. — Hard peat (Baron von Verschuer) . . . . . . . . 89

(2595) Wt.1846/5/21/979 1,000 1/22 Harrow G. 36.

iv THE WINNING OF PEAT

2. — Description of the various methods — cont. page

D. — Eichhorn's " ball peat " . . . . . . . . . . 91

E. — Manufacture of condensed machine peat. . . . . . . . 94

I. — Manufacture of machine-formed peat, Weber's (Staltach)
process.
1. — Essence of the process. Weber's machine at Staltach,
Gysser's improvement, and the peat -forming machine
of Hebert, of Rheims . . . . . . . . . . 94

2. — Various kinds of peat-forming machines.

(a) Vertical peat machines (with slowly running knife

shafts) 99

(1) The Schlickeysen machine and those related to

it of R. Dolberg and Co., Gewert, Stiitzke
Bros., Cegielski and Co., &c. . . . . 99

(2) Peat machines for horse driving with inter-

mediate gearing shafts . . . . . . 105

(b) Horizontal peat machines with slowly running

knife shafts . . . . . . . . . . 106

(1) The simple horizontal peat machine.. .. 106

(2) Schlickeysen's horizontal machine with feed-

ing rollers . . . . . . . . . . 107

(3) The " tube peat " machine of Ros, of

Norkoping . . . . . . . . . . 108

(4) CJayton's peat machine .. .. ..110

(5) General characteristics of peat machines with

slowly running knife shafts . . . . . . 112

(c) Peat-forming machines with rapidly rotating or

double knife shafts . . . . . . . . 114

(1) Fundamental types of horizontal machines

(L. Seydl) 115

(2) The modern multiple-shaft peat machines

of Dolberg, Heinen, Strenge, Wielandt,
Schenck, Sugg and Co., Anrep, Akermann,
Koppel, &c 117

(3) Peat machine of L. Lucht, of Kolberg. . .. 124

(4) Schlickeysen's horizontal peat machine with

gripping and tearing contrivance . . . . 127

(5) Schlickeysen's automatic digging and forming

peat machine . . . . . . . . 133

(6) Heinen's peat machine, with preliminary

tearing and mixing contrivance . . . . 134

II. — Manufacture of machine pulp or machine dough peat in
Hanover, Oldenburg, Denmark, and Sweden.
1. — The Hanoverian pulp peat machine .. .. .. 138

2. — -The Oldenburg pulp peat machine . . . . . . 140

3. — Machine for making pulp peat, of A. Ingermann, of

Koldmoos.. .. .. .. .. .. ..141

4. — Hodge's peat boat in Oldenburg, peat dredgers, &c. . . 144
5. — Mecke and Sander's peat-dredging machine . . . . 145

6. — The Strenge peat-dredging machine . . . . . . 147

7. — Danish (Sparkjaer) machine-pulped peat winning . . 149
8. — The Anrep-Jakobsson-Svedala machine-pulped peat
winning, or the winning of machine field peat by
means of Jakobsson's spreading, stroking, and
cutting machine . . . . . . . . . . 151

9. — Galecki's method of winning pulped peat . . . . 152

HI. — Fully automatic or large scale industry peat machines
with dredgers and automatic sod spreaders.
1. — WTielandt's peat-dredging and forming machine .. 155

2. — The Strenge large scale industry machine with sod

spreader .. .. .. .. .. .. ..158

3. — The Baumann-Schenck peat-dredging machine with

sod spreader . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

4. — The large scale industry machine of R. Dolberg and Co. 164
5. — Other large scale industry machines (Ekelund,

Munktell, Anrep, Jakobsson, Persson, &c.) . . .. 167

F. — Machine peat powder and machine peat dust for fuel

purposes 167

CONTENTS

V. — Details of Winning and Properties of Condensed

Machine Peat

PAGE

Rolling table with running boards
Roller bed with grid cutter

Strenge, Baumann-

A. — On some important particulars with regard to peat machines and
their use.
1. — On knives and screws
2. — On forming pieces and mouthpieces
3.— On chopping and cutting contrivances
(a) Chopping board and chopper
(b)
(c)
4. — Automatic sod spreaders (of \\ ielandt,
Schenck, Dolberg, Persson, Eslof, &c.)
B. — On installing and driving machines in a peat bog.

1. — Installation of driving and working machines
2. — Driving peat machines by means of draught animals
3. — -Driving peat machines by means of wire ropes
4. — Selection of driving power . .
C. — Transport of raw peat to the machine and of machine peat to the drying
ground or sheds.
1 . — Barrows and barrow tracks
2. — Cars on railways (field railways and transport wagon railways) . .

(a) Tracks, crossings, switches, turntables, and turning

plates

(b) Transport cars for the raw peat and the machine-formed

peat

(c) Prices of the component parts of a field railway

3. — Belt elevators, conveyers, automatic spreaders, and distributors
4. — Comparison of the powers required to -move loads over various
roads and railway tracks . .
D. — Drying machine peat.

1. — Drying in the open air
2. — Drying on boards and trestles
3. — Drying under cover . .
E. — Cost of plant, and working expenses of machine peat factories
F. — Comparison of costs in the cases of fully automatic or large scale

industry machines and ordinary peat machines . .
G. — Description of some large machine peat factories.

1. — The peat works of the North German Peat Moor Company of

Triangel in the Gifhorn district . .
2. — Feilenbach Peat Factory
3.— Schussenried Peat Factory
4. — -Elizabethfehn Peat Works, Oldenburg
5. — -The Wiesmoor Peat Works at Aurich
H. — Comparison of the properties of machine peat and cut peat from the
same raw material, and influence of the various modes of winning
on these properties
1 . — Condensation of machine peat and condensing effect of different

machines

2. — Comparison of dry-volume ratios, shrinkage and condensing

effects, as well as percentages of water in, and absorption of

water for, machine and cut peats

3. — Absorption of water by the two peats in the anhydrous state . .

4. — Progress of the drying in the cases of cut peat and machine peat

from the same bog
5. — Action of frost

6. — Density, shrinkage, weight of given volume, drying ground
J. — On the selection of new peat machines and on peat machine compe-
titions.
1 . — General observations on the selection of new peat machines
2. — Peat machine competitions..

170
180
187
187
187
188

190

192
196
198
199

203
205

206

211
213
214

214

216

221
223
224

230

232
235
237
239
240

241
241

246
247

250
251
252

254
257

VI.— Winning of Peat Litter and Peat Mull

1. — Preparatory work, preliminary conditions, and raw material ..
2. — The winning of peat litter on a manufacturing scale
3. — -Winning peat litter for use by farmers
4. — Valuation of peat litter

260
267
281
282

VI

THE WINNING OF PEAT

VII. — Patents relating to the Winning of Peat

1 . — Dehydration of peat by means of machines

2. — Electrical dehydration of peat

3. — Disintegration and sifting of peat . .

4. — Peat machines and their components

5. — Peat pressing ; piston and stamp presses (briquette presses)

6. — The drying of peat

7. — The winning and the treatment of peat fibres

VIII.— Notes

From the sections on the winning of peat

PAGE

288
293
294
295
303
306
307

312

PART II.— THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

I. — The Utilization of Peat as Fuel

A. — General remarks on fuel and combustion.

1. — On fuel ..

2. — Calorific power per unit weight and per unit volume, and tempera-
ture of combustion
3. — Composition, density, and calorific power of various fuels
B. — Peat as fuel.

1 .- — Calorific power of different varieties of peat and influence of the

mode of winning on it . .
2. — Influence of the percentages of moisture and ash on the calorific

power of peat
3. — Commercial values of peats containing different percentages of
water and ash. Comparison of values with those of other fuels
C. — Design and construction of fireplaces suitable for burning hand peat
and machine peat.
1. — On the air necessary for combustion and on the flue gases
2. — Grate, height of layer of fuel, and shape of the fire chamber . .
3. — Furnaces suitable for steam boilers, locomotives, evaporating
pans, &c.
Peat powder or peat dust firing
Peat-firing for locomotives and locomobiles
D. — Methods and plants for increasing the calorific effect of air-dry peat.
Manufacture of kiln-dried peat.
1 . — Various modes of drying
2. — Commercial value of kiln drying

II. — Manufacture of Peat Charcoal

1 . — The various methods of carbonizing peat

(a)
(b)
(c)

(d)

3.-

Carbonization in piles
Carbonization in clamps
Carbonization in ovens

(1) Hahnemann's oven

(2) Wagenmann's oven

(3) Weber's oven . .
Carbonization in muffles, &c

(1) Jiingst's peat-carbonizing oven

(2) Lottmann's peat-carbonizing oven

(3) Carbonizing ovens with horizontal iron muffles
-Recent methods of carbonizing peat

1. — Process of Gumbert and Loe

2. — Ekelund's process

3. — Jebsen's electrical process and other electrical processes

4. — Ziegler's process

5. — Bamme's peat-carbonizing process .

6. — Wielandt's peat-carbonizing process

7. — Peat carbonizing by means of hot rollers, presses, plates, &

(Fritz and Schoning's process)
8. — Carbonization of peat by pressure or in mounds

(a) A. Born's " mound-carbonizing " process

(b) Heine's carbonization in mounds
9. — The so-called wet carbonization

-Best kind of raw peat for carbonization ; economic value of carboniza
tion ; calorific power and properties of peat charcoal

319

321

322

323
328
331

335
33S

341

349
349

351
352

356
358
360
360
361
363
365
366
367
368
370
371
371
371
374
374
379
381

382
383
383
385
385

386

CONTENTS

Vll

III. — Gasification of Peat for Fuel and Power Purposes

1. — General remarks on the gasification of fuel and on gas furnaces. .

PAGE

392
397
397

2. — Production of fuel gas and power gas from peat

(a) Fuel gas

(b) Power gas and the gasifiers of the Deutz Gas Motor Factory,

Korting Bros, and Co., Gorlitz Machine Factory, &c. . . 400

3. — The Frank-Caro-Mond process for gasifying peat with recovery of

nitrogen, and the gasifiers of Hoering-Wielandt, A. Born, &c. . . 408

4. — Economic value of the various peat-gasifying installations . . . . 412

IV. — Application of Peat-firing in various Branches of Industry.

Results

1 . — General heating installations and domestic fires

2. — -Iron and steel industry

3. — Glass-works industry. .

4. — Peat-firing for burning earthenware, bricks, lime, &c.

5. — Peat gas furnaces for boiler installations, digesters, evaporators, &c.

6. — Peat in the railway industry

7. — Erection of power stations in bog districts

(a) The Wiesmoor electric power station

(b) The Schweger Moor electric power station

(c) The Bogorodsk electric power station

V. — Utilization of Peat for Illuminating Purposes

1 . — Substances formed by the distillation of peat

2. — Illuminating gas from peat

3.— Recovery of peat oil, paraffin, &c, from the distillation products

VI. — Utilization of Peat Litter and Peat Mull

1.- — Peat litter and peat mull for the absorption and deodorization of

manures and waste substances
2. — Peat litter for use in stables . .

3. — Peat mull for water-closets, town sewage disposal, &c.
4. — Peat litter manures
5. — Various industrial applications of peat litter

(a) For packing and preserving perishable objects

(b) As a bandaging and padding material

(c) As an absorbent and filling material, as a sound damper, and as

a heat insulator

(d) For the manufacture of peat molassine meal

(e) Other uses

VII.— Other Methods of Utilizing Peat

1 . — Textile fibres and cotton from peat
2. — Manufacture of paper and mill-board
3. — Peat as a

4. — Manufacture of alcohol from peat
5. — Peat mud baths

substitute for wood and as a building material

VIII. — Agricultural Utilization of Peat and of Bogs

(a) The use of raw peat as a manure

(b) Moor burning and the moor-burning industry

(c) The Dutch moor, fen, or fehn industry

(d) The Rimpau ridge industry and other methods of cultivating bogs

(e) Reclamation of low bogs for meadows, &c. . . . .

(f) Reclamation of high bogs

IX. — Patents relating to the Utilization of Peat

1 . — Peat furnaces

2. — Peat carbonization, carbonizing ovens, and carbonizing presses

3. — Peat gasification and peat gasifiers

4. — Peat as a fibrous material for paper, paste-board, textiles, &c.

5. — Utilization of peat in the form of mull, litter, and manure

6. — Peat for building purposes, artificial wood, &c.

7. — Peat for the manufacture of alcohol, feeding stuffs, &c.

X.— Notes

From the sections on the utilization of peat

414
415
418
421
424
431
432
434
441
442

444

445
447

452
455
457
459
461
461
461

461

462
462

463
466
468 ">

470
470

471
471
473
474

478
478

481
481
487
490
491
492
494

495

Vlll

THE WINNING OF PEAT

Explanation of

Contractions and

Terms used

1 m. =1 metre.

1 a.

= 1 are = 100 sq. m.

1 cm. = 1 centimetre.

1 ha.

— 1 hectare = 100 a.

1 mm. = 1 millimetre.

1 g-

= 1 gramme.

1 sq. m. = 1 square metre.

1 kilo.

= 1 kilogramme = 1,000 g

1 sq. cm. = 1 square centimetre.

1 km.

— 1 kilometre.

1 cb. m. = 1 cubic metre.

1 m. ton

= 1 metric ton.

1 c.c. = 1 cubic centimetre.

= 1,000 kilos.

11. =1 litre.

= 2,205 lbs.

1 hi. =1 hectolitre.

1 d. cwt.

= 100 kilos.

1 kw. = 1 kilowatt.

1 c.

= 1 calorie.

= 1,000 v.a.

1 h.p.

= 1 horse-power.

= l-36h.p.

= 75 kilometre-seconds.

1 kw.-h. = 1 kw.-hour.

= 736 w.

1 v.a.

== 1 volt-ampere.

1 w.

= 1 watt.

Comparative Table of Weights and Measures

Relation of the metric system of weights and measures to those in feet and

pounds of various countries.

1 square

1 cubic

1 metre
in feet.

metre in
square

metre in
cubic

1 kilo
in lbs.

1 hectare equals

feet.

feet.

Bavaria

3-426

11-740

40-224

1-995

2-935 Days' work.

England

3-281

10-764

35-317

2-205

2-471 Acres.

Austria

3-164

10-009

31-667

1-786

1-738 Joch.

Prussia

3-186*

10-152

32-346

2-000f

3-917 Morgen.

Russia

3-281

10-764

35-317

2-442

0-915 Dessatine.

Sweden

3-368

11-344

38-209

2-352

0-203 M. ton.

Switzerland

3-333

11-411

37-037

2-000

2-778 Morgen.

* 1 Saschen = 3 arschin = 7 feet, f 1 Pud = 40 lbs. (Russian) = 16-38 kilos.

Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are the same as Prussia, and Baden is the same

as Switzerland.

Other Contractions and Explanations

M. = 1 Mark. Pfg. = 1 Pfennig. 1M. = 100 Pfg.

1 Kr. = 1 Krone (Austrian) = 100 Heller = ca. 0-85M.

1 Kr. = 1 Krone (Swedish) = 100 Ore = 1 -125M., therefore 1 Ore = \\ Pfg.

1 Rouble = 100 Copecs = ca. 2-20M.

ca. = circa, about, approximately.

Mitteilungen, 1903 = Mitteilungen des Vereins zur Forderunq der Moorkidtur
im Deutschen Reiche, Jahrgang 1903 = Proceedings of the Society for
the Promotion of the Utilization of Bogs in the German Empire for the
Year 1903.

20-5M. = £1.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

Notwithstanding the many excellent journals and handbooks
devoted to peat which have been published on the Continent, the
author felt that a new edition of his book was required to serve
as a guide for those who are interested in the winning and the
utilization of peat in Germany. If this want were felt abroad,
how much more so should it be experienced here, where no such
journals or handbooks exist ! Xo apology is therefore required
for the publication of this translation of a work which has earned
for itself a high reputation amongst German readers.

The circumstance that the translation was carried out during
the period of the late war, when collaboration between the trans-
lator and the author was impossible, may perhaps have led to an
occasional misunderstanding, but these, if any, should be very
few in number, since the translator has in all cases adhered as
closely as possible to the letter and the spirit of the author's text.

It may reasonably be expected that this edition will prove very
useful to those about to engage in the development of our peat
resources. The translator would like to point out, however, that
the estimates for the cost of winning peat by the various methods
here described should be accepted with great reserve. Fluctua-
tions in our labour market, uncertainty of our climate in com-
parison with that of Germany, and variations in the transport
facilities for different localities, will greatly affect the cost of
the product, which ought to be considered de novo in every
particular case.

In places where coal or lignite can be obtained at cheap rates,
the replacement of these by peat as a fuel for household or indus-
trial purposes will not in general be remunerative. In peat
districts remote from coal-mines, however, peat can be converted,
in a commercially successful manner, into a fuel capable of
replacing coal for all the purposes for which the latter is used.

The use of peat on a large scale for the production of power
or the manufacture of substances such as glass, earthenware, or
bricks, deserves careful attention. The cost of winning the peat
will depend a good deal on the extent to which the bog has been
drained. In a bog which has been badly drained the percentage
of water in the peat may be as high as 93, while in a well-
drained bog it may be as low as 86. The amount of raw peat
which must be raised and worked in the machines is, for a given
output of anhydrous peat, twice as much in the former as it is
in the latter case. Again, owing to the difficulty of procuring
labourers, the number of whom ordinarily required in a peat
industry is large, it is very desirable to replace these whenever
possible by machinery. It seems probable that the recent intro-
duction of so-called large scale industry machines with automatic

X THE WINNING OF PEAT

spreaders will to some extent meet this difficulty, but even then
the use of peat for a large industry will depend a good deal upon
local circumstances. Wherever the raw materials required for an
industry — calcium cyanamide, for instance— are to be found in the
immediate neighbourhood of a good peat fuel bog, and the market
for the product — in this case a fertilizer — is not far removed from
the site of the factory, there is little doubt that the use of peat in
a factory at the place will be preferable to that of coal.

It is probable, however, that peat can be most economically
used on a large, or a semi-large, scale in smaller factories in the
immediate neighbourhood of the bog where products such as
glass, earthenware, bricks, potato starch, potato spirit, and beet
sugar can be conveniently made, the peat being employed for
power and fuel purposes.

Hugh Ryan.

University College, Dublin,

August, 1919.

Since the above preface was written, two further German
editions of Hausding's Handbook have appeared. These do
not differ materially from the third edition, but— unlike the
latter — they are provided with indexes. The last German
edition gives some further particulars of the encouragement of
the peat industry in various European countries. No advances,
new in principle, have been made since 1917 with the exception
of a hydraulic method of winning peat, practised on an experi-
mental scale, near Bogorodsk in Russia. Large scale trials of
the Peredatsch Electrical Company, near Bogorodsk, on the
winning of peat by the action of high-pressure water jets on
the face of a peat trench are said to have given satisfaction,
the process requiring but few labourers. The large automatic
machines of the Wielandt and Strenge types have almost
completely displaced the smaller semi-automatic machines in
the winning of peat for great industries. The Schweger Moor
by-product recovery station is no longer worked with peat,
but the Wiesmoor Turbo-alternator Station near Aurich has
had its capacity extended to 20,000 kw. In a few instances,
new tables of costs are given for peat factories, but, as the
author states in his preface, these are of little permanent
value since prices for materials and for labour vary from
week to week in Germany. The costs of machines and of
labour in Germany in 1920 were from ten to fifteen times
what they were in 1916. Owing to coal shortage, however,
this did not decrease the peat output. Fuel of any kind was
readily saleable, no matter how high the price. The author
deplores that owing to this, worthless peat containing high
percentages of ash and water has in some cases been placed
on the market.

Hugh Ryan.

August, 1921.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE THIRD
GERMAN EDITION

Since the publication, in 1904, of the second edition of this
book the price of fuel has risen greatly owing to increase in trade,
and an effort, due to an ever-growing deficiency in agricultural
products in the country, has been made to bring new areas under
tillage. It has, therefore, become of even greater importance for
industty and agriculture than it formerly was that our bogs should
be employed more extensively for the winning and the utilization
of peat. Further attempts have been made to decrease the cost
of winning peat for use as a fuel, to make it better adapted for
this purpose, or to utilize it as a raw material in other industries.
At the same time, attempts have also been made to reclaim, before
or after cutting the peat, bogs which as waste land have hitherto
been almost valueless.

The utilization of bogs, viewed from the industrial, the agri-
cultural, and the national economic standpoints, is an important
question of the moment not only in the peat districts of Germany,
but also in those of Holland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Russia,
Austria, and America (especially in Canada). A handbook
covering the present state of the peat industry is necessary for
the guidance of all interested in that industry, and this, the third
edition of my book on peat, which has been rewritten and brought
up to date in the more important parts, is intended to meet this
want. It should prove as useful and reliable a guide in the
domain of peat winning and peat utilization as the last edition,
which has been out of print for a long time, was recognized to be
in peat circles.

Adhering to the standpoint which I formerly took up, I have
not hesitated to describe not onlv the present position of the peat
industry and its well-tested schemes, but also the manner of their
development, and therefore to describe and discuss older, out of
date, or even unsuccessful methods and plants.

Experience has again demonstrated the importance of setting
forth clearly in a treatise dealing with a special branch everything
which has been attempted or proposed in the branch irrespective of
its success or failure. Many of the " new " or " newest solutions
of the peat problem " published even within recent years, and
many of the supposed " newest discoveries " with regard to the
utilization of bogs, are evidently due to want of knowledge of
the processes and the problem at issue. Schemes have been
resorted to and rediscovered as new which experts have long
known to be unsuitable or uneconomical, and which could no
longer be expected to give new life to the peat industry.

Xii THE WINNING OF PEAT

In this, as in the preceding editions, I have not confined
myself to mere descriptions of methods and machinery, but have
combined with these full discussions of the matters under con-
sideration, and indicated the advantages and the disadvantages of
each. In this way the reader who is in need of either guidance
or instruction is enabled to estimate the value of any scheme
under various conditions, and to avoid the selection of a faulty
process on the one hand or the inauguration of useless experiments
on the other.

The development of the peat industry, and the experience
gained therein, made it necessary partly to rewrite and partly to
complete the earlier work. The sections on machine-cut peat
and peat-cutting machines, on new methods of dehydrating,
carbonizing, and gasifying peat, on fully automatic or large scale
industry machines, and on the erection of electrical power stations
in bogs are new. Attention is again directed, at the conclusion
of each part, by means of brief notes to whatever may be assumed
as axiomatic or at least as worthy of attention in the present
state of the industry.

As in the case of all similar industries, it was extraordinarily
difficult to obtain reliable data (with regard to outputs, working
costs, &c.) for the industry. Of the many statements I have
received I have used only those which seemed to agree with my
own observations or experience, and these particulars, even if
prudence in their use be necessary, will help to serve as a basis
for questions of costs, and for the economic side of various
processes and machines.1

All the more or less complete accounts in the previous editions
with regard to machines, and their products, which are no longer
employed in the utilization of peat, as for instance the manufacture
of "press peat," as well as with regard to the use of peat in
locomotives, in the iron industry, in the manufacture of illuminat-
ing gas, and so on, have been struck out and replaced by quite
brief notes. However valuable the detailed reports were in their
time, as for instance those on the press peat factories which were
revived towards the end of the last century, those on the use of
peat in the iron industry and on railways, including the carefully
determined results obtained by the Bavarian, Wiirtemberg, and
Oldenburg Railway Companies, they have now only historical
interest. If necessary it should not be difficult to complete the
brief accounts given in the present edition by referring to the
earlier edition (in public libraries or similar places) . By means of
foot-notes at the corresponding places attention is drawn to the
details which are given in the earlier edition.

1 The changes in the rates of wages and in the prices of materials,
machines, and apparatus in reference to the winning and utilization of peat
due to the World War, which broke out just as the writing of this hand-
book ended, have not been considered. How far these will remain unaltered
after the conclusion of Peace is still an open question. The prices given
here, unless otherwise expressly stated in particular places, are those which
were current up to the industrial year 1915.

AUTHOR S PREFACE Xlll

So far as scientific demonstrations or calculations appeared
necessary, either to support or to render comprehensible some
statements, I have tried to give these in a simple form which
anyone can understand, and have endeavoured to avoid all
detailed statements which required technical knowledge on the
part of the reader.

I have also avoided all elaborate accounts of the mode of
formation of bogs, of the natural history of peat, and of the more
or less recent experiments of scientific or theoretical interest only.
I have, for example, avoided giving too much detail about the
chemical and physical properties of peat, and its products in some
processes which are economically unimportant for the industrial
utilization of peat, as for instance, some carbonizing and gasifying
processes and their by-products. In these cases also references
are contained in the foot-notes to detailed accounts given elsewhere.

For the same reason, in spite of the desire expressed by some
when discussing the earlier edition, I have refrained from going
too fully into particulars relating to the agricultural utilization of
bogs — the subject being so wide that it would require a handbook
for itself. I have now, as formerly, confined myself to the brief
accounts necessary in a general survey, and have given references
from time to time to other more complete publications.

In works such as this we only too frequently meet with foreign
words which interfere with facility of reading and of comprehend-
ing the subject. In this edition, so far as I could, I have avoided
words of this character and replaced them by the expression used
in the German industry. This course, which met with general
approval when it was employed in the second edition, will, I hope,
be even more acceptable now, since an ever-growing effort is being
made in German technical publications to increase the clearness
and facilitate the understanding of statements by using, where
possible, only German expressions.

In conclusion, I tender my best thanks to all those who, when
discussing my book, have spoken of it in appreciative terms and
have given their support to me and my statements, and also to
those who have assisted my work, and, therefore, the subject
itself, by valuable contributions.

A. Hausding.
Berlin-Nikolassee,

January, 1917.

IiNTRODUGTION

The utilization of peat bogs, and the application on a large
scale of peat as fuel in industry, have not been so extensive as we
should have expected from the scarcity of fuel on the one hand
and the wide distribution and area of bogs on the other ; moreover,
they have not kept pace with the development of the coal industry.
The reasons for this are : — that not every variety of peat, and,
indeed, only the smaller part of our peat supply, can be won in
a simple manner by hand labour (cut, moulded, or dredged peat)
as a firm fuel capable of being transported and suited for more or
less large circles of consumers ; and also the winning of hand
peat in fairly large quantities requires many skilled workmen,
who are difficult to procure in most districts. Moreover, in
attempts to establish the winning of peat on an industrial scale
by attracting foreign capital and by employing machinery,
essential simplicity of equipment was not adhered to, and by
means of unwieldy machines and expensive plants a fuel was
obtained which could no doubt be used, but which was too costly
when compared with coal or brown coal.

As the goal was not attained in this way, attempts were made
about the middle of the last century to improve peat by means
of " chemical actions " with cements, admixtures, &c, the object
of which was to get rid of the loose, fibrous structure of the peat,
which, in addition to the high percentage of water in the substance,
was regarded as the chief obstacle to the introduction of peat
into industry. Such attempts could only lead to unfavourable
results. Capital, therefore, kept aloof from enterprises of this
kind. Favourably situated and easily accessible bogs were
developed to a limited extent for local requirements by ordinary
hand labour, giving a fuel, good or bad, according to the nature
of the bog, and only in the rarest cases capable of being utilized
in large furnaces and on a large scale, especially in districts
situated at some distance from the bog. Nevertheless, during
this period the suitability of peat for heating purposes was
repeatedly demonstrated, and inducements were continuously
held out for attempts to free peat in an inexpensive manner
from those defects which militated against its commercial success
as a fuel.

The solution of this problem could not remain unaffected by
the spirit of progress, and it was to a certain extent successfully
attained when the greatest possible simplicity of method was
recognized as the main requirement of a satisfactory mode of
winning, and when advantage was taken of the experience gained
in the earlier attempts with regard, for instance, to the influence

XVI THE WINNING OF PEAT

which the mixing and kneading of crude peat in a machine has
on its natural condensation during drying. It was seen that
a condensation of the loose, spongy, or fibrous raw material could
be attained most cheaply, not by employing great mechanical force
and unwieldy machines or powerful presses, but spontaneously
and in a natural way, if, after removing the originally hetero-
geneous structure of the peat, and after kneading and intimately
mixing the half-decomposed, more or less solid, fibrous particles
with the humified, earthy, or bituminous constituents, the uni-
formly dense, pulpy mass thus obtained was allowed to dry, and
to contract naturally as the water evaporated.

By supplementing hand labour by means of simple tearing
and mixing machines the goal to be attained was approached
in the second half of the preceding century and, as a matter of
fact, for the first time in Bavaria. This goal was to prepare from
peat by the aid of machines a firm and valuable fuel capable of
being transported, to emancipate the industry, at least to some
extent, from hand labour, which was becoming more expensive
every year, and to enable it to be prosecuted on a large scale
in a remunerative manner. The simplicit}^ of the method and the
tendency to make greater use of the large bogs, which existed
everywhere and which were up to that time almost valueless,
could not fail to give an impetus to the manufacture of machine
peat, especially in Germany, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark,
and Canada. The most varied proposals were likewise made for
the improvement of the ordinary, and for the introduction of
new, and probably better methods of winning peat.

Insufficient knowledge of, or inattention to, the intrinsic
properties of peat, the differences in the varieties of peat and of
peat bogs, and local conditions of trade and labour, led to many
blunders, which were naturally attended by complete failures of
plants and great losses of money. The ultimate cause of these
failures was a dearth of experts, due to the fact that skilled
investigators and captains of industry, after the first failures in
the peat industry, kept aloof from a problem the solution of
which did not seem to offer much hope of success. It was mainly
left to laymen to test, usually by very costly experiments, the
possibility and the economy of working newly proposed schemes,
which were generally merely the results of the idle thoughts of
so-called discoverers, who had occasionally gained an insight into
other branches of technics but who were, so far as peat itself was
concerned, anything but competent and expert. As a rule, it was
assumed that whatever had proved of use in other branches of
industry for working, forming and drying raw materials which
were supposed to be similar to peat, could be employed, without
any radical change and with the same degree of success, for the
improvement of peat. Wrong premises, as well as inattention
to the natural properties of peat and to the means which are alone
suited for its utilization, necessarilv led to mistakes in plants and
to economic failures.

A feeling of uncertainty was created by the designedly distorted

INTRODUCTION XV11

reports which appeared in technical and agricultural journals, as
well as in the daily papers, from interested parties, and by the
lack of unprejudiced expert opinion, based on science and expe-
rience, with regard to new proposals which were put forward
from time to time. The consequence of this was, that owing to
such recommendations of " new solutions of the peat problem '
(which were often, indeed, only resuscitated older processes),
owners of bogs or companies specially promoted for the purpose
were induced to acquire these so-called discoveries and to erect
costly experimental plant, only to arrive finally at a result which
an expert could have predicted with certainty. This statement
refers more particularly to the various old and new proposals for
artificial dehydration, de-fibring, de-ashing, carbonizing, if not to
complete de-naturing of the peat, as well as to artificial drying,
pressing and re-pressing of the raw or " machine-formed " peat by
dry or wet press methods, by chemical or physical processes, &c,
which, in spite of the warning expressly given in the second edition
of this book, have increased rather than diminished during the
past ten years. It holds good also for the many, and, from the
economic standpoint, generally valueless patents, which are men-
tioned under Patents in Section VII, as well as for the companies
of all kinds which were formed to work these patents, and which
very quickly, owing to loss of their capital, became bankrupt.

What we have just said about the winning of peat applies
more or less to its utilization. In the latter case, however, the
experiments were carried out in general with a clearer compre:
hension of the problem. Nevertheless, on account of ignorance of
the experience already gained, often, indeed, many years pre-
viously, roads were again trodden by which the expected goal
could not be attained.

The desire to utilize the bogs became for a time less pronounced
in Germany, as increase in the output of coal and the opening of
many new brown coal-mines, operated by the cheap open-cut
system, lowered the price of coal a good deal. Moreover, as the
preparation and transport of cheap, clean briquettes became more
universal, a very convenient and saleable fuel, both for industry
and the household, could be bought everywhere and at a price
which did not exceed its value.

Owing to the extraordinary development of German industry
towards the close of the past century fuel became notably scarce,
the price of coal rose considerably, and the winning of peat for
fuel purposes began again to attract more attention. The dry
presses, which had throughout the country been introduced into,
and found well suited for, the brown coal industry ; the yearly
increasing sale of press coal as fuel for households and industries ;
the better utilization of less valuable forms of fuel, by gasification,
for the production of power gas with and without the recovery
of the by-products ; the knowledge that electrical power stations
can be erected with advantage in bogs, and that the electric
current can be transmitted without serious loss to points of
utilization situated at great distances ; all these factors could not

(2595) B

XV111 THE WINNING OF PEAT

fail to react on the peat industry and give a stimulus to the erection
of similar plants for raw peat, which was supposed to be a substance
of similar character, and capable of being won more cheaply.

In the effort to employ the dry presses, which had proved
successful in the case of brown coal, for the manufacture of a clean,
handy, transportable press peat, similar to press coal, attention
was not paid to the fact that peat, with its 90 per cent, of water,
is, in comparison with freshly mined brown coal, with its 55 per
cent, of water, a substance much less adapted for pressing, inas-
much as it requires inconvenient and expensive modes of drying,
which in every case where press coal is ordinarily on sale must lead
to economic failure.

For winning peat by machinery on a large scale the only
machines that have proved successful are the mixing, kneading,,
and forming machines which are now generally employed, with
or without dredgers and sod spreaders, for manufacturing machine-
formed peat or machine-pulped peat or, briefly, machine peat.
Real experts confine themselves, therefore, to the improvement
of this method, if we exclude the winning by machinery on a
large scale of machine-cut peat for use in producers at the locality
in question. In the meantime, the knowledge that certain kinds
of peat give an excellent litter for the absorption of effluents from
farmyard manure, stables, or houses, and that peat mull is a very
useful packing and preserving material, gave great importance to
the manufacture of peat moss litter and peat mull.

In those countries which are poor in coal supplies, viz., Sweden,
Norway, Denmark, and Russia, attempts have constantly been
made to give special attention to plans for winning and utilizing
peat, and also for national economic reasons to promote the utiliza-
tion of the bogs by the State.

Committees of experts and owners of bogs were appointed,.
Peat Boards, Peat Experimental Stations, and, in connexion with
these, Peat Societies were formed which in their own capacity or
by means of nominated experts were to institute experiments on
the best methods of cultivating and utilizing the bogs, to give
advice to, to make proposals to, and to prepare working plans for,
the owners of bogs, and also, in some States, to advance money to
the bog owners.

In Germany, especially in Prussia, the importance of the bogs
was regarded for a long time from the point of view of national
economics only, or almost only, in respect to their agricultural
utilization. The Prussian Central Moor Commission, appointed
at the end of the seventies by the Prussian Minister of Agriculture,
with its official Experimental Bog Station at Bremen and its many
experimental fields, the Society for the Promotion of the Utiliza-
tion of the Bogs in the German Empire (Chairman, Baron von
Wangenheim, Klein Spiegel), which was founded in connexion
with the Central Moor Commission and is supported by the
State,1 have only in recent times (since about 1900) included the

1 It receives every year about 20.000M. from the Empire, 25,000M.
from the Prussian States, and 10,000M. from Mecklenburg and Oldenburg.

INTRODUCTION xix

technical utilization of bogs in the sphere of their labours. It is
desirable that these Departments and Societies should make the
technical side of the utilization of bogs even still more the object
of their investigations, plans, advice, and publications. In pur-
suance of this object, the State has created a special section for
Peat (at present under the direction of Professor Keppeler) in the
Technical High School at Hanover, and has appointed a technical
director (Arlandt) to the Bog Utilization Society. Until 1891 the
Experimental Bog Station at Bremen was under the direction
of Dr. M. Fleischer, now Privy Councillor and Professor at the
Agricultural High School at Berlin, who has assisted very greatly
by his exhaustive investigations in promoting the utilization
of bogs. His successor, Professor Br. Tacke, has been engaged
with a similar degree of success on the wider field of research
which now engages the attention of the Experimental Station.
The funds of the Station amount to 110,000M. to 120.000M., of
which the Kingdom of Prussia contributes about 90,000M. Just
as Prussia has at Bremen, so has Bavaria at Munich founded
a Royal Bog Utilization Institute, to which the State contributes
about 120,000M. per annum. Bavaria has also founded Bog
Utilization Stations at Bernau, Karlshuld, Erding Bog, and
Weihenstephan. Several peat engineers, under the Agricultural
Department, had been appointed to encourage the utilization of
bogs. Important matters are discussed by the Bavarian Bog
Utilization Commission, which acts as an advisory council to the
Peat Utilization Institute. The amount expended by the Bava-
rian State for peat experiments, peat instruction and in contribu-
tions is about 500,000M. per annum. For particulars about the
Wurtemberg Peat Society, see the so-called economic historical
memoir of Dr. Fridolin Liebel (published by Cotta).

In Austria, since 1901, at the Imperial Agricultural Chemical
Experimental Station at Vienna, a special section for the cultiva-
tion of bogs and the utilization of peat (Director, Chief Inspector
Dr. Bersch) has been created, and in the Ministry of Agriculture
a Bog Reclamation Inspector (Privy Councillor Koppens) has
been appointed. There is also a German-Austrian Peat Society
at Staab, near Pilsen (under the management of Hans Schreiber).
Experimental fields have been laid out or free courses of instruc-
tion have been held in Sebastiansberg (Erzgebirge), Laibach,
Klagenfurt, Admont, Sterzing, &c. In recent years the contri-
butions made by the State for the promotion of the reclamation of
bogs and the utilization of peat amounted to 50,000 kr. per annum.

In Sweden the State has founded an Experimental Bog
Institute at Jonkoping, and appointed a staff of four peat engineers
and one assistant engineer to examine bogs for their owners as
well as for the State, to work out plans for the peat fuel industry,
to carry out heating experiments with peat, including its use in
locomotives, and also to act in an advisory capacity.1

1 In Sweden there are at present about 70 machine peat works, which
are provided with about 100 peat-forming machines of the Anrep, Korner,

XX THE WINNING OF PEAT

The chief peat engineer of the State (Ernst Wallgren) resides
in Skara. Experts have been appointed to deliver free lectures
in peat districts, and to test discoveries proposed for the utiliza-
tion for peat. The Swedish Bog Reclamation Society, Svenska
Mosskulturforeningen (Chairman, Dr. von Feilitzen), works on
similar lines, and has established an experimental station at
Flahult. The societies, Sodra Sveriges Torfindustrie-Foreningen,
at Eslot, and Foreningen for torfindustriens beframjande inom
Vestergotland och Dalsland, devote their attention more to the
advancement of the Swedish peat industry. A Peat School has
been founded at Emmeljunga, of which Anrep (now deceased)
was for many years director, and who took an active part in the
development of the machine peat industry. The Swedish State
has voted a sum of 3i million kronor as a loan fund for peat
factories. In 1901 two engineers were sent, at the public expense,
to report upon the peat industries in the large peat countries of
Europe.1

The State grants an annual subsidy of 50,000 kr. to the
Swedish Peat Society. There are, in addition : —

(1) A general drainage fund of 450,000 kr., from which one-third to

one-half of the cost of drainage is refunded.

(2) A reclamation loan fund of 1,000,000 kr., from which loans up to

70 per cent, of the increase in the value of the soil can be given
for the drainage of bogs capable of being utilized for agricultural
purposes. These loans are free of interest for the first three years,
and during the next three years they pay interest at the rate of
3 per cent., while from the seventh year onwards the rate is
6 per cent., of which 3-6 per cent, is interest and 2-4 per cent,
is a contribution to a sinking fund.

(3) A drainage fund for bogs, amounting to 2,000,000 kr., from which

one-half of the costs of the drainage is refunded.

(4) A general reclamation fund for bogs, amounting to 300,000 kr.

(5) A similar fund for Middle and South Sweden, from which one-half

of the costs of working and draining is lent, in amounts which do
not exceed 500 kr., at 3 per cent, interest, and with redemption in
the course of ten years.

In Norway there is a Peat Society, called Det Norske
Myrselskab, at Christiania. In 1901 a report upon the peat

and Akermann types, and 225 peat moss litter factories containing 340
balers. The winning of machine-pulped peat or kneaded peat is no longer
practised. The machine peat works produce at present 90,000 m. tons of
air-dried peat fuel every year, and the peat litter factories about 5,000,000
bales, each having a volume of 0 • 38 cb. m. Furthermore, peat winning for
household requirements is carried on by hand to a greater extent. The
average cost (including interest and amortization of plant) is 7 • 50 to 8 • 00 kr . ,
and the selling price is 10 to 12 kr. per metric ton for quantities amounting
to a wagon load ; English coal costs 18 to 20 kr. per metric ton in Sweden.
Owing to the unusually high price of coal, which has risen still higher owing
to the war, the Swedish State Railways intend to erect a peat factory for
themselves, and for this purpose they have acquired the Vakoe Bog in the
Salwesberg-Aelmhut district. From the State funds 500,000 kr. have been
voted for this object.

1The complete report was published at Stockholm in 1902 under the
title, " Om Branntorfindustrien i Europa, berattelse, afgifven till Kongl.
Maj. : T af Alf. Larson och Ernst Wallgren."

INTRODUCTION XXI

industries of Europe and Canada was made at the public
expense.1

The development of the Norwegian peat industry (fuel and
moss litter) was demonstrated at the Jubilee Exhibition in 1914. 2

The State at present gives the Myrselskab an annual grant of
15,000 to 18,000 kr.

In Denmark there are the heather society, Danske Hedesel-
skab, and the Moseindustrielle Afdeling at Viborg, the latter
being the successor of the Moseselskabet, which was formerly
called the Moseindustriforeningen of Viborg, and which is now
extinct. The State grants to the peat industry section of the
Hedeselskabet (the Heather Society) amounted, in all, for the
last five years to 19,200 kr.3

A peat fuel engineer has been appointed by the State in
Finland, in which country there are approximately 100,000 sq. km.
of bogs. The Peat Society at Helsingfors is subsidized by the
State, from which it received 64,000M. (Finnish) in 1913.

Similar State subsidies for the utilization of peat are granted
in the Netherlands and in Holland. In Holland, during the
last fifty years of the past century, about 400 km. of main
canals and about 800 km. of bog canals have been constructed
at a cost of 12,000,000 gulden, i.e., 20,000,000M., with a view to
promoting the advancement of the peat industry. During the
same period a further sum of 11,200,000 gulden, i.e., 19,000,000M.,
was spent in improving and in increasing the depth and width of
the older canals.4

Of these sums the State contributed 7,229,000 gulden and the
Provinces 10,923,000 gulden. In the winning of peat in Holland
about 10,000,000 cb. m. of bog are cut out every year, and in

1 Published report of a visit abroad, " Indberetning fra ingenior J. G.
Thaulow om en foretaget reise for at studere torfdrift i Kanada m. fl. lande,"
Christiania, 1902.

2 For a report on this, see " Meddelelser fra Det Norske Myrselskab,"
1914, pp. 11-19. The larger machine peat works increased from 11 plants,
with a yearly output of 3,300 m. tons in 1900, to 34 plants, with a
yearly output of 12,500 m. tons, valued at 125,000 kr., in 1913. There are
also at work, especially on the west coast, about 500 smaller (usually hand-
worked) peat machines, intended to meet the household requirements of
the less wealthy bog owners. At present there are about 60 more or less
large peat moss litter factories with a yearly output of 280,000 bales, each
weighing 65 kilos, the whole being valued at 420,000 kr., and about 300
smaller factories, the output of which is worth 600,000 kr. The machines
required for these factories are usually made in the country itself. The
amount of coal imported into Norwav increased during the past thirty
years (1884-1913) from 570,000 m. tons" to 2,550,000 m. tons, and its import
value from 7,500,000 kr. to 48,300,000 kr.

3 The winning of peat fuel in Denmark is generally effected by the
Rahbeck method, floating plants being seldom used. At the Holmgaard
glass factory at Noestred (Zeeland) two Dolberg machines for the manufac-
ture of machine-formed peat and one floating plant are employed. No
electrical power stations have as yet been erected in the bogs. The amount
of peat fuel won annually has increased from 46,760 m. tons in 1902 to
86,849 m. tons in 1914.

4\Vortmann, " Festschrift des hollandischen Ingenieurvereins, 1897."

XX11 THE WINNING OF PEAT

this way an area of 400 ha. is gained annually for agricultural
purposes. In the transport of the peat, over 30,000 boat-loads
are carried.

In Russia there are considerably more than one thousand
machine peat works in operation. The Government itself has a
number of peat factories on the State bogs, and in 1901 it erected
at Redkino, at a cost of about 1,500,000M., a large peat charcoal
factory, which has, however, since then ceased work. In a Minute
of the Ministry of Agriculture, issued in 1900, it was decided : —

(1) To grant permission for the exploitation of the Crown bogs.

(2) To subsidize the investigation of bogs.

(3) To instruct the peasants in the simplest methods for the
winning and the utilization of peat fuel.

(4) To promote the construction of railways in peat districts.

(5) To reduce the freightage (railway) on peat.

(6) To guarantee advances and loans of money for the working
of bogs.

(7) To grant peasants plots of bogs for the winning of peat at
5 to 6 copecs a square fathom.

In recent years the Duma has assigned every year a sum of
120,000 roubles as a State subsidy for the winning of peat and
for research on peat deposits. The peat fuel won in Russia
amounts yearly to 150,000,000 pud, i.e., 2,500,000 m. tons. It is
estimated that it is possible to win 5,000 milliard pud each year,
and the Russian Government has therefore encouraged the
institution of new investigations on the utilization of peat. At
Bogorodsk, near Moscow, one of the largest known peat electrical
stations has been erected, about which further particulars are
given in Part II, Section IV, 7.

There are fifteen to twenty more or less large peat moss litter
factories in Finland, which have an annual output of 60,000 bales,
each weighing 60 kilos, and about 120 smaller co-operative
factories, with several larger ones, in Russian Poland, as well
as in the neighbourhood of Petrograd and Moscow.

Active participation in efforts to utilize peat bogs may be
observed everywhere. The publications of official departments
and experimental stations, as well as those of the societies named
above, contain much that is worth our attention.1

1 Amongst these publications are : —

(1) Die Verhandlungsberichte der Zentralmoorkommission in Prenssen.

Berlin, Paul Parey.

(2) Mitteilungen des Vereins zur Forderung der Moorkultur im Dentschen

Reiche, Berlin. 24 parts yearly. This journal is referred to in
the text of this book as Mitteilungen.

(3) Zeitschrift fur Moorkultur und Torfverwertung (Privy Councillor

Koppens and Professor Bersch), Vienna.

(4) " Jahrbuch der Moorkunde," Hanover, edited by Professor Tacke

and Dr. Bersch.

(5) Oesterreichische Moor zeitschrift, Staab, published by the Peat

Society. 12 parts yearly.

(6) " Handbuch der Moorkultur," by Dr. Bersch. 2nd edition, 1911.

(7) " Handbuch der Moorkultur," by Professor von Seelhorst. 2nd

edition, 1914.

INTRODUCTION XX111

Although it is quite certain that swampy beat bogs will never
become gold-mines for their owners, it is just as certain that, if
they are at all adapted for working for one or other purpose,
they can be made just as remunerative as other industries,
provided careful and business-like methods are adopted, and
also that agriculture will be the richer by the handing over to it
of the cut-away bogs.

Proof of this statement will be supplied in the matter set forth
in the two parts of this book which follow, viz., " The Winning of
Peat " and " The Utilization of Peat."

(8) Mitteilungen des Heidekulturvereins fur Schleswig-Holstein.

(9) Der Kulturtechniker, Breslau. 4 volumes yearly.

(10) " Meddelelse fra Mosindustrie-Foreningen," Viborg.

(11) " Meddelelser von Det Norske Myrselskab," Christiania.

(12) Svenska Mosskulturforeningens Tidskrift, Jonkoping. 6 parts yearly.

(13) Finska Mosskulturforeningens Arsbok, Helsingfors.

(14) Foreningen for torfindustriens befrdmjande inom V ester gotland och

Dalsland, 1901, Tvenne Foredrag.

(15) Hedeseskabets Tidskrift, Aarhus.

(16) Meddelande frdn Sodra sveriges torfindustriforening.

(17) Frnst Wallgren : In addition to the Report previously mentioned,

" Redogorelse for statens torfberedningsforsok vid Koskiwaara,"
" Profningar med torfindustriella Maskiner," and many others.

(18) Journal of the American Peat Society, Washington.

(19) Theodor Siegner : " Die Ausbeutung der bayerischen Moorschatze

durch Staats und Privat-betriebe, " Munich, Freysing, 1911.

(20) Fr. Liebel : " Die Wurtembergische Torfwirthschaft," an historical-

economic study, Stuttgart and Berlin, 1911.

(21) Professor A. Baumann : Bericht iiber die Arbeiten der koniglichen

Bayerischen Moorkulturanstalt, Munich, 1910, and the following
years.

(22) " Das Moonvesen Sebastianbergs," by Hans Schreiber, Staab, 1913.

(23) Arbeiten des Laboratoriums filr die technische, Moorverwertung an

der Koniglichen technischen Hochschule zu Hannover, by Professor
Keppeler (Vieweg and Son, Brunswick).

(24) " Moornutzung und Torfverwertung," by Professor Paul Hoering,

Berlin, 1915.

(25) Journal of the A merican Peat Society, New York.

PART I

THE WINNING OF PEAT

Section I
GExNERAL REMARKS ON PEAT

1. — Origin, Occurrence, and Varieties of Peat

Peat is a combustible body formed by the humification of
plants under certain conditions. It is, like brown coal and coal,
a stratified mineral, and should be regarded as intermediate in
nature between plant fibres and these coals.

The conversion of certain plants into peat is due to their
growth from year to year, to the accumulation of their remains on
the top of each other, and to decomposition of these plant remains
while air is excluded from them as much as possible. The trans-
formation of the plants into peat depends both on the locality and
on the weather conditions. In similar circumstances it occurs
even at the present day, and in the peat formed by the trans-
formation, the nature of the plants from which the peat is derived
may be recognized less or more according to the length of time
during which the change has progressed.

Amongst these plants, which for the sake of brevity may be
called " peat-formers," are almost all mosses, most of the crypto-
gams, and several of the phanerogams, especially the Sphagnums,
Hypnums, Conferveae, and Algae, and to these may be added,
according to the locality, sometimes marsh plants (Sparganium,
Nymphcea alba, Calla, &c), sometimes heathers (several varieties
of Erica, V actinium, Calluna), sometimes marine plants (rushes,
grasses, especially Zoster a marina, and all varieties of seaweed),
and sometimes stems of trees (Pinus pumilio), roots, leaves, &c.

According as the one or the other of these plants is the chief
one engaged in the formation of the peat, the nature of the latter
will vary, and we are therefore led to distinguish the varieties,
moss, marsh, grass, reed, heather, marine, and forest peats. We may
also classify peats according to the peat-forming plants which
exist in them into : —

Light-coloured moss or sphagnum peat, wool-grass or Erio-
phorum peat, rush or Scheuchzeria peat, sedge or Carex peat, reed
or Phragmites peat, branching moss or Hypnum peat, and wood or
forest peat. When more fully humified, peats may be classed as
marsh, moss, and heather peats.

2 THE WINNING OF PEAT

The mere occurrence of the plants mentioned above, even
when these are present in large quantities, is not in itself sufficient
for the formation of peat. It is also necessary that the decom-
position of these plants, which sets in after death, should not be
that of " rotting " in the presence of air, i.e., of a sufficent amount
of oxygen. It should take place in the absence of oxygen, or
with the greatest possible exclusion of air, and should proceed as
slowly as possible — the process being then one of carbonization
(more correctly, peat formation).1

Under the term " coal " we cannot, however, include peat,
even in the form of the black doughy or mull peat, which is often
called mud peat.

Both these conditions are satisfied when the land is of such
a nature that large quantities of water can accumulate and can be
prevented from evaporating rapidly. This promotes, in the first
place, the rapid multiplication and growth of the plants mentioned
above which, as in the case of the mosses, algae, marsh plants and
the like, float on the water without connexion with the bottom,
or in that of the water-grasses, reeds, rushes, &c, spread from
the bank towards the centre, and it afterwards facilitates their
rapid decomposition, when the former, owing to their ever-
increasing weight, have become submerged, and the latter by
dying have gradually covered the bottom of the pool. Fresh
mosses, algae, and grasses develop on the layers of mould, and
these in the same way meet a similar fate. At the same time
these layers, with the assistance of the overlying water, cut off
the underlying layers from contact with the oxygen of the air,
and by means of a slow carbonization, or humification, of the
constituents of the plants help in the formation of peat. In this
way, layer by layer, peat bogs, mosses, veens, venns, fens or felts,
frequently of large area, are formed.

To facilitate the accumulation of water, the country must be
shaped like a basin, and the subsoil must consist of an impermeable
layer — clay, loam, or alluvium. These depressions may fill wholly
or partially with water, due to rain, snow, dew, or heavy fog, or to
overflowing of rivers or lakes into the basins.

In nature, the existence of this necessary condition can be
observed in the case of every peat bog.

The plants which are generally concerned with peat formation
— sphagnums, hypnums, algae, &c. — contain, in addition to the
woody fibres which resist decomposition for a long time, very easily
decomposable vegetable substances, e.g., gum, plant glue, &c,
which during the decay or decomposition pass rapidly into " humic

1 More detailed investigations and information as to the mode of origin
and the chemical nature of peat are contained in Wiegmann's prize essay :
Cber die Entstehung, Bildung und das Wesen des Tories," Brunswick,
1837 ; also in Senft's " Die Humus-, Moos-, und Limonit-bildungen als
Erzeugungsmittel neuer Erdbildungen," Leipzig, 1862, in Weber's " Die
wichtigsten Torfs und Humusarten," in the brochure, " Die Entwicklung
der Moorkultur in den letzten 25 Jahren," Berlin, 1908, p. 80, and in
Professor Hoering's "Moornutzung und Torfverwertung," Berlin, 1915.

GENERAL REMARKS 6

acid " and " humic carbon,"1 and thus impart a brown colour to
the water and all the portions of the plants immersed in the latter.

The good preservation of human and animal bodies, which,
for one reason or another, have become embedded in a peat bog,
is to be ascribed to the humic acid and the tannins occurring in
the peat.2

It is known that the decomposition3 of the plants occurs by
a portion of the hydrogen of the plant forming water and ammonia
with the oxygen and nitrogen of the air, and by the oxygen of the
woody fibre, thus set free, combining with a portion of the carbon
forming carbon dioxide, the escape of which causes the loss of
a considerable part of the carbon.

Since, however, this decomposition is much impeded by the
water, and therefore less carbonic acid can form, relatively more
carbon remains behind, and thus the formation of " humic acid '
is favoured. Further changes in a deep layer of peat can occur
only at the expense of the oxygen of the " humic acid," and the
latter is therefore continuously transformed (more and more)
into " humic carbon."

In this decomposition the carbon contained in the plants is
almost completely retained and converted into " humic carbon '
and " humic acid," and this occurs all the more, i.e., the peat
formation proper has proceeded all the further, the older the bogs
or their individual layers.4

For this reason the upper layers of a peat bog, i.e., those of

1 The term" humic carbon " has here, as elsewhere, no definite chemical
meaning. — Translator.

2 In 1747 a female body with antique sandals on its feet was found at
a depth of 7 ft. in a bog on the Island of Ayholm, in Lincolnshire. The
nails, hair, and skin were still quite fresh, the skin being soft, free from
wrinkles, and merely coloured brown. In a peat bog at Hassleben, in
Thuringia, two bodies, with flesh and hair intact, were found in 1830, and
from the clothing and the gold clasps on their hands and feet they are
believed to have come from the time of Julius Caesar or Augustus. For
further particulars of the most recent discovery (a male body 1 -74 m. in
height) from the lake bog at Demendorf (district of Eckernforde), which
shows almost complete destruction of all the bones during the peat forma-
tion, see Dr. Grotrian and Professor Mestorf in the 42 Bericht des Museums
vaterl. Altertiimer of Kiel University.

3 The view expressed here about the chemistry of the humification
process is quite improbable. — Translator.

4 Many specimens of peat are very old. The Museum of Antiquities
at Copenhagen contains a female mummy-like body from a peat bog at
Heraldskioer, in Jutland, which was found fastened with hooks to a pole.
Antiquarians concluded with a tolerable degree of certainty from the
remains of its clothing that it came from the late Pagan period, and
Petersen has attempted to prove that this mummy is the body of Queen
Gunehilda, of Norway, whom we know to have been enticed into Denmark
by a promise of marriage by King Harold Blaatand in 965, and to have
been then sunk in a peat bog.

These and other discoveries, especially those of skeletons and bodies
of primeval animals, the great mastodon, the giant elk, and many others,
as well as the superposition of other minerals on peat, point to the great
age of some bogs (Dr. Noggerath, " Der Torf," Sammlung gemeinverstandl.
Wissenschaftl., Vortrage, No. 230).

4 THE WINNING OF PEAT

more recent origin, are still rich in slightly humified plant fibres
and are therefore light in colour and of low density. As examples,
we have moss, heather, reed, and root peat, to which in general the
name moss or fibrous peat is given, and which in the dry state
rapidly burns away without giving much heat. The deeper layers
and the older bogs contain a brown-black, heavy, well-humified
peat, the so-called marsh, mull, or dough peat, which is also
termed mud peat. The lowest layers contain a brownish -black,
dense peat, possessing few recognizable plant remains, and giving,
when cut in the dry state, a dark surface having a waxy lustre.
This peat has the highest percentage of carbon and the greatest
fuel value. As a rule it is called pitch peat or bituminous peat.

In many bogs is found under the pitch peat the so-called liver
peat, formed by the decomposition of quite low forms of mosses
(Cryptogams), which, however, on account of its age and the
pressure due to the layers superimposed on it, is a completely
transformed, black, earthy mass, which contains no plant remains,
and which, as its drying progresses, falls completely into powder.

The humification, or peat formation, as well as the formation
afresh of the above-named varieties of plants, proceeds even at the
present day, and therefore peat bogs without any covering of earth
or bogs which have been partially cut away during the winning and
utilization of the upper layers are still to be seen slowly growing
once more.

This after-growth varies a good deal in different places accord-
ing to the nature of the ground and other circumstances more or
less favourable towards it, so that, for instance, at Warmbruchen,
in Hanover, a peat layer 1 to H m. in depth was able to form
in a period of thirty years, while in other places, as in the Jura, the
after-growth does not amount to much more than \ m. in a century.

Although the process described above has taken place in this
or a very similar manner in all bogs, the external appearance of
the bogs is by no means always the same. Some bogs have long
ago become covered with earth, sand, loam, or soil, and have
perhaps become overgrown with trees and shrubs ; others have
only a slight sward, or consist of swamps with a more or less
vigorous growth of the sedges and grasses characteristic of a peaty
soil, or, finally, they may be -entirely submerged under water,
showing to the eye no trace of the presence of a bog.

According as the flooded areas have formed on mountain slopes,
tablelands, or depressions in flat districts, the peat is found on
plateaux and mountain ridges or in lowland wastes. The peat of
mountain bogs is called mountain peat, while that of grass or
lowland bogs is called grass peat. In general, the bogs may be
divided into high bogs and low, flat, or green bogs.

High bogs, generally called moss peat or moss bogs, have been
formed mainly from peat mosses (Sphagnum), heathers (Erica),
and wool-grasses (Eriophorum). The peat mosses have the
property of retaining water in large quantities, like a big sponge,
or of sucking it up from the bottom. In this way the growth
of these plants, unimportant in themselves, is greatly facilitated,

GENERAL REMARKS 5

so that in the interiors they may grow to mounds showing the
characteristic peat-forming plants of great depths (from 5 m.
to 15 m.).1 The large bogs of Oldenburg, Hanover, Bremen,
Southern Bavaria, Bohemia, &c, belong to this class.

Low or flat bogs have been formed on a more fertile base from
grasses, marsh grass, sedges, reeds, and rushes. They occur mostly
in areas which are subject to inundation by rivers and lakes and
form, as a rule, swamps and marshes, as in the Havel, Spree, Oder,
and Danube basins.

The so-called transition bogs or mixed bogs, as regards their
mode of origin, the classes of plants from which they have been
formed and the peat contained in them, are intermediate between
the high and the low bogs. More or less large areas or islands of the
one kind of bog may occur in those of the other variety ; high bogs
may enclose grass bogs and vice versa. Sometimes the conditions
of plant growth have so altered that in parts of a bog which was
originally a grass or low bog, a high or moss bog several metres in
thickness has formed, as, for example, in the Leba Bog, in Koslin.

In consequence of their situation, high bogs contain a smaller
admixture of earthy substances, and have, therefore, as they are
formed mainly from mosses, a very low ash and a high carbon
percentage : they are poor in plant food. The low bogs, subject to
frequent inundations and to deposits of dust carried by the wind,
contain much earthy matter and have a more or less high per-
centage of ash. The peat-forming plants of the low bogs are poor
in potash and phosphoric acid but are, on the other hand, rich in
lime and easily soluble nitrogen.

The percentage of lime in the peat-forming plants is often
utilized for the characterization and distinction of the various peat
bogs. Thus, according to Professor Fleischer, high bogs are those
in which the percentage of lime in the dry substance, supposedly
free from casual constituents, does not exceed 0-5 and low bogs
are those in which the percentage of lime does not fall below 2-5 ;
transition, mixed, or intermediate bogs have percentages of lime
lying between these limits.

As pointed out above, the land, in respect to its configuration
and the impermeability of the soil, has a considerable effect on
the formation of peat. No less important are the meteorological
conditions of the country. Wherever frequent and strong winds
continuously produce an undulatory motion of the water and give
it atmospheric oxygen, or wherever southern heat and sun make
the formation of flooded areas difficult, extensive peat bogs are
rare. In the Torrid Zone peat bogs do not occur at all, while,
conversely, the farther north one goes the more they increase in
number and in extent.

In Europe, North America, and Northern Asia there is, indeed,
no country which is not rich in large peat bogs. In Europe,

1 Thus the Augstumal Bog, Heidekrug, is up to 10 m., the Great Moss
Bog, Niedrup, up to 13 m., the Schehstedt Bog up to 20 m., and the
Pentlack Bog, in East Prussia, up to 24 m. in depth.

6

THE WINNING OF PEAT

Russia, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Hanover, Oldenburg,
Brandenburg, Pomerania, East and West Prussia, and the
Russian Baltic provinces are noted for immense deposits. The
farther south one goes, the greater the decrease in the area of
the bogs ; nevertheless, those of Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Baden, and
Austria-Hungary are of considerable extent. Large bogs occur
more rarely in France, Spain, and Italy.

The total area of all the bogs1 in Europe alone cannot be given
even approximately, since many of them, on account of their size
and marshy nature, have not had even approximately trustworthy
figures determined either for their areas or for their depths.2

The extent of the bogs in North-west Germany has been
estimated as below3 : —

The Wurtemberg and Baden peat bogs may be estimated at
not less than 50,000 ha., the Bavarian at 100,000 to 150,000 ha.,
the Austrian at 400,000 ha.,4 and the Swiss at 5,000 ha. The
peat bogs of Sweden are extensive (approximately 5 million ha.),
and also those of Norway (1 to 1^ million ha.) and Denmark
(100,000 ha.), but considerably greater are those of Finland
(about 10 million ha.) and Russia (up to 17 million ha.), where
the possible winning of peat fuel per annum is estimated at
5,000 milliard pud = 82 milliard m. tons (cf. Zeitschrift fur Moor-
kultur, Vienna, 1914, p. 170).

1 The term "peat bog " has not yet been exactly defined. It is usual,
in Germany, to include under this term only areas which have a peat layer
of at least 20 cm. thickness ; in the State peat statistics of Denmark, only
the bogs which have a peat layer of at least one Danish foot (28 cm.) thick-
ness are included. Hans Schreiber, Staab, proposes (Osterr. Moor zeitschrift,
1914, p. 51) to define a bog as a district which has a peat layer of at least
J m. in thickness and \ ha. in area.

2 The distribution of peat in Germany is treated in detail in von
Dechen's "Die nutzbaren Mineralien und Gebirgsarten im Deutschen
Reiche," Berlin, 1873, and Hoering's "Moornutzung," 1915.

3 " Der gegenwartige Stand der Moorkultur und der Moorbesiedlung in
Preussen." Official publication, 1899; and Hoering, 1915.

Hectares.
Hanover . . . . . . . . . . about 576,000

400,000

Oldenburg

Brandenburg

Pomerania

Posen

East Prussia

Schl eswig-Holstein

Westphalia

Silesia

West Prussia

Saxony

Rhineland . .

74,000

312,000

210,000

200,000

180,000

85,000

85.000

85,000

85,000

100,000

Total . . 2,392,000

4 According to Dr. Bersch, Vienna ; see also Zailer, Jahrbach der Moor-
kunde, 1913.

GENERAL REMARKS 7

2. — Composition of Peat, Percentage of Ash, and
Constituents of the Ash

The investigation of the constituents of peat has given results
which vary with the locality and the age of the bog from which
the peat was derived, and with the plants from which it was
formed.

The following researches give indications as to the compounds
contained in peat : —

Wiegmann1 found in 100 parts by weight of peat : —

"Humicacid "

Wax

Resin

Bitumen

" Humic carbon "

Water

Calcium chloride

Calcium sulphate

Silica and sand

Alumina

Calcium carbonate

Iron oxide . .

Calcium phosphate

\

High
27
6
4
9
45
5
0
0
0
0
0

bog.

6

2

8

0
2

3

515

28

72

08

44

265

Dredged peat.

4

25

10
0'
0-425
2-25

44-6

9.9*

4-875
16-4
9-6

J6-6
\l-6

* These samples must have been artificially dried.

Ferstl carried out a complete examination of a peat from
St. Wolfgang in Upper Austria ; the peat contained 82 per cent,
of organic matter, 3-5 per cent, of ash, and 14-5 per cent, of water.
In 100 parts by weight of the peat there were : —

\\) Soluble in water : —

(a) Organic matter with traces of ammonia

(6) Inorganic matter :

Calcium sulphate . . . . 0-04

Sodium chloride . . . . 0-01

Potassium chloride .. .. 0-01

Magnesium chloride . . . . 0-05

Iron oxide . . . . . . 0-01

Alumina . . . . . . 0-01

Silicic acid . . . . . . 0-03

1-50

(2) Soluble in hydrochloric acid : —

(a) Organic matter with traces of ammonia

{b) Inorganic matter :

Phosphoric acid . . . . 1-07

Magnesia . . . . . . 0-30

Lime . . . . . . 1-05

Iron oxide . . . . . . 0-12

Manganese oxide . . . . 0-04

Alumina . . . . . . 0-31

Silicic acid . . . . . . 0-05

0-16

0-13

1-66

2-94

3-07

1 Wiegmann, "Ueber
Tories," Brunswick, 1837.

die Enstehung, Bildung und das Wesen des

8

THE WINNING OF PEAT

(3)

Insoluble in water and acids
(a) Organic matter :
"Humic acid "
"Humic carbon "
Resin
Wax
Plant fibres . .

.. 22-60
. . 34-70
.. 4-10
.. 1-40
.. 16-22

79-02

(b) Inorganic matter

. . . .

0-29

79-31
14-50

(4)

Water

< . . .

, .

Determinations of the ultimate composition of peat have
been made more frequently. Professor Ritthausen,1 of Konigsberg,
determined the percentages of (1) moisture, (2) ash, (3) nitrogen,
(4) carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in some peats from the Province
of Prussia, after they had been powdered and air-dried, with the
following results : —

No. of specimen

l

2

3

4

5

6

Moisture

13-36

16-94

18-19

14-89

16-42

14-75

Ash

1-37

1-72

1-73

1-74

11-92

5-18

Carbon

43-61

45-16

44-33

45-86

41-02

46-83

Hydrogen

5-17

4-65

4-48

4-65

4-27

4-52

Nitrogen

1-51

1-13

1-12

1-27

2-58

1-87

Oxygen

35-98

30-4

30-15

30-59

23-79

26-85

After allowing for the moisture, i.e., when in the anhydrous
condition (dried at 110° C), the samples contained : —

Ash

1-58

2-07

2-11

2-04

14-26

6-07

Carbon

50-33

54-38

54-13

53-9

49-0

54-93

Hydrogen

5-96

5-59

5-5

5-5

5-1

5-30

Nitrogen

1-81

1-36

1-37

1-49

3-08

2-19

Oxygen

40-32

36-6

36-89

37-07

28-56

31-51

And after allowing for the ash found in the various specimens,
the organic portions of the peats had the following compositions : —

Carbon

1-13

55-52

55-29

55-02

57-15

58-48

Hydrogen

6-05

5-7

5-6

5-61

5-94

5-64

Nitrogen

1-83

1-49

1-4

1-52

3-59

2-34

Oxygen

40-99

37-29

37-19

37-85

33-32

33-54

The varieties of peat investigated were as follows : —
(1) Moss peat from Labiau, a very spongy, loose mass of
plants, which had not been much transformed. The plants
{Sphagnum pallustre) had a yellowish-green (slightly brown)
colour, and were not much humified.

1 " Bericht ueber die Verhandlungen und Exkursionen der Versammlung
von Torfinteressenten zu Konigsberg," 1873.

GENERAL REMARKS 9

(2)-(4) Peat from Brandt Moor, Kurisch Haff, which is covered
with fir trees. Sample No. 2 was taken from a depth up to
60 cm. ; sample No. 3 from 60 to 120 cm., and No. 4 from
120 to 180 cm.

(5) Peat from Waldau, from the bog between Waldau and
Stangau.

(6) Peat from Wolla, near Marienwerder.

Samples (5) and (6) were peats of ordinary quality but in the
sod form ; sample (6) was more solid than sample (5).

From the figures given it can be clearly seen that the peat
becomes richer in carbon and poorer in oxygen the more it under-
goes decomposition in the process of peat formation, and, further,
that the oldest peats, (5) and (6), have the highest percentages of
carbon and the lowest of oxygen.

Results, deserving of notice, with regard to the composition
of the most important varieties of peat have been published by
Professor Br. Tacke, of Bremen.1

They were obtained in a detailed examination of ten different
specimens of peat at the Bremen Bog Experimental Station. The
results, which are given in the table, p. 10, refer to anhydrous peat.

The weight of unit volume has been obtained from the fresh
samples of the raw peat as taken from the bog, and with the aid
of the above figures the quantities of combined nitrogen, lime,
phosphoric acid and potash present in a cubic metre of the raw
bog have been calculated. These are given in the table on p. 11.

It may be seen clearly from these figures how the various peats
differ in their content of lime, and why the Bog Experimental
Station has adopted the classification of the bogs for agricultural
purposes according to their percentages of lime. According to
Fleischer, the average percentages (referred to anhydrous peat) of
the following substances in the upper peat layers are : —

Transition

High bog.

bog.

Low bog.

Nitrogen . .

. 0-81—1-20

2-0

2-50—4-00

Lime

. 0-25—0-35

1-0

4-00

Phosphoric acid .

. 0-05—0-10

0-2

0 • 25—4 • 00

Potash

. 0-03—0-05

0-1

0-10—4-00

Of the varieties of peat in the table, p. 10, 1 to 4 are peats from
high bogs, 5 is from a transition bog of low bog type, 6 and 8 are
low bog peats, 8 (b) has the character of a high bog peat, and
9 that of a low bog peat.

Jacobsen2 has examined in detail a peat from the neighbour-
hood of Hor, in Sweden. The appearance of the peat indicated
the possibility of its having an unusual composition. The peat
had a uniform brownish-black colour, and its cut surface had a
strong resinous lustre. Perceptible remains of the peat mosses
could be distinguished only in pieces taken from the higher layers ;
in the denser and darker lower layers only a few, more or less

1 Mitteilungen, 1904, pp. 136-137.

2 Annalen der Chemie, clvii.

(^595) c

10

THE WINNING OF PEAT

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Combustible substances

Nitrogen . .

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Phosphoric acid . .

Potash

GENERAL REMARKS

11

Weight of a cubic

Amount (in kilos)

n a cubic metre of

metre in

-cilograms.

raw peat of

Description.

Raw.

Anhy-
drous.

Nitrogen.

Lime.

Phos-
phoric
acid.

Potash.

1. Recent sphagnum peat

952

83-2

0-56

0-30

0-04

0-08

(Nusse)

2. Intermediate peat

(a) Nusse

946

176-1

2-04

1 • 50

0-07

0-05

(b) Worpedorf

1,042

133-8

1-23

0-07

0-07

0-07

3. Old sphagnum peat

(a) Nusse

986

114-5

1-52

0-61

0-06

0-03

(b) Worpedorf

1,041

107-5

1-02

0-26

0-03

0-08

4. Transition moss and

992

138-7

2-28

0-87

0-08

0-04

sedge peat (Nusse)

5. Transition forest peat

889

134-6

1-99

2-41

0-07

0-07

(Nusse)

6. Marsh forest peat

1,060

140-5

2-64

3-98

0-11

0-06

(Ocholt)

7. Reed peat (Pippins-

991

103-3

1-99

0-45

0-09

0-08

burg)

8. Mud peat

(a) Containing earthy

1,104

386-9

7-04

8-63

1-43

0-70

matter (Ocholt)

(b) Without admix-

1,072

154-4

2-01

0-93

0-12

—

tures (Dieven Bog)

9. Liver peat (Nusse)

1,060

180-9

3-56

2- 12

0-20

0-90

10. Heather peat (Pippins-

691

498-7

4-09

0-75

0-75

0-45

burg)

large, pieces of wood could be recognized. The density of the
peat from the lower layers, when the peat was freed from the
pieces of wood, was 1-07. When powdered, the peat lost on
drying at 100° C. 11-5 per cent, of moisture, and contained
5-02 per cent, of ash.

The chemical examination showed that 100 parts of the peat

contained : —

Per cent.
Carbon . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1 ■ 38

Hydrogen . .

6-49

Nitrogen

1-68

Oxygen

. 35-43

Ash

5-02

In 100 parts of the ash there were : Per cent

Potash

1 • 50

Soda

0 ■ 58

Lime

. 20-75

Magnesia

1 • 42

Alumina

6-60

Iron oxide . .

17-34

Sulphuric acid

1 -55

Chlorine

0-67

Soluble silicic acid .

6 • 50

Phosphoric acid

0-42

Carbonic acid

S • 43

Sand

. 33-50

And traces of mang

anese.

12 THE WINNING OF PEAT

Apart from the high percentages of lime and iron oxide in
the ash, the results obtained did not support the conjecture men-
tioned above, but again bore out the general experience that the
chemical composition of pure peat is liable to only slight variations,
and that deviations found in the composition of a peat and its
behaviour on burning are mainly due to earthy admixtures, i.e., to
the percentage of ash and the composition of the latter.

The following table (see p. 13) contains the results of a number
of peat investigations, which support what has just been stated.

From the figures contained in the table we may assume that
the chemical composition of pure, ash-free, dry peat is : —

57 to 59 p.c. Carbon, 5 to 6 p.c. Hydrogen, and 34 to 38 p.c.
Oxygen, or on an average, 58 p.c. Carbon, 5-5 p.c. Hydrogen, and
36-5 p.c. Oxygen; or, if we suppose that all the oxygen is combined
with the hydrogen in the form of water, then have we approxi-
mately : —

58 p.c. Carbon, 1 p.c. Hydrogen, and
41 p.c. " chemically bound water."

In the same way we may assume that air-dry (25 per cent,
moisture), ash-free (cut) peat, contains : —

44 p.c. Carbon, 0-75 p.c. Hydrogen, 30-25 p.c. ' chemically
bound water," and 25 p.c. moisture.1

It is immediately evident from the table that the percentage
of ash in different kinds of peat is as varied as the composition of
the ash. This is due partly to the mode of formation of the peat
and partly to the position (i.e., to the locality) of the bog, as
already indicated.

The amount of ash varies from | to 50 per cent, of the weight of
the completely dried peat. When the amount of ash in the peat
is less than 5 per cent, the peat is said to be poor in ash, when
between 5 and 10 per cent, the peat is said to be of medium ash
content, and when the percentage of ash is more than 10 the peat
is said to be rich in ash.

A peat which contains more than 25 per cent, of ash is of no
use as a fuel, since it is not commercially possible to wash out,
or otherwise remove, the ash constituents. Moreover, there is
naturally so great a quantity of peat with a more or less small
percentage of ash that it has not hitherto been necessary to resort
to the use of peat rich in ash.

The table on p. 15 contains the individual constituents of
various peat ashes, and from it the varied nature of their com-
position may be seen. These figures are of value with regard to
the fertilizing power of peat and peat ash (in the moor-burning
industry), and also with regard to furnaces where it is a matter

1 Under the term " moisture " is understood that amount of moisture
or water in a body which is not chemically united with the other constituents
but, in consequence of the loose or fibrous character of the body, is absorbed
by the latter from the air, and which therefore varies with the moisture
content of the air. The moisture is driven out of the body, and, measured
by the decrease in weight of the latter, by more or less prolonged heating
of the body at 100° to 110° C.

GENERAL REMARKS

13

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14 THE WINNING OF PEAT

of the purity or special composition of the flame, or where the
substances to be heated, burnt, or melted come in direct contact
with the fuel and its ash.

3, — Weight and Density

The weight of a cubic metre (without interstices) of peat
freshly raised from the bog varies with the amount of water (which
is generally from 80 to 95 per cent.) in the bog (i.e., the extent to
which the bog is drained), and with the quality, age, and maturity
of the peat. The following weights have been given for a cubic
metre of freshly cut peat from various Swiss bogs. One cubic
metre (raw peat) weighed : —

Kilos.
From a bog at Orny-Orbe . . . . . . 1,300

From a bog at Wanwyl

From the Great Moss at Bern . .

From the Great Moss at Freiburg

From En Rose Bog

From Pont Bog

From Einsiedeln Bog

1,300

1,200

950

1,000

850

650

Unfortunately, in the determinations the percentages of ash
and water in the samples examined are not stated.

We may assume that the average weight of a cubic metre
(without interstices) of raw peat containing 85 to 90 per cent, of
water is 1,000 kilos.

The density (or specific gravity) of crude dried peat depends
largely on its percentage of ash and on the age of the bog, as well
as on the depth of the layer and on the maturity of the raw
material. According to Karmarsch, we may assume that the
densities for the different kinds of peat vary within the following
limits : —

Mossy, fibrous, or grassy peat . . 0-213 — 0-263

Young, brown peat .. .. .. 0-240—0-676

Mould peat, mud peat, dough peat . . 0-410—0-902

Pitch peat, bituminous peat . . . . 0-639 — 1 -039

The latter limit is, however, not sufficiently high, since in
Oldenburg a black, dense peat is frequently met with, the density
of which amounts to 1-3.

Artificial treatment of peat, of course, also alters its density.
Increasing the density of peat for use as fuel is the main object of
the present methods of winning peat. How far this has been
attained will be given further on under each of the methods of
winning.

4, — Properties of Peat affecting its Use

The composition of the pure peaty matter contained in peat,
which has been found from many experiments, is, on the average :
carbon, 58 per cent. ; ' free hydrogen," 1 per cent. ; and " chemi-
cally bound water," 41 per cent. We can see from the high
percentages of carbon and hydrogen, the substances which are
valuable for combustion, and from the extraordinarily wide

GENERAL REMARKS

15

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16 THE WINNING OF PEAT

occurrence of peat, that it must have been very early recognized
as a fuel, and valued as such under certain conditions.

Even Pliny relates in his Natural History XVI, 1, of the Chauci,
" that they weave nets of rushes and reeds to catch fish, and mould
mud with their hands and dry the mud in the wind rather than in
the sun. This earth they burn to cook their food and warm their
bodies benumbed by the cold."

However early the use of peat as a fuel was recognized, its
value for this purpose was not admitted until recent times. This
was partly due to abundance of wood in the forests, which were
regarded as inexhaustible, and, at a later date, partly to the
introduction of coal and brown coal as fuel, and in part to faulty
preparation of the peat and to lack of fireplaces suitable for burn-
ing it. In recent times, however, the great demand for fuel by
large industries and the correspondingly high prices of wood and
coal, as well as the advances in the art of working furnaces, gave
rise to renewed and more intense interest in peat. On account of
its composition it has attracted the attention of many technical
men as a raw material for the production of gas and for the winning
of tar, ammonia, photogene, paraffin, peat charcoal, &c, formed
as by-products during the gasification. Also, on account of the
great absorptive power of light moss peat, the attention of land-
owners has become directed to its utilization as peat litter and peat
mull. From the conditions necessary for the formation of peat,
it follows that peat occurs in nature either entirely under water,
or in immediate contact with and saturated by it. Since
peat in this wet condition is obviously not directly suitable
for any of the above-mentioned purposes, the winning of peat as
a dry, convenient, transportable substance must precede every
utilization of the substance. Peat, on account of the smallness of
the amount of useful bodies contained in it in respect to its total
mass can only bear low costs of winning. This fact has affected
to a varying extent the commercial success of the various methods
hitherto employed for its utilization.

Section II

PREPARATION FOR PEAT WINNING BY
DRAINAGE OF THE BOGS

1. — Natural Drainage ; Arrangement of the Drains

Drainage of the bog must precede the winning of the peat by
any process. Owing to the manner in which bogs are formed
and to the property possessed by peat-forming plants of retain-
ing moisture, the water-level in bogs is so high that the loose
structure of the upper layers of every bog partakes more or
less of the properties of a swamp, accessible, for the purposes of
winning on a large scale, by neither man nor beast.

When we speak in the following pages of the winning of peat,
we shall mean only operations conducted on a large scale and in
a systematic manner, and not that piratical winning sometimes
practised in the smaller peat works. The latter mode should under
all conditions be avoided, since it not only places obstacles in the
way of the development, later on, of plans for the systematic
cutting and drying of the peat, but also makes the drainage of the
bog more difficult to accomplish owing to the irregular manner in
which it has been cut up during the piratical winning. The latter
method increases the amount wasted a good deal, and, more-
over, a bog which has not been worked systematically is almost
worthless for agricultural purposes.1

The Bog Preservation Law of April 1st, 1913, was passed in
Germany to prevent such piratical winning and to ensure the
possibility of utilizing the soil, later on, for agriculture and affores-
tation. This law became operative immediately on its passing for
the Province of Hanover. Its operation in the other Provinces is
dependent on the decisions of the Provincial Diets. By its pro-
visions ground which, alone or in connexion with other plots,
forms a bog of more than 25 ha. shall, so far as is required by the
commonweal, be utilized for the winning of peat in a manner such
as to assure the possibility of utilizing this ground later on for
agriculture or afforestation.

Permission is not required for the winning of peat for one's
own household or for sale, provided the transactions are limited
to the workmen of a single house and to two other persons, at the
most. Similar but even more comprehensive regulations have
been in existence in Holland since 1810 and in Norway since 1913.

1 Cf. Dr. Fleischer, " Die Yerpflichtungsbedingungen zur Sicherung
zweckmassiger Ausniitzung zu verpachtender Moore und Torflandcrein," in
the Report of the Proceedings of the Central Moor Commission, First to
Eleventh Meeting, p. 106.

18 THE WINNING OF PEAT

In other countries which are rich in bogs regulations of this
character are in course of preparation.

The drainage of bogs, the object of which is to remove all the
water in the soil except that which the fibrous and spongy nature
of the peat enables it to retain between its cells, if it can be
effected in the natural way, or in an artificial way (by means of
machines, pumps, &c.) at not too great an expense, should always
be started a long time before the commencement of the actual
operations of winning. It should be carried out very early in the
spring, or, still better, a year or two beforehand, in order that the
water may have sufficient time to ooze out and flow away from
the bog.

When the bog is so far drained that the surface is able to bear
men, beasts, and machines, the peat still contains 80 to 90 per cent,
of water, which can, however, be removed from it, wholly or
partially, simply by either drying it in the air or by means of
artificial heat or by compressing it after it has been raised from
the bog. Air-drying is the only method which has proved suc-
cessful from the economical standpoint.

Natural drainage, that is, drainage by means of a number of
drains cut in the bog in which the water collected is brought by
natural falls through a main drain to a lower-lying place, brook,
pond, or river (the so-called drainage of the catchment basin), is,
as is hardly necessary to say, the cheapest method since the peat
raised in cutting the trenches can generally be utilized by con-
version into fuel by one of the methods described later on and
since mechanical power and artificial aids, such as drainage by
machinery, are not required to raise and remove the water. These
aids to drainage are necessary when the district has not sufficient
fall for the removal of the collected water by means of drains.

In cases where the possibility of the natural drainage of large
bogs is not obvious or may seem even impossible to the mind of
the layman, it is always advisable, before resorting to artificial
drainage, to obtain the advice of an expert. The latter, either
by measurements conducted with care or by removal of small
obstructions, may show that natural drainage is possible and plan
it correctly, or, on the other hand, by finding the most suitable
point for the erection of draining machines, planning the collecting
and connecting drains as well as indicating the size, character, and
mode of driving of the machines which are best suited for the given
case, will save the bog-owner from useless and expensive erections
to which laymen might be led by not paying sufficient attention
to the conditions in question.

The scarp of the drains may be from 1 : J for a firmly set and
felted bog, and 1 : \ for a soft, spongy bog, but should never be
under 1 : 1|.

The main drain should be directed, where possible, towards
the deepest part of the bog and be led to a point from which the
collected water can flow into a pond or watercourse or into which,
after being raised by pumps to a higher level, it can be led by the
fall thus artificially produced. A main drain is then opened into

PREPARATION FOR WINNING BY DRAINAGE

19

the middle of the bog which is about to be worked and is connected
in a regular manner with the rest of the bog by side-drains
arranged in a radial or net-like formation.1

In Oldenburg, for instance, the water is removed by means of
drains (Rajung-Grippen) having a width and depth of 0-6 m. which
are cut every 50 m. from one another. These drain into the
fen canal which passes through the bog, and smaller drains 10 m.
apart, each having a depth of 0-5 m. and a width of 0-3 m., are
cut crosswise to the others.

The drains are first cut as deep as the character of the bog will
permit and later, when collapse of the trench slopes is no longer to
be feared, they are cut to at least | m. below the water-level due
to the drainage in the catchment basin, or § m. deeper than it is
intended to cut the peat. In very wet bogs the main drains should
be cut at first to depths of only 25 to 50 cm. After some time the

Fig. 1. — Installation of a centrifugal pump for draining
a bog, by Brodnitz and Seydel, Berlin.

'drains may have their depths increased to 1 m. or more, and in bogs
with " back pressure " they may be connected with short cross-
drains (so-called Kopfgrippen) 10 m. apart, which deliver into the
middle drain at right angles to its two sides. These drains have
■a breadth of 60 cm., a somewhat smaller depth, and a length about
three times the depth of the bog. The peat banks thus formed
along the edges of the drains drying more quickly and, therefore,
becoming better consolidated, offer some, and generally sufficient,
resistance to the " back pressure " of the still undrained bog in
the rear.

It is better to cut a much-branched net of smaller drains than
a few large canals. As in draining land, the cross-section is
calculated on the assumption that the flow is 0-65 1. per second
for every hectare.

A good workman is able to dig (grippen) 60 to 80 linear metres
of a drain, 0-6 m. in depth and width, in a day.

1 Compare with this the mode of drainage practised in the Oldenburg
bogs (Section III). For drainage systems, see also Vogler, "Grvmdlehren
•der Kulturtechnik," Berlin.

20

THE WINNING OF PEAT

2. — Erection and Working of Pumping Machinery for

Artificial Drainage

Centrifugal pumps, pulsometers, and water-wheels are generally
recommended for raising water in peat bogs, owing to the ease with
which they can be installed and worked.

(a) Centrifugal pumps, hitherto more generally known and
used than water-spirals, although the construction and the utility
of the latter were pointed out by Vitruvius 2,000 years ago, can
be obtained from every important machine factory or shop.
Nevertheless, it will be well to apply for them to special factories,
for instance, B. Brodnitz and Seydel, in Berlin, Fr. Gebauer, in
Berlin, R. Wolf, in Magdeburg-Buckau, amongst others, stating
the object, the driving power intended to be used, the probable
amount of water to be operated on and the height to which it is to
be raised. By mistakes in designing them or by wrong selections
of measurements or velocities, the efficiency of these pumps,
approximately 75 per cent., may be considerably lowered.

These centrifugal pumps are easy to set up, require only a simple
driving belt, and no special stonework foundations. They may
be employed with advantage, especially when the heights to which
the water must be raised are small (up to 10 m.).

The following table may serve as an approximate guide with
regard to output, power required, and price.

Output, Price, and Dimensions of Centrifugal Pumps for Pumping
Distances up to 15 m., and Suction Heights up to 6 m.

Output in litres

300

450

600

1,200

3,000

6,000

8,000

15,000

per minute

Diameter of tube

60

70

80

105

175

250

275

400

in mm.

Diameter of belt-

105

105

125

140

240

320

400

600

wheel in mm.

Width of belt-

90

105

105

120

160

230

235

350

wheel in mm.

Horse-power re-

q uired for pump-

ing distance of

3 m.

0-30

0-45

0-60

1-20

3-00

6-00

8-03

12-30

6 m.

0-60

0-90

1-20

2-40

6-00

12-00

16-00

24-6

9 m.

0-90

1-35

1-80

3-60

9-00

18-05

24-00

36-9

Price of pump

185

220

260

310

500

750

1,100

1,800

with belt- wheel,

in Marks

Price of foot- valve

29

30

32

42

85

301

150

225

with pump-sieve,

in Marks

If the position of the pump must be frequently changed it is
advisable to employ a portable one ; the steam boiler, the driving
machine, and the pump itself being built on the same frame —
' a portable centrifugal pump," such as is shown in Fig. 2. This
facilitates to an extraordinary extent the installation and working
of the pump,, the belt, which would require tightening from time
to time, being dispensed with, and the driving power, as well as
the fuel consumption, being decreased.

PREPARATION FOR WINNING BY DRAINAGE

21

A portable pump such as this costs : — for 12 h.p. and 6,000 1.
a minute output, 6 m. suction height (approximately 4,400 kilos
in weight), 7,200M., and for 20 h.p. and 10,000 1. a minute output,
6 m. suction height (approximately 6,000 kilos in weight), 9,000M.

Fig. 2. — Transportable
centrifugal pump.

(b) Steam-chamber pumps or steam-pulses (pulsometers) are
characterized by simplicity of installation and convenience in
working (they require only a simple steam connexion and, when
suspended by a chain, can be lowered directly into any water
trench). They require, however, when working, more steam for
the same amount of water pumped and have, therefore, greater
working expenses than good pumps. They are used whenever
quantities of water must be quickly, but not continuously,
removed.

For a pumping distance up
to 8 m., a suction height
up to 3 m., and an output
per minute of

Width of water tube, about

Weight of machine, about . .

Price, including suction-
sieve and foot-valve, about

350

500

600

800

1,000

1,500

70

80

90

100

120

150

150

200

300

350

400

450

310

360

400

500

600

800

2,000 1.
175 mm.
700 kilos.

1.000M.

These pumps are on sale by Korting Bros., Hanover ;
M. Neuhaus and Co., Luckenwalde ; Henry Hall, successor to
Karl Eichler, Berlin ; C. W. Julius Blancke and Co., Merseburg, &c.

(c) Water-elevating wheels, which are driven by steam or
electricity and have been constructed, with diameters up to 10 m.
and widths up to 3 m., for the drainage of more or less large
districts in Holland rather than in Germany, are used with
advantage only for large quantities of water and small falls (up
to a maximum of 1-5 m.). Plants' of this character have been
erected at Konigsberg by the civil engineer Hagens. Thus, for
instance, there are six of these water-wheels employed with
good results on the drainage of the Memel basin at six different
elevating points, the wheels being driven electrically by a 480 h.p.
power station situated at some distance from them.1

1 Cf. " Ueber die Technik der Wasserhebung bei kiinstl. Entwasserung
von Mooren," Architect Danckwert, Mitt. d. Ver. f. Moork., 1900, p. 101.

22 THE WINNING OF PEAT

The consumption of coal, including loss of electricity in trans-
mission, was, during some prolonged trials, 1-40 kilos for every
100 cb. m. of water raised to a height of 1 m.

3. — disadvantages of Over-draining

However necessary a partial draining of the bog may be for the
winning of peat, and however advantageously it may affect the
character of the raw peat — inasmuch as the plant remains (roots,
fibres, wood, &c.) still contained in the bog, which have obstinately
withstood peat formation and decomposition under the water and
which in this condition would greatly impede the winning and
preparation of the peat, are once more subjected to a rapid humifi-
cation — nevertheless, the removal of the water must not be con-
tinued until the individual layers become quite dry. In the
latter case the brittle, friable character of the dry, loose peat would
introduce difficulties of quite another kind and, indeed, it would
again be necessary to add water to the peat if it were to be further
worked by machines. The best percentage of water which peat
that is intended for further treatment should contain depends
on the consistency of the peat as well as on the method of winning
and utilizing it. For the preparation of machine peat, which will
be discussed in greater detail later on, this percentage of water lies
between 70 and 80 and may be all the smaller the greater the
tearing and mixing action of the machine employed. This is of
great importance and should not be lost sight of in connexion
with the labour and time required for drying. The percentage of
moisture may be considerably lower in the case of crumb peat
♦intended for gasification.

Frost exerts a very injurious effect on moist, that is, neither
air-dry nor thoroughly wet. peat. If the "moist" peat freezes
it will not retain, after thawing, the property of contracting and
becoming denser on drying. By the action of the frost the union
of the fibres with the peat particles and their mutual cohesion are
destroyed, the peat forming, after drying, a very crumby, light
mass. When this frozen peat is dried after thawing it loses its
fibrous character and in a short time becomes peat mould, the
winning of which, owing to its crumby nature, can no longer be
effected by ordinary cutting, and even by utilizing other methods
of winning great difficulty is experienced. By means of machines,
however, it can be converted into machine peat after the addition
to it of good, unfrozen raw peat. Frost exerts a less injurious
influence on the winning of crumb peat intended for gasification.

To prevent loss due to the freezing of the upper layers in
a peat bog which is provided with a drainage svstem and in which
peat is cut, every main drain should be provided with a sluice by
means of which the water may be dammed up at the end of the
peat season, and the bog again saturated with water. Drainage
can, as before, x.o on from early in spring to the beginning of
the winning operations. This system of sluices is not required
for machine peat winning.

Section III

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND

PEAT

1. — The Winning of Cut, Stroked, Trodden, Dough, and

Dredged Peat

When the drainage of a bog has proceeded so far that the peat
while in situ contains 70 to 85 per cent, of water, the work of
winning, properly speaking, can be started. Much peat, however,
is won which contains a still higher percentage (over 90) of
water even in cases where it is not entirely a matter of winning
peat under or from water.

The winning of cut peat by cutting the peat with a spade
is the best known and most generally employed of the hand
methods. It is carried out in the most varied ways according to
the custom of the locality or the character of the bog. We may
divide these methods into vertical and horizontal cutting, of which
the first is the more widely used. In this method the workman
stands on the surface to be cut and with a slane (Fig. 7) cuts the
sods,1 as the pieces of peat won and prepared in regular form
(mostly rectangular) and size are called, to the required length,
lifts them with the slane and places them near him on the bog,
from which they are removed by other workmen, who " spread "
them for drying.

In horizontal cutting the bank is cut vertically, being thus
divided into portions each having the width of a piece of peat (sod).
A second workman standing in the trench cuts the pieces hori-
zontally, employing for this purpose a small spade, sharpened on
three sides, the width of which is that of the sods. With this
implement, called a " lifter," he cuts every piece horizontally to
the required thickness and lays it on the edge of the trench, where
it is received and from which it is removed by a third workman.

It would take us too long to discuss fully the various modifica-
tions of these methods of winning,2 and as the chief object of this

1 The expression " peat bricks " or " peat stones " applied to sods in a
few factories should never be used in the case of litter and fuel peat in
technical articles by experts, so as not to cause obscurity. These terms
should be reserved for regularly formed peat products which, like ordinary
bricks (building bricks, tiles, cement bricks, &c), serve for building purposes,
for damping sound, for the thermal insulation of walls, for supports for
insulating sheds, &c.

2 For details, seethe pamphlet " Ueber Gewinnung und Benutzung des
Torfes in Bayern," Munich, 1839; also the memorandum "Die Land-
wirthschaft im Reg-Bez. Oberbayern," dedicated to the Twenty -sixth
Excursion of the Bavarian Agriculturists (1885), in Tolz ; see also an
article by Dr. Zailer in the Zeitschr. f. Moork. unci Torfverw., 1911, p. 89.

24 THE WINNING OF PEAT

book is to describe fully the winning of peat in so far as this is
carried out on a large scale and by means of machinery, only the
Oldenburg method of cutting, which is still widely employed, and
the methods of winning hand peat most in vogue in South Germany
and Austria will be considered, so that we may compare the results
thus obtained, the costs of winning, and the requirements as
regards labourers, &c, with the results obtained in the preparation
of the so-called " manufactured peat "or " machine peat."

The Oldenburg Administration, with a view to the systematic
utilization of their extensive peat moors, which are situated
between Oldenburg and Leer, has divided a portion of these
moors into so-called " Colonies,"1 which various colonists are
permitted to utilize on payment of a rent. The administration
itself is concerned with the provision of navigable fen canals,
which are cut at its expense : —

(1) For the better drainage of the whole bog.

(2) For means of communication between the various settle-
ments as well as for easy and cheap transport of the peat when it
has been won.

(3) To provide for the watering (irrigation) of the cut-away
bog for agricultural utilization.

The colonies set apart for working are intersected from west
to east by the South Georgsveen Canal, which is in course of
construction, and which they border to a depth of 70 m. to 100 m.
They contain a total area of about 2,000 Calenberg acres.

There are dikes on both sides of the canal, and on each of
these there is a road with a footpath 15 m. in width, which is
separated from the adjoining colonies by the so-called surrounding
channel (" Ringschlot "), i.e., a trench which has a width of from
3 m. to 1-5 m. and a depth corresponding to this width.

As a preparatory operation for the drainage of the whole sur-
face a trench, " Mittelrajung " (midrib), 1 m. in width and 1 m. to
1| m. in depth, is cut in the direction of the axis of the canal, and
side trenches, 0-6 m. in depth and breadth, are cut in the direction
of the " Ringschlote " parallel to the midrib ; the three trenches
are kept in good condition by repairing them from time to time
(about every two years). Where the boundaries of the next
colonies are to be situated, that is, every 70 m., there are cross-
drains, which are also 0-6 m. in depth and width. Land at a
distance of 200 m. to 250 m. from the canal is allotted for four
to five years to the colonists, who pay a small rent. In the case
of the moor-burning industry (buckwheat cultivation) generally
practised some years ago, the buckwheat cultivator began
a regular system of draining by laying out plots of 2 rods
(10 ft. each) = 20 ft. = 6 m., in width with trenches, called
" Grippen," 0-6 m. wide and 0-3 m. deep, between them.

This process formed a good preparation for the succeeding
peat-cutting industry, since it not only drained the upper portion

1 Pope's map of East Frisia shows how the surface set aside for the
colonies is divided.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT

25

of the bog but provided the level surface which is required for
peat winning or peat digging.

The levelling of the ground, when the winning is not preceded
by moor burning, costs the peat worker 0-15M. to 0-20M. per
square metre.

After the main canal has been cut and the depths of the side
trenches (RingscbJ.ote) have been increased, the colony is auctioned
by the State (formerly it was let at 150M. to 330M. earnest money
for each colony.)

The new colonist now commences " digging " and begins, as
a rule, at the side trench (Ringschlot) by stripping a piece (a bank)

Hand Implements for Winning Peat.

Fig. 3. — Cutter. Fig. 4. — -Stripping

spade.

Fig. 5. — Lifter. Fig. 6. — Placing fork.

3 m. in breadth through the whole width of his plot, i.e., the loose
soil, refuse, or " strippings," to a depth of 0-2 to 0-4 m. is thrown
aside with the aid of a stripping spade (Fig. 4), or if the upper
layer is capable of being directly worked, he removes the roots
and other woody residues contained in it.

The peat cutters begin operations at the same time as the
stripper (provided the spreading ground or drying field has been
already levelled). The cutters include : —

No. 1.— A " cutter " with 1 slane (Fig. 3).

No. 2.— A " digger " with 1 lifter (Fig. 5).

No. 3. — A " placer " with 1 placing fork (Fig. 6).

No. 4. — A " wheeler " with 2 barrows (flat).

The cutter and the digger interchange operations every half
to three-quarters of an hour.

In place of the straight slane, a three -sided slane (Fig. 7)
is sometimes used, or, as in Bavaria, a double slane (Fig. 8) is
employed.1

1 For the other peat-cutting implements in use, see the article by
Dr. Victor Zailer in the Zeitschr. f. Moork. u. Torfverw., 1914, p. 89.

te595)

D

26

THE WINNING OF PEAT

No. 1 divides the surface of the bog with the slane, which is
45 cm. to 50 cm. long and 15 cm. wide, in pieces 12 cm. wide and
43 cm. long.

No. 2 cuts these pieces horizontally with the lifter (spade) to
a depth of 12 cm. and throws them in the form of sods, 43 x 12 x
12 cm. on the edge of the bank, i.e.. on the bounding edge, or
trench edge, where No. 3 puts 12 to 14 sods in pairs over one
another on the barrow, which is taken away by No. 4, the wheeler,

Fig. 7. — Three-sided slane.

Fig. 8. — Double slane.

who spreads the sods on the drying ground by lifting them from
the barrow and placing them in pairs side by side (or spreading
them), as is indicated in Fig. 9.

When he has spread five or six pairs of sods he puts a third
layer of single sods lengthwise on these. When one " stretch '
has been " layered," he later on, by tipping the sods from the
barrow, throws a batch against the layer so that the individual
sods lean almost upright against the third layer of the "stretch,"

Fig. 9. — Drying cut peat in Oldenburg.

and continues this operation until the whole " stretch " has been
" layered." In the case of black peat six, and in that of white
peat seven, batches are thus " layered " together. The sods must
be placed as regularly as possible with respect to one another.

The " layering ground " is situated near the bank, and has
usually a width of 4 to 5 rods = 40 ft. to 50 ft. A " stretch " of this
length with its seven batches is called a " turn." These " turns "

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT 27

also lie at right angles to the bank, being 1 m. from it, and are
separated from one another by spaces of 25 cm. to 30 cm. The
width of a cutting bank is, as given above, 1 rod, or 10 ft. (fen
measure) = 3- 10 m.

The above four men with the stripper form a " team " and get
through each day a " day's work," amounting in the case of black
peat to 34 rods, and in that of white peat to 30 rods, each of 3- 10 m
in length = 12,200 to 12,225 sods of peat.

According as the " layering " of the sods can take place either
on the cut-away bottom of the trench or on the uncut surface of
the bog, five or six (sometimes even seven) workmen are required
for cutting and spreading a " day's work." In 1914 the wages per
hour of the men averaged 35 Pfg., the digger and cutter receiving
generally 40 Pfg. and the stripper 20 Pfg. a day more than the
wheeler and placer. Generally, thirteen hours a day are worked,
but the men are seldom paid by the day. The labour is usually
contracted for by the " day's work," and the cut peat is measured
on the " layering ground " by the length of the " turns " in rods
(1 rod = 10 ft., or 3- 10 m.) ;" one " day's work " is 30 or 34 rods
= 93 or 100 m., and corresponds to an excavation in the bank
having a volume of 75 cb. m.

The peat is left in the " layers " for eight to fourteen days,
according to the state of the weather, before the " draining " is
begun. For the latter operation, the sods in the first row of the
seventh "batch' are removed and placed beside one another
in groups, as in Fig. 10, a; after a day or two, the sods of the
second row of the seventh " batch " are placed similarly, but in
reverse formation, as in Fig. 10, b, on the first layer, and so on
until all the " layered " peat has been " ringed." The
first sods should not be placed too near one another,
as otherwise the " rings " easily collapse.

As a rule, the " ringing " is carried out by women and
girls, who, in the interval from 4 a.m. to 6 or 7 p.m.,
can ' ring ,; a ' day's work." When the peat in the
" rings " is nearly air-dry it is collected into round heaps,
each of which holds half a " day's work." The latter
process is known as clamping. In this case, also, one
woman can clamp one " day's work ' in the above- IG'
mentioned interval of time.

In 1914, at Elisabethfehn, where two workers usually co-operate
for cutting and " layering," the cost of winning by piecework,
excluding the cost of the preliminary drainage, for the day's work
— approximately 12,000 sods — is : —

For black peat 20M. to 24M.

For white peat 15M. to 18M.

for stripping, cutting and " layering." In addition, we have for

the labour in drying : —

Ringing and clamping .. .. .. .. 4-OOM.

Second ringing . . . . . . . . . . 1 -50M.

So that the dry peat corresponding to the " day's work " costs :—
For black peat up to . . . . 25 • 5M. to 29 • 5M .

For white peat up to . . . . 20 • 5M. to 23 • 5M.

28 THE WINNING OF PEAT

According to the class of peat the " day's work " weighs from 5,000
to 7,500 kilos, so that the cost of winning 100 kilos of cut peat at
the above-mentioned rates of wages is, on an average, 0-35M. to
0-40M.

In the case of simple vertical cutting with a three-sided
slane (Fig. 7) or a double slane (Fig. 8), a skilful workman
is able to cut in twelve hours 6,000 to 8,000 sods, each
0-1 x 0-1 x 0*4 m., or to excavate 24 to 32 cb. m. of
peat, which another workman can in the same time wheel and
" layer " on the drying ground.

It is generally calculated that, with a daily wage of 3M. to
3|M., 100 kilos, clamped dry at the place of winning cost 0-35M.
in a high bog and 0-30 M. in a low bog. To this must be added
0-20M. to 0-30M. for transport to the storage sheds or the point
of utilization, interest and amortization of capital charges, drain-
age, supervision, and insurance, so that every 100 kilos of dry
peat in the storage sheds cost 0-50M. to 0-65M.1

1 In the Mitteilungen, 1912, p. 171, the following estimate is given for
a more or less large cut peat industry, in which 15,000 m. tons of cut peat
(sufficient for approximately 5,000,000 kw.) are won : —

A well-drained bog containing fairly dense peat yields at most 12 m. tons
of peat fuel,. containing 25 to 30 per cent, of moisture, from 100 cb. m. of the
bog, and, as an average, 11 m. tons will be assumed. For 15,000 m. tons,
then, 136,300, or approximately 140,000 cb. m. of bog must be cut. A bog
2 m. in depth and 400 ha. in area will in this case be sufficient for approxi-
mately fifty years. The capital charges are assumed to be 400,000M.,
which, at 5 per cent. (20,000M.), amount to 1 -35M. per metric ton of peat
fuel. Under ordinary circumstances we may reckon that the wages for
each 100 cb. m., assuming a rate of 0-45M. per hour for a good workman,
will be for —

Levelling the land

Cutting

Drying, ringing, clamping, and transport

Insurance of workmen, &c.

Superintendence and implements

Fire insurance

Marks.
2-50
25-00
16-00
1-50
2-50
0-50

Total .. .. 48-00

Or 140,000 cb. m. = 67.200M., or 4-48M. per metric ton.

To this must be added the costs of loading and transporting the peat to
the boiler-house or similar place, 0 • 8M. per metric ton, the expense due for
interest on 100,000M. working capital (5,000M.), and that due to supervision
(4.000M.), which amount to a further 0-60M. per metric ton. Altogether
we have : —

Marks.
Interest on capital and amortization . . . . 1-35

Wages 4-48

Loading and transport . . . . . . . . 0-80

Interest on working capital and supervision .. 0-60

Total cost of 1 m. ton of cut peat 7-23

Other estimates give 6M. to 6|M. as the cost of 1 m. ton of cut peat.
The State Demesnes Department receives 3 • 80M. per metric ton for air-dry
peat from the Vossberg Central Power Station in East Frisia, and makes
a profit on the transaction (Mitteilungen, 1912, p. 100).

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT 29

An indispensable requirement for good and rapid drying is
that the surface of the bog should be as dry as possible.

In many districts of South Germany other methods of drying
are preferred to that of " layering " and drying on the levelled bog
bottom, especially when the latter is still very moist. These are
the methods of building round poles ("poling") and the Austrian
one of " spiking." In the first method (" poling"), staves 2 to
2| m. in length are stuck vertically in the ground, and the peat is
layered round these in single rows to a height of 2 m. In the second
method, poles 3-8 m. in length and about 8 cm. in diameter
are stuck in the bog ; the poles are pierced crosswise over a
length of about 3 m. with 9 to 12 staves, sharpened at both ends,
which are approximately 25 mm. in thickness and 80 cm. in
length. The peat, which is usually cut in pieces 25 cm. square
and 8 cm. thick, is spread for some days on the ground and is
then put in rows on the spikes, on which it is allowed to dry for
about four weeks. These drying arrangements are more fully
described in the article on " Contrivances to ensure Drying."

The occurrence, mentioned above, of different kinds of peat and
the variations in the character of the peat in the different layers
from one and the same bog not only increase the difficulty of
winning cut peat in some instances, but, under certain circum-
stances and in the case of many kinds of peat, they make it quite
impossible. The sods cut from the peat, owing to want of fibrous
character and to the unequal distribution of the peaty matter,
contract irregularly on drying, split and, during the operation
of drying or loading, may completely break up into crumbs.

An attempt at improvement was, therefore, made by kneading
and mixing the crude peat, after it had been observed that peat
when dried after kneading and mixing was firmer and denser than
cut peat which, having a density usually of 0*2 to 0*5, has only
a small useful effect in comparison with its volume.

In winning this denser peat, it is cut from its layer in irregular
pieces and thrown (the different layers being mixed) into a pit
lined with timber or stone. It is worked in this pit by macerating
it with shovels, beating and striking it with planks, or more
usually by stamping on it with the naked feet (sometimes also by
means of horses or oxen), until a uniform pulp is obtained (stamped
peat or kneaded peat). If the crude peat be too dry for intimate
kneading, as is generally the case, a suitable amount of water is
added to the peat. The pulp thus obtained is stroked either, as
in the case of hand bricks, in a single- or double-cell mould, which
is emptied by turning it upside down on the drying ground, the sods
being arranged in rows and the product being called moulded peat;
or else a multi-cell, trellis-like frame (Fig. 11) is placed on the
drying ground and filled with peat pulp, which is " stroked " tight
into the various cells with the aid of a wooden scraper (stroked
peat) . Two men raise the frame by means of wooden handles and
put it down close to its former position for the repetition of the
filling, or the peat pulp is spread on the levelled peat field and left
exposed for some time to the action of the air, when partly by

30 THE WINNING OF PEAT

evaporation and partly by soaking into the ground a preliminary
drying occurs. The mass is then further compressed by stroking
and treading, for which operation the workmen fasten small boards
under their feet. The mass is afterwards levelled. The levelling
may occur during the treading or stroking with the boards, or it

Fig. 1 1 . — Stroking or moulding frame.

may be carried out by means of rollers. The peat is subsequently
cut into rectangular pieces by means of a long knife. The pieces
are turned after several days, then " ringed," as in the case of
cut peat, and in the further course of the drying they are clamped.

This method is practised generally in Holland and, to some
extent, in Hanover. The fuel occurring in trade under the name
trodden peat, dough or pulped peat, mud peat or Hanover peat,
which is considerably firmer and denser than cut peat, is formed
by this process.

Recourse is had to this method when the bog cannot be drained
at all, or only at great expense, or when, as is usual in Holland, the
peat must be raised from the bog as a rather fluid mud [dredged
Peat) by means of nets, shovels, or dredgers.

As this peat dries the less easily the greater its density, it is
important in winning it to begin operations as early as possible in
the spring, but not before the danger of night frosts has disap-
peared, and to stop at the end of July or the beginning of August,
when the last portion spread should be dry. A disadvantage of
the process is, therefore, that the winning season lasts only four
months ; moreover, bad weather causes much trouble and loss of
peat inasmuch as heavy rain washes out the peat sods, which are
very soft in themselves, so that sometimes only pieces without any
regular shape remain, and even these in prolonged rainy weather
may disintegrate still further.

The cost of winning moulded, trodden, or dough peat is
generally 15 to 20 per cent, more than that of cut peat.

The fuel prepared by any of the above-described methods is
generally called ' hand peat ' in order to distinguish it from
manufactured or machine peat, and in the following pages the name
hand peat will, for the sake of brevity, be employed when the
substance discussed is any one of the varieties : cut peat,
stroked or kneaded peat, trodden, and dough peat.

The following results were obtained with regard to the possible
daily outputs on the occasion of the Gifhorn Peat Machine Trials,
in which competition the men were all expert and the work was
continued for a considerable time : —

(1) Gifhorn or Hanoverian mode of cutting. — A " Pasch "

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT 31

(" doublet ") of peat-cutters — a man and a woman — produced
every hour 1,000 sods, 25 x 8 x 9 cm., and placed them in
heaps of 8 sods.

(2) Landsberg mode of cutting. — Two men produced every hour
800 sods, 25 x 10 x 10 cm., cut and heaped.

(3) East Frisian mode of cutting. — A team or group of four
men, the wheeler of whom threw the sods in upright positions
on the bog by tipping the barrow, produced every hour 1,000 to
1,200 sods, 40 x 10 x 10 cm.

(4) Hand peat making, Hanoverian dough peat — One man
digs, divides and throws out the peat ; one man mixes it in a box
placed on rails and brings the mass to the forming table, where
a woman strokes it in a four-cell mould. Size of sods :
25 x 10 x 10| cm. Output : 400 sods an hour.

(5) Hand peat making, Dutch dough peat. — Three men are
employed in raising the peat from the trench, throwing it into
wooden boxes, adding water, disintegrating and mixing it,
spreading the pulped mass between boards on the ground to
a height of 34 cm., then trampling, levelling, and dividing it into
sods. The output per hour covers an area of about 4 to 4|- sq. m.,
i.e., 400 sods, 34 x 10 x 10 cm.

2, — The Winning of Cut Peat in the South German and

Austrian Bogs

While in North and West Germany either vertical cutting or
horizontal cutting, or " trodden peat " winning preponderates for
one and the same bog, in South German and Austrian bogs these
methods are advantageously combined by employing, as a rule,
vertical cutting as the more rapid method of working, but
according to the way the peat occurs in the bog, horizontal cutting
is employed by the same workman, if by cutting the peat
" throughout the season " by the former method the product
would be a loose peat easily breaking into crumbs.

The larger bogs show a carefully planned system of drains,
which at the same time divide the bog to be worked into separate
plots, the size of which is regulated so as to give sufficient room
for the operations of cutting and drying for each group of workers
during the whole season.

Usually two workers (a man and a woman, or a man and an
assistant) co-operate. A man cuts, according to the size of the
sods and the character of the bog, in an eleven-hour day about
2,000 to 4,000 sods, which the assistant brings to and spreads
on the drying ground in the same period.

In the case of working groups such as these, the size of
each working field required for the season's operations is about
24,000 sq. m., so that the working ground intended for two groups
lying between two longitudinal drains must have an area of
48,000 sq. m., as each group works from the longitudinal drain
towards the middle. If the distance apart of the drains be
assumed to be between 60 and 80 m , the length of the working
field for each group may be easily calculated.

32 THE WINNING OF PEAT

The work of the peat-cutting groups is usually well organized
and is generally as follows : —

The bog proprietor at the beginning of the season hands over
to each group the winning of dry peat at a price agreed upon
either per " thousand " or, still better, per cubic metre of dry
peat, and allots a fixed working field to each group. The work
must follow a programme exactly. It must be begun in the spring
as early as the weather permits (usually on April 1st), and must
be continued without break to August 1st of the same year.
The quantity cut must be dried and delivered according to
regulations agreed upon in detail (usually it must be placed in
regular clamps or brought into the drying sheds). The conditions
for taking possession of the allotment and for carrying out the
work are printed and handed to the leader of each group, accepted
by the latter's signing them and then form an agreement between
him and the bog owner.

At the bank assigned to each group the peat must be cut in
a direction and to a width and depth which are all prescribed.
The bog must be cleared of its coat of moss or grass (stripped)
beforehand to a prescribed depth (usually 20 cm.), and the
strippings must be either used for the preparation and repair of
socles, which are 40 cm. in height and serve as foundations for
the peat-drying houses, or distributed on the cut-away ground
so as to allow of the peat being spread directly on it for drying.
The contract price for new, carefully made socles, 40 cm. in
height, is generally 0-10M. per linear metre.

The sods must be cut in sizes which are also prescribed (usually
40 cm. long by 10 cm. square) ; the cutting of thicker sods,
which are more difficult to dry on account of their thickness,
is not allowed ; cutters who cut larger sods, and after warning
continue to do so, lose their employment. According to the
nature of the drying ground the sods are either simply " spread '
or laid crosswise on one another in groups of six or eight sods
(" castled "), unless the whole amount cut is at once " poled,"
" spiked," or placed on trestles.

As much room must be left free on the drying ground as is
required to accommodate all the sods cut in a fortnight. Each
cutter must also bear in mind the drying houses still standing in
his field, as he has to keep free the space required for temporary
rails in case transport of the peat should be necessary. Every
cutter has to prepare and maintain the water channel in his
trench. Allowing walls to remain in or across the trench is
emphatically forbidden. Roots which are laid bare in cutting
must not be thrown back into the trench, but must be gathered
into heaps. When the spread sods have become sufficiently firm
they are castled, and when half dry they are put into higher
heaps of 10 to 20 sods (" heaped ") or placed round a pole, 1 to
l|m. in length, which is stuck in the earth in such a way that
10 to 12 layers of two sods each can lie round it crosswise over
one another. High piling (" poling," see Fig. 17) such as this
exposes the individual sods more fully to the air draught and

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT

33

therefore dries them better, while the pole stuck in the middle
keeps the peat pile from being blown down by a strong wind.

The peat remains in these piles until it is completely dry and
fit for the sheds (storing in magazines). All peat which is to be
brought into the sheds is first examined by the superintendent,
and it can only be brought to the sheds when he considers it
sufficiently dry and has expressly given permission for it to be
brought there.

The dry peat is stored either on the grass socles prepared for
them (as in Bohemia and Lower Austria), or in clamps 2 m. in
width, 3 to 4 m. in height and 15 m. in length (as in Salzburg, in
Bavaria, and Baden), or in storing sheds (as in Styria, Carinthia,
and, in isolated instances, in Bavaria).

The last is the driest but the most expensive way. One
attains almost the same degree of success, but at a considerably
lower cost, by clamping, when the clamps are covered in the
excellent way followed in most peat works of the above-named
localities. The method there employed may also be recommended

Fig. 12. — Storehouse for dry peat.

Fig. 13. — End view.

for machine peat works as a substitute for that of storing sheds,
and for the protection of those kinds of machine peat which cannot
withstand the alternating action of the sun and rain.

The peat clamps are firmly " set " with vertical walls (see
Figs. 12 and 13) and are of the size given above ; on the top,
however, the sods form two slanting surfaces inclined to one
another like a roof. These slanting surfaces are covered by flat
boards which are made in separate lengths, fitted into one another,
pushed against one another at the top and fastened together by
hooks and eyes so that the clamps are protected from the action
of falling rain completely on the top by the roof of boards, and
nearly so on the sides by the eaves which project 30 to 50 cm.
The boards which form the roof are weighted with stones to
prevent them from being blown off by strong winds.

These roofs of boards, drying poles, planks, &c, are placed,
according as they are required, at the disposal of the workmen by
the officials in control of the operations ; shovels and slanes for
extending the drains and cutting the peat, as well as baskets for
collecting peat during the drying operations, must be provided by
the workmen themselves.

34 THE WINNING OF PEAT

The peat-cutting work is all contracted for at prices per unit.
For cutting, drying, and collecting a cubic metre (or thousand) of
peat, the rate of wages for the whole season are agreed upon
"beforehand with the leaders of the various sections according to
the quality of the cut peat, while the prices for digging and
cleaning the drains, repairing the grass socles, levelling, &c, are
also in each case agreed upon before the work is begun, and are
paid for weekly according as it is carried out.

As the wages earned for winning the peat are paid only when
the peat has been collected, payments on account are usually made
every fortnight as the various operations progress. The prices
per unit are approximately the following : —

For cutting 1,000 sods
For moulding 1,000 sods .
For" heaping " 1,000 sods
For" poling" 1,000 sods .
For storing 1 cb..m.

1-00 to 1-50M.
2-50 to 3-00M.
0-25 to 0-30M.
0-20 to 0-30M.
0-20 to 0-30M.

When removing clamps, full measure is given only for those
which have been clamped at least six weeks beforehand ; in the
case of more recently made clamps, 10 cm. are deducted from the
height in order to allow for contraction.

Payment for the peat produced by the various groups takes
place, after deduction of the payments on account already made,
when the work is completed and the tools and utensils loaned to
the workmen have been returned. If at the cessation of the work
a part of the peat which has been cut cannot be clamped, the
cutter has no claim for compensation for loss of remuneration.
He is, however, at liberty to hand over the peat still " out " to
other cutters or to collect it when the weather permits in the
following spring.

In the peat-cutting industry a considerable loss would be
experienced owing to the freezing every winter of the peat walls,
( which may occur up to a depth of 0 • 5 m. For a " bank " of about
30 m. and three cuttings this amounts to 2,000 sods, and, in
addition, there is the cost of stripping in the following spring.
The last cutting of the season is, therefore, made in steps along the
whole wall, and the steps thus formed are covered obliquely with
peat mould. The loss which would otherwise occur is totally
avoided by means of this simple and inexpensive procedure.

At almost all the larger Austrian peat works the industry is
carried out in this or a similar manner ; only in the drying opera-
tions are there considerable variations ; thus, for instance, the
cut peat won by horizontal cutting at the Buchscheiden peat
works is dried exclusively on " spikes," the dough peat won on the
Freudenberg bog, as well as the cut peat produced in the Styrian
peat works, is dried entirely in drying sheds and on drying
scaffolds. These methods for ensuring the operation of drying
are described more fully further on.

It may be seen from the mode of working (outlined above)
employed at almost all the peat works, and from the circumstance
that only dry peat is taken from the workers and that payment is

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT 35

made only for dry peat, that the cost of production for the winning
unit is almost the same in the various bogs and is sufficiently
moderate to make the peat thus won a cheap fuel.

The outputs noted in the various workings are approximately
the following : —

One workman cuts daily on an average 3,000 to 4,000 sods1 of
the above-mentioned size, which an assistant transports to and
spreads on the drying field. Such a group of two workers produce
in the season, according to the kind of the cut peat, 400 to 1,000
— on an average, however, 500 — cubic metres of dry peat. The
cutters usually sublet the work of drying to others, who are
engaged exclusively at this operation. In eleven working hours
a labourer can " castle," " heap," or " pole " about 6,000 sods.

3. — The Winning of Lump and Crumb Peat

This method, the object of which is to work a bog on a large
scale from above downwards with ordinary agricultural imple-
ments (spade, rake, plough, harrow, &c.) and to set free and dry
the peat as irregular lumps or crumbs, is not as a rule applicable
for the winning of a transportable fuel. It can be taken into
consideration only for the gasification of peat for winning power
gas on the bog itself, and even then only under favourable
weather conditions, and for winning large amounts by means of
special machines. Hand labour must be excluded, since it does
not seem that the so-called lump peat obtained by hand labour
could be made more cheaply than peat cut in regular sods.
From the experience and the results of all peat-cutting industries,
it can be shown that the average daily output of a peat-cutter
is so great, that a larger output, in continuous work and without
excessive exertion, cannot be attained by digging the peat in
irregularly shaped pieces. It is a matter of indifference to the
peat-cutter, who is accustomed to his work, whether he digs the
peat in regular sods or in irregular lumps. He will, indeed, since
the sods from the point of view of drying must not exceed a certain
size, prefer to cut regular pieces, which can then be placed with the
shovel or slane on a barrow near the edge of the trench. Ordinary
labourers, however, who, perhaps on account of the lower rate of
wages, may be introduced into the winning of lump peat, would
not be able to produce as much peat in the same time as skilled
peat-cutters. In winning the bulk, therefore, no advantage would
be gained. It is equally obvious that, in the immediately ensuing
work of drying, regular and uniformly large sods are much more
easily and therefore more rapidly and more cheaply turned,
heaped and collected than irregular and small lumps, which would,
moreover, give rise to much greater loss in loading and transport.
Also, when ordinary agricultural implements — ploughs, harrows,
&C- — are utilized, scarcely any other result will be obtained than

1 Compare this with the output of the Oldenburg peat-cutter (p. 3\),
which is considerably greater as regards number of sods.

36 THE WINNING OF PEAT

the commercially unsuccessful one of the large scale experiments,
of the past. The crumb peat winning carried out at the Salt
Works in Aussee resulted in complete failure.

It must in general also be characterized as wrong to work
a bog, especially a high bog, in horizontal layers from above down-
wards, as the various layers, differing in character and in fuel
value, would be won separately. Both in winning cut peat and
in the machine peat industry attention is largely directed to the
mixing of the layers from different depths with one another so
as to obtain a fuel as uniform as possible during the whole working
season. A necessary consequence of this is that the working
takes place as simultaneously as possible through the whole:
depth along the cross or longitudinal section of the bog, and then
progresses sidewards.

Moreover, the drainage of a bog to the extent necessary for
crumb peat winning can be carried out in only a relatively small
number of bogs, since, especially in spongy high bogs, only the
parts which are within 5 to 7 m. from the trenches are drained,,
the rest of the bog up to a few centimetres from the upper surface
remaining very wet.

Supposing that the bog surface permitted ploughing or harrow-
ing with oxen, the crumb peat thus won, which must be left there-
for further drying, would lie on the very wettest part of the whole
bog, viz., the freshly ploughed under-surface ; drying would
therefore proceed very slowly in bogs provided with drainage
canals of the usual character as the lower surfaces of the peat
lumps would absorb moisture from the underlying ground, which
is always wet. Oxen will, however, generally sink into the ground,
so that these operations must be performed by hand or machine
labour and would therefore entail too high initial or running
expenses. Simple harrowing will not in general produce crumb
peat from the upper fibrous layers of a high bog ; it will simply
tear out more or less large felted pieces. According to experience,,
only the lower layers of a high bog consist of humified or bitu-
minous peat, so that the upper layers, if won separately by
horizontal working, would give a very loose, spongy peat, which,,
especially when it has been loosened still more by harrowing and
divided into smaller pieces, crumbs or re-absorbs water every
time there is either a fall of rain or a thick fog, becoming again
as moist as it was when freshly dug.1

This was the chief cause of the failure at Aussee, where, for
instance, crumb peat winning was to have taken the place of
that of cut peat. There the peat lumps, when half dry perhaps,
became re-saturated with water during the frequent and protracted
downpours of rain in the Tal valley, while at the same time the
underlying ground, i.e., the drying ground, became so wet that

1 On this account, the winning of lump peat or crumb peat is only
justified in isolated cases, for the winning of crude peat for gasification
purposes, especially for gasifiers, in which peat containing 35 to 40 per cent-
of water can be used with advantage, or for peat litter, as is described in-
more detail in the section on peat litter.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT 37

the crumb peat, in spite of all efforts, could not be dried ; even
the heavy night fogs generally gave as much moisture to the loose
and felty peat lumps lying on the ground as had been evaporated
during the previous day.

If the above-mentioned difficulties are so great that they make
the application of the method impossible for ordinary peat fuel
even in the case of the upper layers of the bog, they will become
still greater as the depth of the working increases, on account of
the greater power the lower layers have for retaining water,
quite apart from the fact that, owing to drainage conditions, it
would be possible only in the case of relatively few bogs to work
them in more or less large layers from above downwards to any
considerable depth. A surface situated in the deepest part of
a bog worked in this way would only in the rarest cases be suitable
for drying the peat which had been loosened.

The winning of peat in small lumps or crumbs can therefore
at most be taken into consideration only for the large scale
winning of half-dry raw materials for peat gas furnaces or for
a press peat factory. This is the case especially when a bog, on
account of its maturity and uniformity, is capable of being
worked in horizontal layers, when it can be thoroughly drained,
and also when, owing to the prevailing weather conditions and the
use of technically perfect equipment — steam driven or electrically
driven implements, ploughs, harrows, rakes, &c. — the winning of
half-dry " small peat " is possible at a price which the commercial
success of a gasifying plant or a press peat factory necessitates.
For further particulars with regard to this, see the section on the
preparation of press peat. In the favourable case the depth and
area of the bog must ensure the industry a life so long that the
annual amortization of the high capital costs of such an under-
taking, calculated on the probable life of the industry, must not
make the cost price of the manufactured press peat too high. For
each separate case the practicability and the prospects of
remuneration from such a plant demand serious technical and
actuarial considerations. In several press peat factories, in
Canada for instance, the crude material for grinding, drying, and
pressing is won as crumb peat by ploughing, harrowing, and
gathering the peat into heaps.

4. — The Winning of Cut Peat (Cut Peat Machines)

More hopeful than the winning of crumb peat is the attempt
to win ordinary cut peat, especially when this is required on a
large scale, by special machines instead of by hand labour, which
is ever becoming more and more costly. We may distinguish
these machines from the ordinary peat-cutting machines by
means of the name " cut peat machines " and the product obtained
by their aid may be called machine-cut peat.

In recent years several machines of this class have been
constructed (cf., for example, Nos. 156953, 166784, 177446,
225922, 239194, and 265684, under Patents, in Section VII, 4).

38 THE WINNING OF PEAT

They have in common, adjustable longitudinal, cross and bottom
knives fixed in the frame of a portable machine and as movable
as possible so as to cut the peat in layers into ordinary sods
during the motion of the machine over the surface of the bog.
The raising, footing, clamping, and drying of this "machine-cut
peat " are similar to those of ordinary " cut," kneaded, or machine-
formed peat.

For the advantageous employment of this method of winning,
as for the winning of " crumb peat," good drainage, the greatest
possible freedom from wood or roots, and the existence of peat
layers as uniform as possible from above downwards, are indis-
pensable.

It is not known whether one or other of these machines has
already proved successful on a large scale for any considerable
length of time. They should, however, be considered mainly for
winning dry peat in quantity and in a cheap manner either for
peat moss litter factories or from a bog the deep layers of which
are very uniform and free from wood.

One of these cut peat machines (Gress's Patent. No. 265684)
was acquired in 1915 by the Rosenheim Salt Works for the
Hochrunst factory, where its trial had proved satisfactory.

5. — Peat-cutting Machines and Peat Winning under Water

Where a bog cannot be easily drained or the peat, owing to
the great depth of the bog, must be won from a more or less deep
layer and from under water, a peat-cutting machine is very useful
not only for winning ordinary cut peat, but also for winning raw
material for the manufacture of dough, kneaded, or trodden peat,
or the condensed machine-formed peat or machine-pulped peat
described later. It is assumed, however, that for the advantageous
use of such machines the bog must be as free as possible from wood
and tree roots. That they are then capable of being used very
advantageously is proved by the fact that thousands of these
machines have been employed for this purpose.

Fig. 14 shows a peat-cutting machine in the original form in
which it was constructed, in 1842, by Brosowsky, of Jasenitz,
near Stettin.

The most important part of this machine is the cutting con-
trivance, which is illustrated on a somewhat larger scale in Fig. 15,
A and B. The side-knives a b, b c, and c d of this cutter have
different inclinations to the horizontal and form a box which is
open at the top, the bottom, and the front.

The lower portion of this box is fastened to a wrought-iron
bar S, the end of which is sharpened, and by means of which the
preliminary cutting operation is performed by forcing the cutting
mechanism into the peat, the bar at the same time acting as a
guide for the cutter. The bar S is prolonged into a wrought-iron
toothed rack which gears into a spur pinion g which is secured
to the shaft of the capstan wheel w (Fig. 14). By turning the
capstan wheel forwards or backwards the cutting mechanism is

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT

39

raised or lowered by means of the spur pinion which moves the
toothed rack through a guide in the trestle of the machine, and
by utilizing the weight of the box and the toothed rack it can be
driven into the peat to a depth of 6 m.

It should be observed that the machine can cut only at the
side of a trench or else by beginning at a hole which has been
previously cut, since the prolongation I I of the cutting box can

Fig. 14. — Machine for cutting peat.

move downwards only in a space free from peat. The knife a bed
has, therefore, to cut only on three sides ; the broad, smooth
bottom knife m n, which is sharpened at both edges, is fixed to
the same side as the prolongation / 1. The end of this knife moves
in grooves and serves for cutting the under-surface of the piece of
peat formed by the downward motion of the cutting box.

The knife m n can be set in motion by two chains, // and /.
which are fastened to it at the point p. The chains arc led ov< r

40

THE WINNING OF PEAT

two cylindrical rollers, v and w, and are drawn forwards and
backwards by means of the two levers hx h2 (Fig. 14) with the aid of
the ropes and grips g± g2. While the cutting box is being drawn
upwards by means of the toothed rack, spur pinion and the
capstan wheel, the knife m n serves as a support for the piece of
peat which has been cut. The guides //are attached in order to
prevent the piece of peat from falling off. According to the depth
to which the cutting box is driven into the bog the piece of peat
raised has a length of 3 to 6 m. ; its cross-section is approximately
60 cm. x 70 cm., and the prism of peat is divided by hand into
pieces 35 x 15 x 12| cm. Every piece of peat thus cut gives
144 of these sods for every 3 m. of its length. The sods are then
wheeled away in small cars, W, running on rails.

While this is occurring the cutting machinery with its guide
is moved sideways a knife-breadth on the frame Rx R2. This frame
is of such a width that four cuts can be made beside one another,

Fig. 15. — Cutting box of machine for cutting peat.

after which the machine must be moved forwards by the length
of the knife a b. For the latter purpose the horizontal beams B,
forming the triangular frame, rest on two rollers, r r, which run
in grooves in the beam A while one beam of the frame rests
on the smooth side of the fixed beam H. In the direction of the
width of the machine there is a lever, L, the end of which can
be moved up and down round a pin. By means of this lever the
part of the frame resting on H can be raised so that its weight
will rest on the rollers r r. If a second workman then moves the
lever L2 from left to right the machine will move forward in the
longitudinal direction since this lever has its fulcrum at /.

From two to four persons are employed in the operations.
One workman puts the cutting mechanism in motion, the second
helps in this and cuts the peat when raised, the third takes the
peat away, and the fourth " layers " the peat.

The output of the machine for a cutting depth of about 4 m.
may be assumed as follows : —

In winning cut peat with a gang of four men working for
twelve hours, 10,000 to 12,000 peat sods (30 x 12 x 12 cm.)
= 40 to 50 cb. m., are obtained.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT

41

If, however, the machine is employed only for cutting and
lifting peat as raw material for further working into trodden or
machine peat, two men will be sufficient to work it, and these will
then produce in twelve hours about 60 cb. m. of crude peat.

The weight of a machine is 500 to 800 kilos, and the price is
for 2 m., 3 m., 4 m., and 6 m. cutting depth about 520M., 550M.,
600M., and 650M., respectively.

Cutting machines of this type are constructed by R. Dolberg
and Co., of Hamburg, Stiitzke Bros., of Lauenburg, Chr. Mtiller,
successor to H. Witting, of Demmin, Bartsch and Mitschke,
of Jasenitz, Karl Weitzmann, of Greifenhagen, and J. Sauer,
Georgsburg, near Pinne (Posen). The latter has provided his
machines with an improved cutting mechanism.

R. Dolberg and Co., Hamburg, have also arranged these
machines for use with steam power. Fig. 16 shows the latter type
together with a peat-forming machine.

Fig. 16. — Steam-driven peat-cutting machine of R. Dolberg and Co.

The cutting machine is on a bridge which is supported on the
right by a pontoon and on the left by two small cars on rails.
The driving engine (a locomotive) is on the pontoon. It drives an
intermediate shaft, placed on the bridge, from which the cutting
machine and the peat machine are driven. The peat raised by the
cutting machine is brought by the iron conveyer either to the
hopper of the mixing and forming machine or to a transport car.
The driving mechanism of the conveyer is connected with that of
the cutting machine. The engaging of the cutter and conveyer is
effected by turning a lever, and the throwing out of gear at the
deepest and highest points is effected automatically by the machine.
The depth to which cutting takes place can be regulated. After
every cut the cutting machine is moved sideways through the

(2595) e

42 THE WINNING OF PEAT

width of a cut by turning a hand wheel. After six cuts the whole
arrangement must be moved forward by the length of a cut. For
this purpose the shaft is extended under one of the rail cars and is
provided with a spur pinion which gears into the toothed rack of
the track. For working the steam-cutting machine, in addition to
the stoker two men are required, who then produce with it four
times as much as a hand-cutting machine. For the same output,
therefore, twelve men less are necessary. The daily output is
said to amount to 120 to 160 cb. m.

For winning peat under water, in addition to the Brosowsky
cutting machine there have hitherto been employed : Hodge's
(Canadian) peat boat, Fimmen's boat dredger, and ordinary hand
and steam dredgers such as are used for dredging rivers and canals,
and these in different peat works have given, according to local
circumstances, quite different outputs.1

6. — Contrivances to ensure Drying

In so far as the simple air-drying already described has not
proved sufficient for the winning of hand peat, the more fully
elaborated methods of drying mentioned below have come into use.
All of these aim at : —

(1) Withdrawing the substance to be dried from the influence
of the moisture of the ground and bringing it into higher, drier,
and windier layers of air.

(2) Exposing the peat sods more fully to draughts of air and
protecting them on the other hand from rainfall by superposing
them loosely in layers, by piling them, or by covering them.

(3) Diminishing the labour in the drying operations by dis-
pensing with frequent " turning."

(4) Economizing in drying ground.

How far this is attained, wholly or partially, by the various
contrivances may be judged from the following particulars :—

(a) " Poling " in South Germany {especially Bavaria) and
Finland. — Poles (stakes), 2\ to 2| m. in length and placed in
rows at a distance of 0-8 to 1-0 m. from one another, are
driven so far into the drying ground that the peat sods (also called
" billets "), which are fairly long (up to 40 cm.), can be placed
(" poled ") round the pole, which projects from If m. to 2 m. above
the ground, in 15 to 20 layers of two sods each arranged crosswise
over one another (Fig. 17). The pole prevents the column from
falling even when the wind is fairly strong. Owing to the height
of the column the preliminary drying must be continued until the
sods of the lowest layer are sufficiently firm to support the weight
of the column.

The method of " spearing " sods followed in Finland resembles
that of " poling." The raw sods, immediately after being cut,
are " speared " over one another on sharp-pointed stakes, which

1 Compare the communications in Section IV on Hodge's peat boat in
Oldenburg, and on the more recent peat-dredging machines, as well as the
statements in Patents, Section VII.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT

43

are about 1| m. in length and each of which takes eight to
twelve sods.

(b) Drying on Spiked Poles in Carintliia. — This method,
employed in the works of the Buchscheiden Peat Company which
formerly belonged to the Buchscheiden Iron Works, consists not
only of spreading the freshly cut peat on the drying field for
the purpose of drying and letting it lie there, with frequent
turning until partially dry, but also of sticking it on so-called
spiked poles (thousands of which are fixed on the drying ground)
and allowing it to dry while suspended in the air (cf. Fig. 18).

The " spiked poles " are pine or firwood stakes, 8 cm. thick in
the centre and 3-80 m. in length. Each stake from the top to
within 60 cm. from the bottom is pierced with ten holes, which are
equidistant and arranged crosswise alternately. Through these
holes the so-called spikes, i.e., staves of larchwood 70 to 80 cm.
long, 3 to 4 cm. thick, and pointed at both ends, are placed.

The " spiked poles," each of which can take up to 100 sods,
are sunk 40 cm. deep into the drying ground in regular parallel
rows, lim. apart. There were, for instance, at the time of the
visit, 13,500 of these poles in the Buchscheiden Peat Works, near
Feldkirchen, the spiking of which could be carried out twice in
the months of March, April, and May, and three to four times in
June, July, August, and September. In the other adjoining peat
works there was a similar number of such " spiked poles."

Fig. 17. — "Poling" peat in Bavaria.

The method employed is as follows : As already mentioned in
the second section, the peat sods are cut horizontally in the form
of flat pieces 20 to 25 cm. square and 6 cm. thick. In this
operation generally three men work together, the first of whom
cuts two rows vertically, while the second cuts one of these rows,
and the third, following the second at some distance, cuts the other
row horizontally, so that the depth (18 cm.) of the sods cut by the
first man is divided, according to the quality of the peat, by three
to five horizontal cuts. Hence, for every 18 cm. of depth, three
to five sods are cut, and these are placed all together, by a single
shovel-throw, on a barrow standing ready at the edge of the trench.
These three men in a twelve-hour day cut 8,000 to 9,000 sods from

44

THE WINNING OF PEAT

20 to 25 cb. m. of bog, and at the same time place the sods on the
barrow. Eight to ten women wheel the sods between the "spiked
poles " and place them on the right and left beside the barrow
track in rows, three sods over one another, and with spaces
between the rows so that a passage always remains free for the
barrows. The sods lie in these rows for several days until they
have formed crusts which are so strong that they will not tear
asunder in consequence of their own weight and fall to the ground
when they are stuck on the spikes through the centres of their
flat sides. According to the thickness of the sods, four or five of
them are stuck on each of the sides of a spike, so that one of these
spikes poles carry 80 to 100 sods. The pieces of peat remain on
the spikes until they can be taken away dry and brought to storage
sheds of about 3,000 cb. m. capacity. Usually, three to four weeks
are sufficient for this (even in unfavourable weather), so that the

Fig. 18. — " Spiked poles " of Carinthia.

' spiked poles " can be stuck with sods on an average four times
every summer. At each peat works there are as many sheds as
are required for the storage of all the peat won.

The winning is let at a piece-rate to peat-masters, the latter
receiving for a cubic metre (=160 to 170 kilos of dry peat) of the
peat placed in the storage sheds (including all the labour of winning
and drying) 1 • 30 kr.

A single " spiked pole," which should be 8 cm. thick in the
centre, costs, when pointed and bored, 30 heller (0-28M.) ; for the
larchwood spikes 2-00 kr. are paid per hundred, and for insertion
of the " spiked poles" in the bog 2 heller (Pfennige) are paid for
every three poles. From this we can estimate the cost of the
" spiked poles " of the Buchscheiden Peat Works as follows :—

4,050 kr. for the stakes.
2,700 kr. for the spikes.
900 kr. for the insertion in bog.

Total 7,650 kr., or approximately 7,500M. capital expenses.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT

45

This, however, ensures the possibility of winning the minimum
amount of dry peat required for the working of the industrial
undertakings even in unfavourable weather conditions, whilst
otherwise, without this expenditure (therefore without " spiked
poles"), one could scarcely hope to be able to dry even in good
weather more or less large quantities of peat on bogs which are
surrounded by mountains, and which, situated as they are in the
low-lying districts of the Ossiach Lake, are very wet, and have
sometimes on their moist surfaces a growth of grass so prolific that
it overgrows sods lying on the surface of the bog.

(c) Drying Trestles of Carinthia, Tyrol, and other places. — The
Nothburga Works at the Freudenberg Bog in Carinthia, as well
as other factories in the Tyrol, erected covered drying trestles
(cf. Fig. 19) with the object of ensuring drying. These trestles had
a depth of 90 cm. and a height, to the apex line, of 2-5 m. They
were divided into six or seven compartments, on the longitudinal
laths of which the sods of peat were placed edgewise, with spaces

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between them and two sods behind one another in depth, imme
diately after they had been cut or formed (if dredged). In tht
Freudenberg Bog, for instance, there were 43 such trestles, each
19-3 m., and 969 others, each 16-5 m., in length, altogether 1,012,
with a gross length of 16,817-5 m., of which each of the former held
2,400 and each of the latter 2,000 sods of peat, so that the total
amount spread was 2,041,200 sods of peat. The price of one of
these trestles was approximately 100M., so that the capital required
for the whole 1,012 was about 101.200M. As the distance from
the railway was too great and the car freight due to this was high,
the Nothburga Works shut down several years ago.1 The Alpine
Company has also given up its Carinthian Works (including

1 The amount of dry peat required every year by the Nothburga Works
was, on the average, 17,500 cb. m., 1 cb. m. of which contained 532 sods,
and weighed 275 kilos. In number of sods, therefore, the amount required
was about 9 millions. In estimating the cost, if we assume 12 per cent, for
interest and amortization, calculate this for the capital required for the
trestles (101.200M.), and distribute the resulting amount over the annual
output of 17,500 cb. m., each of 275 kilos in weight, it would increase the
cost price of 100 kilos of the dry peat by 0-25M.

46

THE WINNING OF PEAT

the Buchscheiden Iron Works, which depended on the peat
industry), and with the closing of this the larger peat works there
were also closed. The numerous drying sheds on the Freudenberg

Fig. 20. — *' Peat horses."

Bog were removed by the new owner, and were afterwards
re-erected, although in much smaller numbers, by the present
owners. This re-erection has been carried out, for instance, on
the Raunach Bog, which has an area of about 100 joch, at Pischel-
dorf, in the district of Klagenfurt, for the Wieser Peat Works,
amongst others.

The peat is left on these drying trestles for four to five weeks,

according to the state of the weather, until it is fully dry. During

a season, therefore, the shed may be filled four times. The last

filling remains, according to the state of the weather, on the

trestles until the beginning of December, and some-

811ii§jS times, indeed, until it can be transported over the

(d) The " Peat-horses " of Sweden and the Dry-
ing Sheds of Sebastiansberg (Erzgebirge) . — These are
hurdles, quite similar to the Carinthian peat-drying
trestles. They have been employed for several years
past with good results in winning and drying crude

* peat for peat litter, and also in localities where only

* a relatively small drying surface is available.
According to a communication from a bog-

"" owner,1 on 1 sq. m. of bog 194 sods can be dried
on " horses," whereas only 22 sods can be dried by
the ordinary method of drying on the ground.

The peat sods are placed on the " horses ,:
immediately after being cut, and are not again
disturbed until they are ready to be put into the
drying houses or sheds. The ill-effects due to the
great water-absorbing power of moss peat, especially
when the sods lie in contact with the bog, are in this
way avoided.

Firwood or pitch-pine stakes are used -for the

Fig. 21 —

Traverse of

'•'horse."

1 Mitteilungen, 1901, p. 187.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT 47

preparation of these " horses," illustrated in Figs. 20 and 21.
The stakes have a thickness of 8 to 10 cm., a length of 3-6
to 4 m., and the upper half of each has five to six holes, at intervals
of 30 cm., through which wooden staves 70 cm. in length are
thrust. The lower ends of the stakes or " horse-poles " are driven

1 -8 m. into the bog, and are arranged in rows so that the stakes
are 1 -8 m. apart in the rows, which are 3-6 m. from one another.
Two laths, each 2 m. in length and at least 3 cm. in thickness,
are placed on each side of the cross-staves, and on these the
sods, which generally have (for peat litter) a size of 30 x 12 x 12 cm.,
are laid crosswise. The peat is usually placed on the " horses ,:
in autumn or winter for peat litter, and after collecting it in May
or June the " horses " can be immediately covered again. This
new layer is dry by autumn. Six thousand sods, or 44 cb. m. of
peat, can be dried at the same time on a "horse' 100m. in
length.

The " horse-poles " are prevented from sinking into the soft
bog by placing two boards under the cross-trees on the surface of
the bog.

These " horses " could be provided with advantage, and with-
out expense worth speaking of, with a simple roofing of boards,
like that of the Carinthian drying structures, by means of which
the drying would be made more certain.

The drying hurdles or drying frames in the Sebastiansberg
Bog, in the Erzgebirge, are constructed in a quite similar manner.1
These are removable wooden frames, 3| m. long, 2 m. wide and

2 m. high, which, in six stages one over another, carry each four
pairs of long poles or laths on which the freshly cut sods are
placed edgewise. Somewhat larger sods are laid on the topmost
laths, and thus a roof is formed, to a certain extent, for the
underlying sods. The capacity of such a drying frame is 800 to
1,000 sods.

(e) The Drying Huts of Styria. — The drying huts in Styria,
which are used especially at the peat works belonging to the
Rottenmann Iron Works in Gampermoos and Worschach, near
Steinach, in the valley of the Enns, differ from the above-mentioned
drying frames by their depth being greater ; while the depth of
the latter is arranged for only two double laths, or two sods,
that of the former takes usually five to six pairs of laths, or
five to six sods, behind one another (cf. Fig. 22). Each of the
huts there is about 19 m. (10 cords, Austrian) long, seven laths
high, and is divided by partitions into ten sections. The partitions,
which are also formed, of long laths, serve on their part as supports
for the pairs of laths arranged in the seven compartments. Unlike
those in the drying trestles, the pairs of laths in the drying huts
.are not fastened to their supports, but lie loosely on these, since
the front rows must be removed when filling the drying huts,
in order that the middle and back rows may be reached con-
veniently. Only when the latter have been filled from the top

1 Cf. Hans Schreiber, " Das Moorwesen Sebastiansbergs," Staab, 1913.

4S

THE WINNING OF PEAT

to the bottom are the former brought into position and filled a
required. The individual pairs of laths are 1 -90 m. in length and
carry each 18 sods, so that a drying hut with ten compartments
is able to hold in all 10 x 7 x 5 x 18 = 6,300 sods.

The winning operations are carried out by piece-work, each
group of workmen being paid an inclusive rate for cutting the
peat and putting it in the drying huts. When the rate of wages
of the workmen was 3 to 4 kr. for 11 to 12 hours, the Company
stated that the cost of the air-dry peat was 46 heller for a barrel
containing 3 hi. = 42 to 43 kilos. This would correspond to
1 • 10 kr. for 100 kilos, and would nowadays be correspondingly
higher.

One man with a male or female assistant can in good weather
cut and put in the huts in one month enough peat for 10 to 12
huts (therefore, 75,600 sods).

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Owing to the greater depth of these drying huts, attention
must be paid to securing a more or less free circulation of air in
and between them if the same degree of drying is to be obtained
with them as with the less deep drying trestles. Hence the huts
are not placed in large numbers (separated only by the spaces
necessary for transit) on the drying ground itself, but are
distributed at more or less distance from one another over
the whole bog, and in such a way that the huts are arranged
right and left of the roads, and so many of these so-called " lanes "
are placed near one another in a bog that there is between every
two of them a clear peat field of 80 m. to 100 m. in width. These
peat plots, the length of which corresponds to the size of the bog,
are the only places where peat is won and worked. Beginning at
the middle of each, the peat is cut and brought to the drying
huts on the right or left (cf. Fig. 23).

Even in the longitudinal direction, every two huts h h are
separated from one another by nearly the length of a hut (about
14 m.), and they are also so placed that the positions of the huts
on one side of the " lane " correspond to the gaps on the other
side. If the locality of the bog permits of the " lanes " being
made so that the huts are broadside to the usual direction of
the wind, the drying is extraordinarily satisfactory.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT

49

At Gampermoos 700, and at Worschach 140, of these drying
huts, each of which costs 250 kr. and lasts twenty to thirty years,
have been erected ; at Gampermoos alone the capital employed
for the drying huts is therefore 175,000 kr.

Fig. 23 shows roughly the arrangement at Gampermoos ; the
seven hundred huts mentioned are arranged right and left of
12 " lanes," so that there are 50 to 60 huts in each " lane." These
" lanes " cut, nearly at right angles, the bog which stretches from
east to west between the main road to Rottenmann and the
Enns. The drains to the Enns run on the right and the left
beside the " lanes." The peat, brought in direct from the bank,
remains in the drying huts about four to five weeks, and is then
removed either to the place where it is used or to storehouses.
The huts are ordinarily filled only three or four times in a season .

<=-'

'■850 m '

XjassjBjBZ

t . - , uasseuv^

304 sods (85 kilos)
340 sods (120 kilos)
504 sods (194 kilos)
372 sods (130 kilos)

Fig. 23.

At Gampermoos the peat consists to the extent of one-fourth
of grassy peat, one-half of intermediate peat and one-fourth of
bituminous peat ; the contraction of the peat sods during drying
is therefore variable, so that 1 cb. m. of

Fibrous peat contains

Intermediate peat contains

Bituminous peat contains

And on the average, therefore, contains

whence the weight of 1,000 sods is, on the average, 360 kilos.

If each drying hut is filled three times a year, then in a single
hut 3 x 6,300, or 18,900, sods can be dried for a capital outlay
of 250M. or kr., which at 5 per cent, for interest and 5 per cent,
for amortization amounts in all to 25M., or 1-40M. or kr. per
1,000 sods. In Worschach the quantity required to fill each hut
was 225 hi or 75 barrels, each containing 42 to 43 kilos of dry
peat, therefore altogether 3,150 kilos. Assuming that the filling
occurs three times per annum, then the interest and amortization
for every 100 kilos would be approximately 0-25 kr.

50 THE WINNING OF PEAT

(/) Drying on Drying Ramparts. — Ekelund, at Jonkoping, has
recommended1 that peat be dried on ramparts 1 m. in height,
as he considers it necessary for the facilitation of drying to free
the spread peat from the moist layer of air which lies immediately
on the upper surface of a bog. As this layer is, as a rule, so
saturated with moisture that it cannot take up any more water
(as may be seen from the frequent occurrence of layers of fog in
bogs), the drying of the peat must take place (if it is to occur
quickly and with certainty) at least 1 m. above the surface of
the bog. With the object of winning crude peat for coking,
Ekelund therefore digs trenches in the drying ground with
distances of at least 3 m. between their inner sides. The peat from
the trenches is thrown up between them, and a rampart about
1 m. in height is formed from it. The peat, when cut, is piled
on these ramparts, and, owing to the action of the dry fresh air
which continually blows over the piles, " the peat dries in an
astonishingly short time." When the peat has been on the
ramparts so long that the surface of the sods is dried, it is made
into more or less large heaps on the drying place proper, and
covered by means of a light roof or boards. Ekelund states that
he can construct (in Sweden) ramparts 1,000 m. long, 4 m. wide
and 1 m. high for 270M. to 300M. Such ramparts could be used
for many years, and 20,000 hi. of peat could be dried simultaneously
on them. Since only a few days are generally necessary to dry
the peat to the state required for his coking process, i.e., to
40 to 60 per cent, of moisture, a large amount of peat may be
dried in a single summer on the surfaces of such ramparts.

7. — Size of the Drying Ground

In Sebastiansberg, Schreiber2 has made experiments on the
high bog peat of that locality with regard to the space required
for drying by various methods as well as the costs of the various
drying structures. As a result of these experiments, he states : —
(1) Minimum size of drying ground required for spreading at
one time 55-5 cb. m. of raw peat corresponding to 10,000 kilos
of air-dried fuel peat : —

Ares.
Pulped peat, spread . . . . . . . . . . 11

Machine-formed peat, spread . . . . . . 6

Cut peat (according to position in bog and size 4-10

of sods)
Cut peat, " poled ,; . . . . . . . . . . 6

Cut peat, " spiked " . . . . . . . . . . 7

Cut peat, on " horses " . . . . . . . . 4

Cut peat, on hurdles, trestles, &c. . . . . . . 3

In the case of moss litter, for the same weight of dry peat the size
of drying ground must be about doubled.

1,1 Die Herstellung Komprimierter Kohle aus Brenntorf," by H. Eke-
lund, Leipzig, 1892.

2 Oesterreich. Moorzeitschrift, 1903, pp. 92, 93.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT 51

(2) Maximum output from a hectare of drying ground when this
is used only once : —

(The output is given in metric tons of air-dried peat.)

M. tons.
94

Machine-formed peat, spread

Cut peat, spread

"Poled"

..178
100-270
. . 185

"Spiked"

On " horses " . .

..148
. . 310

On hurdles, trestles, &c.

. . 477

The output in the case of moss litter is about half these figures.

8. — Cost of the various Drying Contrivances

Hans Schreiber has calculated the following table (see p. 52)
of costs for the various methods of drying which chiefly occur
in Austria and South Germany, and in which drying plant is
employed.1

In the case of peat litter these figures also hold for 55-5 cb. m.,
but as the dry peat is then only about half as heavy as fuel peat,
the figures for 100 kilos must be approximately doubled.

The other results obtained in these experiments are given in
Section V, under the influence of mode of winning on the drying.
In considering them, attention should be paid to the fact that
the figures given are not to be taken as generally true, owing to
the extraordinarily rough climate round the experimental district.

9. — Costs and Results in the Hand Peat Industry

From the results given up to the present, it is evident that the
cost of winning the unit (100 kilos) of air-dried peat must vary
a good deal with the character of the raw peat and that of the bog,
with the local rates of wages, and the method of winning (size of
sods, mode of drying, and weather). It must also vary according
as light peat litter or denser fuel peat, which may be cut peat
or as dough peat, is won from medium high bog or denser low
bog peat.

While the utilitarian and commercial value of peat is best
expressed for a given weight of the substance, the cost of winning
is mostly agreed upon and paid for by the thousand or the cubic
metre (in Bavaria the " ster ") of air-dried sods or by the cubic
metre of raw peat cut, and therefore by the volume, which is more
easily determined than the weight. How far in the case of
different varieties of peat the same units of price affect the cost
of winning, and therefore the price by weight, or the market
price, may be seen from the following figures.

In a particular case 1,000 sods were obtained from 5 cb. m. of
raw peat containing 80 per cent, of moisture, i.e., 200 sods from

1 Oesterreich. Moorzeitschrift, 1904, p. 64.

52

THE WINNING OF PEAT

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WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT 53

1 cb. m., and 600 of the air-dried sods had a volume of 1 cb. m.
= 10 hi. They weighed in the case of lighter peat 180 kilos and in
that of denser peat 300 kilos. One hundred kilos of this air-dried
peat, clamped on the bog, cost, at the same rate of wages for the
thousand sods, with a sod weight of

300 grammes

400

500

0-70M.
0-50M.
0-40M.

The weight of a cubic metre of air-dried sods of moss litter peat
varies between 40 and 75 kilos, and that of 1 cb. m. of air-dried
fuel peat between 130 and 300 kilos.

The cost of winning (excluding incidentals) 100 kilos of air-
dried cut peat (fuel peat) varies from 0-40M. to 1-00M., and for
100 kilos of air-dried moss peat (peat litter) from 0-30M. to
0 • 60M. As an average, 0 • 70M. may be taken as the cost of winning
100 kilos of fuel peat (hand peat) clamped or stored at the bog,
but to this must be added the ground rent and general working
expenses. How far these figures may vary in special cases may be
seen from the industrial details in the preceding sections, and for
the further consideration of this the following facts may serve : —

(1) In the Oldenburg peat-cutting industries at Augustfelin and
Elisabeth fehn, &c, the prices per unit given on p. 27 are paid.
According to these, the cost of winning 100 kilos amounts to
0-30M. to 0-40M., the total net cost being 0-50M. to 0-65M.

(2) Feilenbach Peat Works at Aibling. — The area of the bog
is 350 ha,, of which 17 ha. are grass and transition bog, and the
remainder high bog, this having a depth of 3 to 6 m. In addition
to 15,000 m. tons of machine peat, there are won every year
2,000 m. tons of cut peat and 800 m. tons of peat litter and
peat mull. For 100 kilos of cut peat the labourers' wages alone
amount to 0-65M., and including drainage and general expenses,
0 • 80M. The market price is 1 • 05M. to 1 • 25M. for quantities of a
double wagon load ; 100 kilos realize 2 • 40M. to 2 • 90M. at Munich,
coal varying in price from 2 • 50M. to 5 • 00M. (according to quality) .
The rate of wages is 3M. for a ten-hour day, but by piece-work
5M. to 6M. can be earned. (Cf. the " Feilenbach Peat Factory "
in Section V, G, "Description of some Large Machine Peat

Factories.")

(3) Peat Factory of the Rosenheim and Reichenhall Salt Works. —
(a) Hochrunst Moss. — This high bog, which belongs to the Rosen-
heim Salt Works and is connected with the Roller Moss, has
an area of 297 ha. In the semi-gas furnaces hitherto employed at
the Salt Works, about 100,000 cb. m. (ster) of peat are required
every year for the production of 26,000 m. tons of salt from a
26 per cent, solution. Of this amount of peat about 20 per cent, is
won in their own factory, while the winning of the remainder is
handed over to a contractor. All the operations are paid for at
prices per unit, the rates being agreed upon with the workmen at
the commencement of the peat-cutting. The manner of working is,
in the main, that described on p. 31. Two men, a cutter and his
assistant, always work together. The peat is cut as far as the

54 THE WINNING OF PEAT

loamy subsoil in sods 40 x 12 x 10 cm., and these are dried in the
open. The cutter's assistant (the wheeler) brings the cut peat to
the drying ground over a narrow gauge rail, 40 cm. in width,
bringing each time 60 to 70 sods of peat. The sods are spread on
the drying ground, later on " castled," 6 sods in each, and as the
drying progresses they are " re-castled " and, if necessary,
" poled," i.e., placed on top of one another to a height of 10 to 20
sods round a pole standing in the centre, whereas in " castling "
only 3 or 6 sods lie on one another. When the peat is dry enough
it is made into heaps (clamped), 2 m. to 2-3 m. wide, 3 m. high and
12 m. long, on socles raised 20 to 30 cm. above the ground. The
clamps are provided with a roof of timber planks which projects
30 to 50 cm. over the side walls, (cf. Figs. 12 and 13).

The bog is connected by a narrow gauge line with the full
gauge line leading to the neighbouring Roller Moss. The peat is
tipped directly from cars of 3 cb. m. capacity into the railway
wagons, by which it is conveyed to the heaters of the salt works.
Loading the peat from the clamps on the bog is paid for at the
rate of 0- 15M. to 0- 18M. per cubic metre, while the transport and
unloading are reckoned at 0-35M. per cubic metre, excluding,
however, amortization of the capital required for the railway
plant, which includes two locomotives and forty tip-lorries.

The contract price per cubic metre of clamped cut peat amounts
to 1-15M. to 1-20M., which gives, on the assumption that aster
of dry peat weighs, on an average, 225 kilos, 0-53M. as the cost
of labour for 100 kilos. The selling price for the cut peat of the
neighbouring peat works is 2-60M. per cubic metre of dry peat,
or 1-20M. for 100 kilos f.o.r.

A 30 h. p. Wielandt dredger, electrically driven, has been
working since 1913 on the Hochrunst Moss. The sod spreader has
a length of 20 m. Without taking into account stoppages, which
are, however, still very frequent, the output of the dredger is
40 cb. m. of raw peat per hour.

A peat-dredging machine with a Baumann automatic sod
spreader has been undergoing tests there since 1914. In the case
of this peat dredger, the peat sods, after being made compact in
a forming machine, pass, one by one, to a spreading belt, which
may be of any desired length. The belt used here has a length of
90 m. Excluding stoppages, the output of the Baumann dredger
is also 40 cb. m. per hour.

Finally, for the same bog a cut peat machine, Gress's patent
(D.R.P., No. 265684), has been procured since 1915 for the pro-
duction of cut peat or, as it is better termed, machine-cut peat.
The industrial working of the machine, which gave satisfactory
results on trial, was to take place from 1916 onwards.

(b) Kendlmiihl Moss. — The Kendlmuhl Moss, which lies at
the side of Chiemsee Bog, and which was used in the seventies of
the past century for winning peat for the puddling and smelting
furnaces of the Bergen Smelting Company, was again arranged
for peat working in 1914. Each year 40,000 ster of cut peat and
approximately 5,000 ster of machine peat are won. The peat is

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT 55

intended for the use of the Royal Salt Works at Reichenhall.
The mode of working is as described above.

The peat machine (a Sugg) is provided with a 50 m. long
Strenge sod spreader. The regularity with which the issuing peat
sods pass on to the spreading belt is attained by means of
a Gress regulator (D.R.P., notified).

The bog is connected with Bernau Railway Station by means
of a narrow gauge line 3-6 km. in length. At the station the
peat is thrown into a pit, from which it is brought by a conveying
belt to the railway wagons. The winning of the cut peat is
handed over to a contractor. The rates of payment are as
described above.

(4) Burmoos, near Salzburg. — In this bog, which has an area
of approximately 500 ha., 140,000 to 160,000 cb. m. of dry
peat are won every year for use in four glass works and two
circular furnaces for the manufacture of bricks. The cost of win-
ning 1 cb. m. of dry peat, piled in heaps, is 1 -30 kr. A cubic metre
of dry peat weighs about 225 kilos and contains about 500 sods.
During the working season, from about April 15th to the middle
or end of November, generally 120 to 150 groups of two workers,
each (a cutter and a wheeler) are engaged, each of which in
140 to 150 working days produces 1,200 cb. m. of dry peat and
receives therefor 1,560 kr., so that each of the labourers earns
daily, by piecework, 4| to 5 kr.

(5) Rottenmann Peat Works, near Worschach. — The amount
won annually is 45,000 cb. m. of cut peat, in sods 30 x 22 x 12 cm.,
which is dried entirely in the air in the huts described on p. 48.
The net cost is stated to be 1-85 kr. for 1 cb. m. of dry peat,
or 1-00 kr. to 1 -20 kr. for 100 kilos (a cubic metre having a weight
of 150 to 200 kilos). The rate of wages in the locality is 2| kr.
to 3| kr. a day, or 4 kr. a day by piece-work.

(6) Peat Works of the Aussee Salt Company. — The bog has an
area of 160 ha. and an average depth of 3 m. Only cut peat is
made, and this is cut in two layers each 1 -5 m. in depth. Twelve
cutters are employed. The sods are cut to a size of 23 x 16 x 5 cm.
The small thickness is owing to the great difficulty of drying the
peat, due to the local weather conditions. The drying itself is
carried out entirely in the drying trestles or sheds described on
p. 45. Every man is required to bring the sods cut by him to
the drying trestles. The cutting, the transport and the layering
of the sods on the trestles are paid for by the day (2 ■ 60 kr. to
3-60 kr.) The average output of a workman in a day shift of ten
hours, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., with intervals of 1^ hours at midday,
| hour in the morning and \ hour in the afternoon, is 2,000 sods.
The drying on the trestles, each of which holds 5,000 sods, requires
two to six weeks, according to the weather and the moisture
content of the sods when cut. A drying trestle can be emptied
about every four weeks during the season from May to September.
The transport of the dried sods to the storage sheds is carried out
by two men, who are paid 2-60 kr. to 3-60 kr. per day. In one
shift three drying sheds can be emptied. Owing to high railway

56 THE WINNING OF PEAT

rates the peat is transported from the bog to the salt factory,
which is at a distance of 9 km. from the bog, in horse wagons,
each of which takes a load of 18 to 20 double cwts. (metric).
The transport from and the loading at the storage sheds is paid
for at the rate of 43 heller per 100 kilos. The unloading at the
salt works into the peat sheds is done, when required, by one man,
who is paid by the day.

The total number of people engaged in the peat-cutting is :
One superintendent, one timekeeper and tool repairer, and about
twelve cutters, who also look after the emptying of the dry peat
from the trestles into the storage huts, the clearing of the peat
bank, the cutting of drains, the repairing of trestles, &c, making,
therefore, fourteen men in all.

How far the yield of air-dried peat, by volume as well as by
weight, is affected by the differences in the raw peat, in spite of
the method of working being the same, may be seen from the
following results : —

1,000 sods of the above-mentioned size weighed, air-dried —
from bituminous peat . . . . . . . . 235 kilos

from fibrous peat . . . . . . . . . . 224 kilos ;

and 1 cb. m. of air-dried peat sods weighed —

from bituminous peat . . . . . . . . 240 kilos

from fibrous peat . . . . . . . . 140 kilos ;

and as 84 to 90 sods went to 1 hi., therefore 1 cb. m. corresponded

to 840 to 900 sods. The above weights are not invariable, but

alter with the density of the peat used, as the terms bituminous

peat, mould peat, and fibrous peat are not sharply defined.

The cost of production has increased more and more every yea.T,
and in the years 1912 to 1913 was, including all incidentals, 2 • 27 kr.
for 100 kilos of dry peat, as against only 1 • 23 kr. in the year 1903. *

According to the statement given on p. 57, 6,554,600 sods,
weighing 1,233,100 kilos, were produced in the years 1911, 1912,
and 1913. The mean annual production amounted, therefore, to
2,184,866 sods, weighing, when air-dried, 405,800 kilos. These
required : —

(1) In wages for cutting, placing on trestles, transport

to storage huts, removal of the bushes and roots
before and behind the cutting, making drains,
covering the bank, repairing the drying and
storage sheds, removal of the implements and
tools at the conclusion of the cutting, watching
during Sundays and holidays, as well as super-
intendence and unloading at the salt works for
the 2,178 shifts of the average year . . . . =6,338-89 kr.

(2) For the loading and transport of the peat from the

supply sheds to the salt works at 43 heller for

100 kilos =1,744-94 kr.

(3) For the building materials and substances em-

ployed at the bog as well as for repairing the

drying huts and trestles . . . . . . . . = 995 ■ 78 kr.

9,079-61 kr.
Ground rent .. .. .. 119-25 kr.

Total 9,198-86 kr.

So that, for an annual output of 405-8 m. tons, 100 kilos of the
peat cost the above-mentioned 2 • 27 kr.

1 Cf . the corresponding part in the second edition of this handbook, p. 68.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT

57

The Aussee ".

Peat Industry for the Years 1911-

1913.

Industrial year.

1911.

1912.

1913.

Total.

Mean.

1 . Duration of season

May 8th

Apr.30th

Apr.29th

to

to

to

Oct.27th

Oct. 9th

Sep. 2 5 th

2. Number of shifts

2,474

1,964

2,098

6,536

2,178

completed

3. Wages paid (in Kr.)

7,072-05

5,577-85

6,366-79

19,016-69

6,388-89

4. Output (in 100 kilo-)

4748

3735

3748

12231

4058

Output in sods . .

2,254,809

1,924,768

2,374,942

6,554,600

2,184,866

5. Average output in

1-92

1-90

1-78

— •

1-87

100 kilos per man

per shift

6. Cost of produc-

1-49

1-49

1-68

1-55

tion for 100 kilos

(in Kr.)

7. Cost for imple-

1,718-21

465-27

803 -S8

2.987-36

995-78

ments and build-

ing materials (in

Kr.)

8. Ditto for 100 kilos

0-36

0- 12

0-21

—

0-244

(in Kr.)

9. Transport costs for

0-43

0-43

0-43

—

0-43

100 kilos (in Kr.)

10. Ground rent (in

76-24

205-27

76-24

357-75

119-25

Kr.)

1 1 . Total cost of pro-

2-30

2-10

2-33

—

2-27

duction for 100

kilos (in Kr.)

12. Amount of fuel

4864

3236

4233

12333

4111

peat used for pre-

paration of salt

(in 100 kilos).

The peat mixed with lignite was fired at the salt works in
semi-gas furnaces provided with step and horizontal grates. For
100 kilos of salt the consumption of fuel was, approximately,
75 kilos of peat and 84 kilos of lignite. On account of the high
cost of manufacturing the peat, its further production for use in
the salt works was abandoned in 1914.

For example, lignite free in wagon loads at the Bad-Aussee
Salt Works costs 1 • 27 kr. ; brown coal and coal are not used
there. For the production of salt 411-1 m. tons of fuel peat were
used on an average every year.

10. — Percentage of Water in various Bogs and kinds of Peat ;
Quantities of Water to be evaporated in Drying, and
Yield of Moist or Dry Substance

The water content of bogs and of the raw peat won from them
varies, according to their situation and degree of drainage, between
70 and 95 per cent., so that peat won from, or under, water with
cutting machines or dredgers seldom contains less than 90 to
95 per cent, of water. Peat lying above the water-level contains
85 to 90 per cent, of water, and only that taken from well-drained
peat layers contains 80 to 85; in rare cases under 80 per cent,
of water.

(^595)

58 THE WINNING OF PEAT

On the other hand, the moisture content of peat well air-
dried is usually only about 15 to 20 per cent., though it may rise
to 25 per cent. Peat fuel containing more than 25 per cent, of
moisture has its calorific power considerably decreased thereby
and cannot any longer be called an air-dry commercial substance.
Peat intended for dry pressing or coking is generally dried before-
hand until it contains 40 to 50 per cent, of moisture ; " anhydrous
peat " should not contain any moisture at all.

Very frequently, and especially when dealing with the artificial
drying of peat described further on, and which appears to many
to be an easy, simple, and cheap operation, the significance of
these figures is too little and, even by so-called experts, incor-
rectly appreciated.

One hundred kilograms of air-dried peat fuel with, for example,
20 per cent, of moisture contain, with the 20 kilos of moisture,
80 kilos of dry substance. If, however, 100 kilos of this air-dried
peat are to be won from a raw peat with 90 per cent, of water,
then 800 kilos of the raw peat will correspond to the 80 kilos
of dry substance, since 800 kilos of this raw peat contain only
10 kilos of dry matter, and of these 800 kilos of raw peat 720 kilos
will be water. It is necessary, therefore, to raise from the bog and
bring to the working and drying grounds eight times the weight of
the peat fuel capable of being utilized, and evaporate from this, by
drying, 700 kilos of water (as the residual 100 kilos of air-dried peat
should contain only 20 kilos of water), i.e., seven times the weight of
the peat fuel.

For the partial drying required for dry pressing or coking, for
instance, 100 kilos of peat with 80 per cent, of water to peat
containing 60 per cent, of water, it is not 20 kilos of water, as is
sometimes assumed even in estimates of costs, but 50 kilos, i.e.,
more than double the former amount, which must be evaporated,
and the resulting partially dried mass weighs, not 80, but only
50 kilos, since the 20 kilos of dry substance corresponding to the
100 kilos of crude peat give with 30 kilos of water 50 kilos of peat
containing 60 per cent, of water. The difference between the
above 80 kilos and this 30 kilos must be got rid of by drying.

From the extraordinary difference between percentages and
weights it may be seen how important it is in the matter of costs
or in regard to the commercial value of artificial drying to use
correct figures in all calculations with regard to fuel requirements.

Owing to variation in the quantity of water in one and the same
amount of peat at various degrees of drying, the amount of the dry,
:< half-dry/' or moist peat also varies in weight, but the weight of
dry peat substance in it does not alter, remaining always the same.

If by drying raw peat containing m per cent, of water, i.e.,
100 kilos of the raw peat contain m kilos of water, peat with only
n per cent, of water is to be prepared, the unknown weight x of
this peat may be found from the equation : —

n ,„„ 100— m

x—x. ——r = 100— m . • . x —

100 T n

"Too

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT 59

since the weight of dry matter in x kilos of peat containing n per

% ft

cent, of water is #— TTwy and this must be the same as that of the

original solid matter in the peat, viz., (100— m) kilos.

The quantity of water y, which gives with a fixed amount of dry
matter a moist or partially dried peat substance with a fixed
amount, say n per cent., of water, is known, when g is the weight
of the dry substance, from the equation : —

therefore y=-

100 -n

If one has, for instance, peat with 95 per cent, of water, 100 kilos
of which, therefore, contain 5 kilos of dry matter, then with
these 5 kilos in a partially dried product containing 40 per cent.

of moisture there are still combined only y = ^-^ j~ — -^r

J " 100 — 40 bO

= 3| kilos of water, and the substance then weighs 5 -j- 3|

— 8| kilos. The excess water, which must be removed in drying,

evaporated is 91| kilos.

The tables on pp. 60 and 61 have been calculated in this way.

11. — Shrinkage and "Condensation" of Hand Peat on Drying

The shrinkage of hand peat on drying and the " condensa-
tion " associated with this differ greatly in individual cases and
depend chiefly on : —

(a) The amount of water in the peat as won and worked.

(b) The mode of winning.

(c) The age and the character of the raw peat.

The more the process of winning breaks up the fibres and
destroys their connexion with one another, and the more the raw
peat is kneaded and ground, the more the " formed peat " made
from it contracts or shrinks on drying. In this way trodden,
dough, and dredged peat shrink more than stroked peat and the
latter more than cut peat, while, moreover, a peat shrinks all
the more the older it is and the wetter it is worked.

The shrinkage of different peat sods can best be measured and
the influence of different modes of winning on this can best be
compared by finding the ratio of the size of an air-dried piece to
the size of the same piece in the freshly formed condition. If the
volume of the former be v and that of the latter V the fraction
^ or \ for different kinds of peat, or for different modes of
winning, gives the desired basis for comparison.

In the following, ^ is called the " dry-volume ratio," since it
gives the volume, after drying, of a piece of peat, the original
volume of which was equal to 1 ; while the value ? is called the
" contraction, or shrinkage effect," because the number thus obtained
tells us how many times a sod of peat, worked by a certain method
and in the air-dried condition, is smaller than it was when freshly
formed.

60

THE WINNING OF PEAT

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62 THE WINNING OF PEAT

This contraction is met in calculating the yield by volume from
a bog, and the shrinkage on winning must be taken into account
whenever peat fuel is to be sold by, the thousand and the sods are
to have, as far as possible, a prescribed size.

In a similar manner the different effects of different methods of
winning for one and the same raw material, or of one and the same
method of winning for different raw materials, on the density and
the firmness of the peat fuel may be judged relatively to one
another by determining and comparing the ratio by weight of
a piece of " formed peat " to the weight of an equally large piece
of cut peat, or, in other words, the ratio of the density of the "formed
peat " (moulded, trodden, or dough peat) to the density of cut peat
from the same material, dried to the same degree (air-dried).

Other things being the same, preference is to be given to that
mode of winning by means of which the ratio of the density of the
' formed peat " to that of cut peat from the same material is the
greatest.

This influence may be called the " condensing effect " of the
mode of winning and may be given a numerical value by determi-
nation of ~, where s is the density of the " formed " or "dough"
peat " and s is that of the cut peat from the same bog.

(This condensing effect is of great importance in the winning
of machine peat and affects considerably estimations of output
as well as the selection of suitable machines, as is shown later
in more detail.)

If the above observations be applied to several communications
with regard to measurements and weights of different kinds of peat
in the wet and dry (air-dried) states, as, for instance, those of
Engineer Wasserzieher, on peat from the Langenberg Bog, near
Stettin, and of G. Thenius, on Burmoos peat, which are to be
found in Dingier' s Polytechn. Journal, the values of the " dry-
volume ratio," as well as the " shrinkage " and " condensation
effects " of various methods of winning in the case of the various
peats contained in the table (p. 63) will be obtained.

From the figures given it follows that the " dry- volume ratio "
of cut peat, neglecting the pure " liss peat," is 20 to 35 per cent.,
and on the average may be taken as 28 per cent., while that of
stroked peat is 16 to 24 per cent., and on the average 20 per cent.
The yield (by volume), therefore, of air-dried peat from a bog,
the volume of which has been measured in situ, would be only
28 per cent, of this in the case of cut peat, or 20 per cent, in the
case of stroked peat.

At the same time it may be seen from the last vertical column
of figures that the influence of the mode of winning on the con-
densation, i.e., the condensing effect, amounts to 1 -43 to 1 -94, and,
therefore, may be assumed to be approximately 1| to 2. By
kneading and stroking peat, in the case of the raw peat noted in
the table, a product 1| to 2 times heavier and more solid than the
cut peat from the same material is obtained.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT

63

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64 THE WINNING OF PEAT

12.— Defects of Hand Peat

By noting the operations to be carried out in the various
methods of winning hand peat and by taking into account the
capacity of the air in different seasons for absorbing water
vapour,1 it will be seen that the success of these methods of
winning and drying depends for the most part on the action
of the air and on the weather conditions.

Moreover, crude peat is in itself, owing to its mode of origin and
the nature of the bodies which form it, in most cases, especially in
the upper layers of a bog, a very loose, felty, mossy mass. Owing to
great variation in the density of the raw material and irregularity
in its drying, the individual particles of the substance become
loosely arranged and thus very many cavities are produced
to which the low density (weight) and loose consistency of
the cut peat are to be attributed. These defects cannot be
decreased to a sufficient extent even by manufacturing kneaded or
dough peat. In consequence of this, the drying of hand peat in
uncertain weather can be effected only with great difficulty and
loss of time, since, when perhaps only a few more days are required
for its being clamped, it absorbs water again during every shower
of rain, with the result that the drying must commence anew, and
since it, moreover, possesses the property, common to all bodies of
loose texture of not letting all its water be evaporated by air-
drying, but of retaining a certain amount, and even of re-absorb-
ing this amount from moist air when a portion of it has been
removed in a hot season by drier air or by more or less prolonged
lying in covered sheds. The property of retaining water is all
the greater, the lighter, the more felty, and the looser the peat is.

For these reasons hand peat, especially cut peat, must lie for
months in the open before it can be brought into sheds to finish
the air-drying, provided sheds are there at all, and in a big peat-
cutting industry this is usually not the case, as they would entail
a considerable amount of extra capital.

Covered stands, sheds, &c, such as are employed to dry cut
peat in some Austrian works, although they show very good results
as regards the degree of drying, and the time required for it,
have not everywhere proved commercially successful, the increase
in expenses due to them proving too great for the market value of
the peat. Hence it happens that, although thorough air-drying
should produce in the case of cut peat a lowering of the water
generally to 20 per cent, and even to 15 per cent., this degree of
drying, on account of the difficulties mentioned, is attained only in
the rarest cases. Much more frequently hand peat, if it has not
been stored under cover for a long time, contains more than
20 per cent., and, especially in the case of cut peat, even up to
25 per cent, of water.

When, moreover, as frequently happens, the crude peat has
only slight cohesive properties, the hand peat, even when made

1 Cf. table in Section V, D.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF HAND PEAT 65

as stroked or dough peat, falls to pieces or breaks into crumbs
partly while in the clamps (even when fully dry) , and partly while
loading at the loading place or unloading at the place of utilization.
The loss due to this cause is not inconsiderable. On the average
it may be assumed as 15 to 20 per cent., but in the case of light
cut peat it may be as much as 25 per cent.

The consequence of these properties is that : —

(1) In using hand peat as a fuel, its moisture (approximately
one-fourth the weight of the fuel) decreases its calorific power
considerably, as a considerable portion of the heat set free by the
burning of the peat is used up in evaporating the water contained
in the latter, and, therefore, becomes lost, so that the heat of com-
bustion and the practically utilizable amount of heat can never
be reached to the extent corresponding to the amount of carbon
and hydrogen in the peat.

(2) Owing to the loose texture of ordinary peat a given
volume can produce only a small amount of heat, and even large
quantities of peat rapidly burn away. Hence, especially in the
case of more or less large furnaces, almost continuous feeding
and stirring of the fire is necessary, and this, apart from the
inconvenience of stoking, causes considerable loss of heat owing
to the frequent opening of the furnace doors and also owing to
the size of the hearth.

(3) In consequence of the unfavourable ratio of volume to
weight, transport is inconvenient and expensive, since a wagon,
on account of the large volume required by the hand peat, cannot
generally take its full load (by weight).

(4) On account of the friability of hand peat much breakage,
and, therefore, much loss occurs on loading and unloading and also
by vibration of the transport vehicles. Transport over distances
of any length is scarcely feasible in places where there are no
waterways or where somewhat frequent handling is necessary.

Moreover, when winning either cut peat or dough peat in
protracted bad weather, a good deal of the winning, and, therefore,
of the wages paid for it, is lost, and also in cutting peat a great loss
of material arises owing to the upper layer of the bog not possessing
sufficient cohering power for cut peat owing to the action on it
during several years of cold and heat. It requires to be removed
occasionally to a depth of half a metre and thrown aside as useless.
Further, a number of pieces which break up while being cut fall
back into the cutting trench. Again, " moulding " by hand labour
can be carried out only with such kinds of peat as from their
friable, short fibre character can be stroked into the forms (moulds)
and which, after " moulding," do not again swell out, become
loose, and crumble. Finally, the production of trodden, pulped,
or dredged peat requires, relatively, too much human labour,
which is either difficult to procure or too dear, and the treading of
the wet bog surface with the feet is an operation which, is difficult
in itself and unhealthy.

For the reasons given above, and especially when the intention
was to work a bog on a large scale, people soon directed their

66 THE WINNING OF PEAT

efforts to getting rid of all these defects, by preparing the peat, in large
quantities, as dry and as dense as possible, from any raw peat by
means of machines, thus obtaining a fuel as cheap, valuable, and
transportable as possible, and able to compete in industry with brown
coal or coal.

The description of the methods adopted is given in the follow-
ing section.

Section IV

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND
MACHINE PEAT FOR PRODUCTION ON
A LARGE SCALE AND FOR GETTING
RID OF THE DEFECTS OF HAND PEAT

1,— Summary of the Methods Proposed and on their Value

in General

The following methods have been proposed for attaining the
object mentioned above, and also for getting rid of the defects
of hand peat already indicated.

(1) Ordinary air-dry cut peat, stroked peat, or dredged
peat is subjected to artificial drying (dehydration) in order to
remove the water (anhydrous peat).

(2) The peat, after addition of much water, is ground and torn
into powder by machines, and then, before drying it, an effort is
made to free it by a " washing-out " process from the earthy
(ash) bodies with which it is mixed. (" Washed-out peat " :
Methods of Challeton, Galecki, and others.)

(3) The peat is pressed through a sieve by means of machines,
and in this way the real peat substance is separated from the
plant residues (sedge, grass roots, and stones), which may be
present in it, and is then formed into regular pieces by special
machines. (Sieve peat : Versmann's method.)

(4) The peat, after maceration as far as possible for the purpose,
is dehydrated in drying ovens, and the warm peat mould is
pressed by means of powerful piston presses (crank or spindle
presses) into smooth, regular pieces. (Press peat : Dry press
methods of Exter-Gwynne, Stauber, Peters, and others.)

(5) An attempt is made to press the water out of the peat,
freshly raised from the bog, by strong mechanical pressure,
and at the same time to form it into sods, which are then dried
under cover. (Press peat : Wet press methods of Koch and
Mannhart, the Moor Cultivation and Peat Utilization Co.,
the Wet Carbonizing Co., Ltd., the Wet Press Co., Dr. Heine
and Rudeloff, Dr. Ekenberg and Larson's Wet Carbonizing, &c.

(6) Attempts are made by means of electrical currents to
facilitate the dehydration of raw peat by pressure. (Press peat :
Electrosmosis, methods of the Osmone and Pentane Works,
Bessey, Kittler, and others. " Hard peat " : Baron von
Verschuer's method.)

(7) Raw peat is disintegrated and mixed by means of
machines, as in (8) but the peat mass, which has a uniformly

68 THE WINNING OF PEAT

thick and pulpy consistency, is formed in special machines
into balls as big as a man's fist, which are then dried artificially
in special drying shafts. {Ball peat : Eichhorn's method.)

(8) The freshly won peat is brought to machines which
tear up the root and plant fibres, destroy the natural, uneven,
felty formation of the peat, and by thorough mixing transform
the peat into a thick mass, which is as uniform as possible,
and which :—

(a) Without previous addition of water is, while thick and
kneadable, stroked by hand into moulds or is formed by the
mixing machines themselves into a thick, endless, sausage-like
band, which is divided into sods before it is spread for air-drying
(machine-formed peat : Weber's method) ; or

(b) After previous addition of water, is allowed to flow out
as mud or pulp on an open, levelled ground in a layer of uniform
thickness which is cut into sods before it is fully air-dried
(machine pulp or machine dough peat, sometimes also called
machine mud peat : Hanover-Oldenburg method) -1

1 Schreiber proposes in his Report (" Neues iiber Moorkultur und Torf-
verwertung," Second Annual Series) the term "machine-kneaded peat " for
this, " because the name pulp peat would also do for machine-formed peat."

In the first place this term is not suitable, since machine-formed peat in
order to be capable both of being " formed " and of giving firm sods is, as
a rule, worked in so dry a state that it is not really a pulp, and is therefore
not " pulped peat " (p. 30) in the sense in which this commonly accepted and
unambiguous term is employed in general trade as well as in the peat world,
even though a peculiar hardening effect may be ascribed to the pulpy (that
is, viscous, moist, pasty) mass. A body may be" pulpy," that is, it may
have one or other of the qualities of pulp without being " pulp " itself, just
as a thing may be "woody " or "stony " without being wood or stone.

Machine-formed peat as it issues from the mouthpiece of the machine
does not collapse on the sides as a real pulp would do, but, on the
contrary, can be moulded into pieces with free vertical faces. Above all,
however, no pronounced distinction between machine-pulped peat and
machine-formed peat is introduced by the term "machine-kneaded peat."
Machine-formed peat, since it is worked without addition of water, must
be kneaded by the machine even more than the muddy, machine-pulped
peat, which is generally worked with addition of water, and the term
"machine-kneaded peat" is therefore even better suited for machine-formed
peat. Just as in the more or less large peat districts the terms applied to
different varieties of hand peat — cut peat, trodden peat, pulp peat or dough
peat, and moulded or formed peat — are definite expressions which have
been generally accepted for centuries, so also the corresponding terms
machine pulp peat and machine-formed peat are applied to peats of
a similar kind when spread on the drying ground if in working the raw
peat into dough, or pulp peat, or into moulded, or formed peat, machines
have been substituted for hand labour.

Hence in machine peat circles, especially in Germany and Holland, under
the general term "machine peat" it is customary to distinguish between
machine-formed and machine pulp peat. Consequently it has been adopted
here in agreement with this practice. The general practice of foreign peat
industries, for instance those of Denmark, should not be regarded as final
for the German technical world, nor should it be assumed that the term
"pulp peat," which is less ambiguous and therefore clearer for German
technical journals, is sufficiently covered by " Aeltetorv " (kneaded peat),
which would without a doubt be a rather hazy term for German experts
to use when distinguishing between the various kinds of peat fuel.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 69

(9) Peat is won by machinery in the form of powder or dust
for firing in the well-known coal-dust furnaces. [Machine dust, or
machine powder, peat : Ekelund's method.)

Of the above-mentioned methods only that mentioned
under (8) has had any general commercial success, and that
under (4) has had a quite limited one. According to the machines
employed for performing the work and their peculiarities, the
methods may be divided into several sub-groups, which have
had much, or little, success. By a process mentioned under (8)
we obtain a well-known fuel which is coming more and more
into use under the name of " condensed machine peat," or briefly
" machine peat." The name "press peat" is often applied to
the latter, and the machines for producing it are called " peat
presses." This use of the term is, however, incorrect, and leads
to this peat being confused with the real press peats made
according to method (4) or (5). In ordinary language we under-
stand by the expression " press peat " only such a product as
has been really pressed into a dry and dense condition by means
of considerable mechanical pressure, just as we understand
by the term " press " a machine by the aid of which a big
mechanical force can be applied.1

1 It is to be regretted that now and then, even in expert circles, the
terms "press peat" and "machine peat," which, as we have explained above,
are diametrically opposed, are not kept strictly separate, and that the
expressions "press peat" and "peat presses" are used for "machine
peat " and "peat-forming machines," although they are quite distinct both
in their nature and in their commercial results. Just as in trade, industry,
and domestic use a quite definite fuel really pressed from coal (coal
briquettes) is known and universally understood under the expression " press
coal " — the expression (coal briquettes), hitherto current for it, tending
more and more to disappear — in the same way only the product (peat
briquettes), prepared in the same manner from peat, can be logically under-
stood by the term "press peat."

To give to quite a different product the same name as that given to a
generally known commercial article is certainly not justifiable, and therefore
not admissible for an expert. For, after all, it is the primary duty of the
leading experts, and especially of the leading technical journals, to cater for
the enlightenment and the instruction of the circles interested. Conse-
quently also, in the present case, the final word on the former point should
not be that in less instructed circles, and such as are therefore less careful
with regard to both facts and words, and in which "machine- (formed)
peat," which is quite a different thing from press peat, is often called
"press peat." On that account it is rather the duty of experts, for the
prevention of obscurity and confusion of ideas, to avoid, when possible,
these expressions which are still used in minor circles, although admitted
to be " erroneous " or " badly chosen," and to employ the clearer terms
existing for the purpose in the leading expert circles.

The principal technical journals, such as the Mitteilungen des Vereins
zur Forderung der Moorkultur im Deutschen Reiche, the Vienna Zeitschrift
fiir Moorkultur und Torfverwertung, the Berichte der Bremer Moorversuchs-
station, and of the Technische Hochschule in Hanover, proceed in this way,
which is also emphasized as the correct one in the conclusions of the
Begriffsbestiiiimitiigen wichtiger Torferzeugnisse of the sixth session of the
Bog Experimental Institutes, in which occurs the statement, "Varieties of
formed peat : (a) Machine peat (wrongly called press peat)."

If in the leading expert circles any expression is recognized as, and

70 THE WINNING OF PEAT

This is, indeed, the case in the methods (4) and (5) mentioned
above and in the machines employed in these methods ; but is
not so in any of the methods mentioned under (6), since the
pressure produced by these machines is barely sufficient for
' forming " the soft peat mass. The condensation of machine
peat is not brought about, as will be explained later on, by the
pressure applied, but by the mixing action of the machine in
question. Hence experts term the machines of method (6),
according as they " form " the peat at the same time or merely
tear it up and mix it, peat-forming machines or peat pulp
or peat-preparing machines, or briefly peat machines, and in
accordance with this, the product from them, to distinguish it
from hand peat and press peat, is called machine-formed peat,
or machine dough or machine-pulped peat.

In the case of the above-mentioned method of winning
machine peat the facts are not as often asserted and accepted : —

" Any water enclosed in the peat fibres, as in capillaries,
is let flow out by rupturing the tubes, and thus the machine
peat is dried more rapidly than cut peat " (for water-retaining
plant fibres or tubular water reservoirs of appreciable size,
such as could be cut by the knives and blades of the peat machine,
are not present in any considerable number in the peat). The
water-retaining capillaries and cells are so small as to be almost
imperceptible to the naked eye, and can in no case be cut through
or torn to pieces by the mixing machines in question ;

Or " the greater portion of its water is pressed out of the peat
while it is being formed before it leaves the machine, and the

said to be, wrong (when used instead of another term), such an expression
should be avoided on principle and replaced by the clearer one in standard
technical writings. Also on p. 68 of the technical work " Neues iiber Moor-
kultur und Torfverwertung," Pilsen, 1903, it is stated under the heading
"Machine-formed Peat " that it is wrongly called" press peat." Nowadays
all experts agree that the name press peat is incorrect and misleading. They
should therefore never use the name unless the words "wrongly called "
are prefixed to them to prevent misconception. It would be still better and
more effectual if the misleading name were not employed at all. At any
rate, it is clear from this that only non-experts can now use the expression
press peat " for " machine-formed peat " without sinning against expert
knowledge and expert custom arising therefrom. In his work, "Pressen
und Formen von Brenntorf," Wittenberg, 1912, Thamm takes the same
view, and expressly states that ' ' machines which only ' form ' the peat are
wrongly called, peat presses," and that the name" press peat "or" briquette"
is applicable only to a peat product really formed by means of strong
pressure. Considering the doubtful success hitherto attained in the real peat
press plants, in peat presses, and with press peat, those who manufacture
and who sell peat-mixing and forming machines of proved excellence, which
are not peat presses (the latter are usually uneconomical), should avoid
applying the same name to their product. The doubt fostered thereby can
only have an injurious effect — since it is becoming more and more recog-
nized that only in the rarest instances are press peat factories successful —
on the sale of the more suitable mixing or forming machines of proved
excellence for which the name " peat machines," and for the product
of which the name "machine peat," are very suitable and generally
understood terms.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 71

peat is, in consequence of the pressing action of the machine,
transformed into a solid and valuable fuel like coal " ;

Or "by the mixing and stirring of the peat mass the plant
gum, which is to bring about the hardening of the pulverized peat,
is ' set free,' also by tearing the ' peat straw,' the pentosanes — the
powerful cements enclosed with the peat water in the straw —
are set free and then surround the peat pulp as it dries " ;

But still less " empyreumatic bodies contained in the peat are
pressed to the surface of the pieces of peat, the surfaces becoming
pasted over with a gelatinous layer of bitumen and humin and
solidifying at once after gasification of carbon on exposure to
the air."

The same remark applies to other similar mental aberrations
such as are frequently found in articles by so-called peat
authorities in the price lists of peat machine manufacturers and
of peat machine dealers, and in the literary effusions of the owners
of peat bogs or peat machines who, with few exceptions have,
through lack of detailed and expert investigation, only a very
remote notion of the real nature of peat winning. In their
excursions along the borders of technical and natural science
they feel tempted, in spite of their lack of real expert knowledge,
to explain the basis of the machine peat industry by a scientific
jingle. Others aim at commercial exploitation, speculating as
they do on the ignorance of certain circles.

As a matter of fact, the process of condensation which takes
place in the winning of machine peat is simply as follows : —

" The raw peat, which is at first of variable density, and
which is working in the machines in question with a percentage
of water ranging from 70 to 90, acquires (assuming that a correct
selection of machines has been made) a uniformly dense and
pulpy consistency by the thorough mixing which occurs while
the plants and plant fibres are being torn up, and while the
felty, spongy structure of the peat is being destroyed. The small
particles of peat therefore acquire the natural tendency peculiar
to such pulpy, finely divided, cellular or fibrous masses of adhering
closely to one another during the subsequent evaporation of
the water, and, in proportion as the water evaporates, the volume
of the peat becomes smaller, that is, the peat contracts or becomes
more dense. The cement, if such a term can be used at all,
is the " humic substances" and the peat fibres themselves.
If we consider the condensation only, it is almost a matter of
indifference whether the peat pulp was pressed or not pressed,
" formed " or not " formed," when it was leaving the machine.
Condensation during drying will be all the greater and more uniform
the more minutely the peat is macerated and the better it is converted
into a uniform pulpy mass.

The condensation, due to the mixing action of the machines,
and by means of which nearly all the above-mentioned defects
of hand peat are at the same time removed, takes place when
working light fibrous peat, as well as every other raw peat, to
such an extent that when this machine peat is fully dried one can

72 THE WINNING OF PEAT

cut, saw, and turn it like hard wood or heavy brown coal — the peat
giving a perfectly smooth glistening section. To obtain peat as
dense and firm as this from wet peat or from a partially dried
powder by means of lever, piston, or roller presses would be
possible only by the expenditure of great mechanical power,
and the process would therefore be too costly for winning on
a large scale.

For this reason the press methods mentioned under (4) to (6)
may be generally described as uneconomical. Usually press
peat (unnecessarily called peat briquettes), prepared by a dry
method from peat mould or peat powder, has a further defect in
that the peat blocks, which are in themselves very clean and firm,
lose their firmness through the action of the heat in the fireplace,
and fall into powder again before the actual process of burning
sets in ; in this way their utilization for industrial purposes is
hampered, and that for carbonization is made quite impossible.
Moreover, both the processes require, relatively speaking, high
capital charges and entail great working costs, and give, therefore,
also, on account of the preliminary drying and heating required
for the raw substance, a very dear fuel, which is at the same
time unequal to the demands made on it in industry.

Every artificial drying plant (dehydration plant) has up to the
present, no matter how promising it seemed to be, always proved
too expensive, both as regards plant costs and running expenses.
For this reason the manufacture of anhydrous peat is out of the
question (for particulars see Part II, Section I, D).

The " washing-out process " of Challeton, mentioned under (2),
with which the process proposed some time ago by Galecki
agrees even with respect to the " washing out," is not one to be
imitated, inasmuch as it must be termed an incorrect procedure
to try to win and utilize as fuel a peat which contains such gross,
and so great a quantity of, earthy impurities that an appreciable
portion of these can, and must, be removed by a " washing-out '
process. In this way a bad peat, very rich in ash, would be
burdened with costs of winning which even a good peat, poor in
ash and of which there were plenty in nature, could scarcely
support, and this without the quality of the former being improved
to an extent corresponding to the increase in cost.

The manufacture of " ball peat," which was similar in principle
to that of machine peat, required for its working a large plant
which was difficult to construct. Owing to frequent interruption
of the industry and high plant costs, as well as to the artificial
drying associated with the process, the fuel produced was far too
expensive.

This statement is even more applicable to V ersmann s sieve
process.

Many other attempts to condense or to dehydrate peat by
mechanical agents have either not got further than the experi-
mental stage on the small scale, or the application for a patent ;
or the results obtained after working them did not correspond
to the expectations entertained to such an extent as to allow of

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 73

hopes for a favourable commercial success, even after over-
coming the difficulties which usually become apparent in the
preliminary trials.

To this class belong all attempts to remove water from peat,
enclosed in cloths, by water-pressure (or hydraulic) presses,
which is in itself a roundabout method and which gave a very
costly fuel with, at the same time, a low output, and also attempts
to employ centrifugal force for the same purpose, which were made
by Cobbold, Gwynne (London), Hebert (Rheims), and others.

In order to secure technical success for these attempts, it was
found necessary to convert the peat into a uniform pulp before
feeding it into the centrifuge, and also to " form " the dehydrated
peat in machines. It is evident that there could be no question
of commercial success for a process so complex as this.

This remark applies also to the process of removing water
wholly or partially from peat by bringing the peat on a filter
cloth over a place which has been previously made into a vacuum
by means of an air pump and then forming the peat, either by
pressing it between rollers or by pressing it by means of rollers
and stamps, into moulds which could be moved under the
latter.

Attempts such as these were made in very many cases,
especially before Weber's process was generally known, and,
particularly in England, several patents for such methods of
winning out were taken out at that time. Some of these
methods are described in detail in Muspratt's " Chemistry," and
in Dr. Vogel's little book, " Der Torf, seine Natur und Bedeutung,"
Brunswick, 1857.

In more recent times many attempts have again been made
to solve the peat problem by dry pressing, wet pressing, fore-
pressing and after-pressing, in order to deprive the peat of its
water by pressing, artificially heating, sucking away the air,
and evaporation. No one of these new and newest discoveries
deserves a detailed description, and they may all, without further
consideration, be rejected as uneconomical. Experts conversant
with the matter, knowing and taking into account the nature
of peat, occupied themselves only with the further development
and extension of the methods mentioned under (8) in all cases
except that of installations of the kind described further on for
power stations in bogs.

The method first employed in 1858-59 by von Weber at
Staltach, in Bavaria, the machines used in the method, and the
improved winning processes and plant developed from it form
the subject of detailed discussion in the following sections,
preceded by brief explanations of the other methods which had
been used in their time, but which, being of little advantage,
as we have already mentioned, have ceased to be employed.

Inasmuch as these methods have only historical value for the
development of the peat industry, their description has been
limited to that of the general methods employed and their
results without entering into details.

(^595) c

74 THE WINNING OF PEAT

The manufacture of anhydrous peat, which formerly appeared
to be important for many branches of industry, especially for
the smelting industry, is treated in Part II, Section I, D, of this
handbook.

2. — Description of the various Methods
A. — Manufacture of " Washed-out " Peat (Ghalleton's Process)

According to the " washed-out ' peat process employed by
Challeton at Montauger, near Paris, and in various factories in
the south of France and Switzerland, the freshly won peat after
addition of water, was torn up and macerated by a series of
rollers, each of which had a length of 125 cm., a diameter of 45 cm.,
and was mounted with hollander knives 100 mm. in length ; after
further addition of water the peat was converted into a thin pulp
by means of stirrers.

At Montauger, the pulp, when freed from fibres by fine sieves,
was elevated to the upper story of the machine house and then
passed down through pipes into the " soaking pits." The latter
consisted of pits 5 sq. m. in area and 0-5 m. in depth, the
permeable bottoms of which were covered with sedge and reeds,
so that the water, by soaking through the bottom, could easily
flow away from the mud, which became denser and was then cut
into sods, which were subjected to a preliminary drying in
covered sheds and finally to a complete drying in heated rooms.

A very dense peat was, of course, obtained by this process (its
density being at least as great as that of condensed machine peat)
and, indeed, the density of the anhydrous " washed out," artificial
peat, which still contained, however, a high percentage of ash, was
up to 1-8. The ultimate object of this expensive " washing-out '
process, viz., freeing the peat from its incombustible ingredients
and decreasing the percentage of ash, was attained only either to
a very small extent or not at all. Coarse sand, stones, &c, could,
indeed, be removed by the process, but the quicksand, clay, lime,
or gypsum, which were minutely distributed in the pulp, could
not be separated in this manner.

Since such a process depends essentially on the weather and
on the season (in wet summers from four to six weeks will elapse
before the peat pulp can be cut in the soaking pits) ; since the
washing out requires a large area round the machine house, and
the peat has to be conveyed from a considerable distance to the
pits ; and since, owing to the removal of most of the fibres, the
peat is destitute of good binding material and, therefore, the dry
peat, like Exter's press peat, easily crumbles when burning, the
method is not suited for general use. Moreover, the capital and
running expenses are by no means low. At Challeton's works
there were 800 pits, 50 of which were filled each day ; the daily
output of finished peat was about 8,500 kilos.

The same process was also employed at that time near Roy,
in St. Jean, in Switzerland, in Wiirtemberg, and in several places
in Russia.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT /Z

According to Dr. Vogel, the method which Hebert adopted at
Rheims agreed in the main with that of Challeton, but differed
from the latter, however, in the manner of carrying it out. There
also the peat was put into a machine by which it was worked,
after addition of much water, into a thin pulp, and the pulp then
passed through a sieve, which stopped all the coarser portions,
into a pit from which, as from an ordinary washing pit, the
water could be let flow away when the peat pulp had subsided.
When the peat pulp had become quite dense it was raised from
the pit and " formed " into sods by means of a machine, to which
we shall return when dealing with the manufacture of machine-
formed peat.

The " washed-out peat " factory, which formerly existed at
Langenberg, near Stettin, was erected according to Challeton' s
plan, from which it differed only in the arrangement of the peat-
disintegrating machines. When the factory was first started, the
disintegrators consisted of four grinders, which were placed in the
upper story of the machine-house and which were fed with wet
peat by means of elevators, Each grinder contained two pairs of
rollers, 750 mm. in diameter and 1,250 mm. in length. The two
upper rollers were grooved to a depth of 55 mm. and the two
lower to a depth of 20 mm. The rollers of each pair had equal
velocities but revolved in opposite directions. With this arrange-
ment the only possible result was that the peat remained almost
unaltered even when it was passed several times through the
grinders and therefore, this expensive plant, having had almost
no action on the peat, had to be very soon replaced by another.

After many alterations, which necessarily destroyed all chances
of profit from the enterprise, the following arrangement was
adopted : —

The factory stood on a sand-dune which was raised to a height
of 10 m. above the surface of the bog and was extended up to
400 m. on both sides of the factory.

A canal, 15 m. in width, led from the bog to one side of the
building and the raw peat was brought to the latter in flat-
bottomed boats over the canal. These pontoons were filled by
a 20 h.p. steam dredger which worked in the bog and had a daily
output of 1,000 cb. m. with a dredging depth of 5 m. Each of the
pontoons was capable of holding 25 to 30 cb. m. of raw peat.
The pontoons were hauled in pairs quite close to the factory,
from the upper stories of which two elevators, 14 m. in length,
were suspended at an angle of 45° ; by means of these the raw
peat was raised to the disintegrating machines. The disintegrating
machines for each elevator consisted of two wooden vats, side by
side, each 3 m. in diameter and 0-6 m. in height. Inside each vat,
at a distance of 250 mm. from the outer shell, there was an inner
screen made of iron rods, 10 mm. in thickness and arranged in
latticed fashion, into which the crude peat, mixed with much
water, was brought. In the middle of each vat there was a vertical
shaft provided with four arms, to the ends of which strong brushes
were fastened which swept closely over the sieve-like or latticed

76 THE WINNING OF PEAT

screen The shafts made twenty revolutions a minute and the
peat, to which water was added as required, was broken up
by the stirrers attached to the shafts, the finely divided peat
being centrifuged into the external cylindrical space, wThile the
coarse fibres, roots, and other impurities remained in the inner
compartment.

In front of each of the four vats there was a wooden mill, of
which the fixed lower part was 200 mm. in height and the upper
runner 500 mm. in height and 2-6 m. in diameter. The grinding
surfaces were of cross-grained wood and were provided with deep
feeding channels. The eye of the runner had a diameter of 1 -2 to
1 -5 m. and caught the peat mud as it came from the sieve vats.
The mills worked well and gave, when running, a peat mud which
was ground more or less finely as desired. The mud from the four
mills collected in a channel, 1 -5 m. in width, which had a natural
fall towards a pit. The mud was raised by a centrifugal pump
from the pit to a small reservoir about 6 m. higher than the pit.
From the reservoir long wooden channels, 470 mm. wide and
600 mm. deep, led to the level sandy surface, 12 ha. in area, which
was divided into main fields and these again into divisions of
25 ares each. Each of these fields was surrounded on three sides
by an embankment, 0-6 m. in height ; the fourth side was open
and had a wall of planks (of various lengths) 0-8 m. in height
when the field was full of peat mud.

Between every two fields there was a trench 0-5 m. in depth.
The trenches were bounded by the embankments and were con-
nected with the general discharging drains. In order to cover the
various fields with peat mud, the main channels, which had falls
of 1 in 100, had in each field three small side pipes opening at
right angles to the direction of the main channel of the field and
closed by wooden side valves. There were also at hand, small,
portable wooden channels, 4 to 5 m. in length, 180 mm. in height,
and with a width decreasing from 340 to 275 mm., together with
portable trestles. The channel conduits, constructed from these,
sloped downwards from the three side tubes of the main channel
to near that end of the field which was closed by the boards.

Two fields were always covered with the peat mud at the same
time and the channels stood ready for use in a third field. In
two days, with the help of five men, 75 ares were laid out. The
depth of the layer of thin fluid peat in the fields was 0-5 to 0-6 m.
When, after four to eight days, the surface began to crack, the
peat was trodden until firm with the aid of boards fastened under
the workers' feet. After a further period of six to eight days the
peat was cut into longitudinal strips, and after another six days
it was cut crosswise, turned, and then dried in the air by the
ordinary method.

At this factory the winning season had to end about the
middle of July to ensure that the last portion run out could be
dried. Hence, in about sixty working days about 140,000 hi. or
625,000 kilos of peat were 'won on the 12 ha.

The output from every 100 sq. m. of the surface covered by

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 77

the mud was 11-5 cb. m. of dry peat sods, 60 to 70 mm. square
by 160 to 200 mm. in length. A hectolitre of these sods (including
the spaces between the sods) weighed, in the case of litter peat,
40 kilos, and in that of brown peat, 53 kilos. The density of the
dry peat was 0-73 to 0-90.

This " washed-out peat " process was given up even in the
last century, and after many experiments and intermediate stages
it evolved into a peat press method in which a Magdeburg dry
press (cf. p. 84) was employed, but even this peat press factory
(at Langenberg) has in turn closed down.

Galecki's ' washed-out peat ' process, which, in so far as
it is really a ' washing-out process," is just as uneconomical
as Challeton's, is described more fully in the section on the
Hanover-Oldenburg pulp peat winning (p. 152).

B. — Versmann's Sieve Process

The essential part of this process, as in that of Buckland1
(which was introduced into England about 1860 and brought
from there to Germany by the chemist Versmann), consisted in
the peat being first very finely divided in a disintegrating machine,
the peat proper being separated from the impurities and plant
remains (roots, fibres, &c.) which always accompany it and then
formed into regular pieces in a special forming machine.

The machine for the preliminary preparation consisted2 of
an iron cylinder resting on a square stand with a funnel, likewise
made of iron, fixed near the bottom of the cylinder. The wall of
the funnel was pierced with a large number of holes, which were
close beside one another and 3 mm. in width. A cast-iron cone
rotated inside the funnel, and on its mantle two screw-threads
were placed so that, when the cone was rotated, they glided round
with their sharp external edges close to the inner, perforated wall
of the funnel. In working the machine the raw peat was thrown
into the upper feeding cylinder, where it was caught by the screws
of the rapidly rotating cone and was pressed by the screw blades
against the perforated wall of the funnel. The peat itself was
pressed through the holes in the form of macaroni, while the fibres
and coarse impurities (stones, pieces of wood, &c.) were said to
have been left behind and to have been expelled through the
lower cylindrical prolongation of the funnel.

The peat, which had been pressed out and purified, fell on
a table which rotated with the vertical axle under the funnel and
from which the peat was scraped by a stationary knife, this knife
being screwed to the machine stand with its lower edge close to
the upper surface of the table. The peat was pushed towards
a forming machine which bore a resemblance to a brick machine.

Apart from the fact that with impure peat frequent stoppages
occurred in the work owing to the choking of the sieve-holes, it is
wrong to remove from a fibrous peat the fibres which are of value,

1 Journal of the Society of Arts, 1860, p. 437.

2 Dingier 's Polytechn. Journ., vol. 168, p. 306, and vol. 172, p. 332.

78 THE WINNING OF PEAT

both as fuel and as " cementing constituents," in the " forming "
and drying processes which are subsequently carried out. More-
over, since the manipulation, as may be seen even from the
description, was more intricate than that of mixing and macerating
machines, which are at the same time " forming " machines, and
also since this process was usually combined with artificial drying,
any expectation of favourable commercial results in the case of
installations of this type was precluded from the very start.
Consequently, all the factories which were erected at great
expense to carry out this process, as, for instance, that at
Neustadt-on-Rhine, ceased working after a very short time.

G. — Manufacture of Press Peat (Peat Briquettes)
1. — The Exter-Gwynne Dry Press Process

Dry pressing, agreeing in the main with the process elaborated
by Gwynne in England in 1853, was carried out after a long series
of very difficult experiments in 1856 by Exter, first at the State
Peat Factory at Haspelmoor, between Munich and Augsbuig, and
afterwards at Aibling, in Bavaria, at Freiburg, in Switzerland,
at Neustadt, in Hanover, at Miskolcz, in Hungary, and at many
other places.

The peat was freed from water as far as possible by means
of deep drains. It was then steam-ploughed lightly and, therefore,
very finely divided by the tearing to pieces of the various fibres
and roots. The mass obtained in this way was harrowed so that
it might dry better in the sun and air, and when fully air-drv it
was brought to the machine-house in small cars over a railroad.
It was there thrown on a sieve, 25 mm. mesh width, and the peat
mould which passed through the sieve was raised by an elevator
to the top story of the building, and was again sifted in inclined
cylindrical sieves, which were placed beside one another and
decreased in width from 1 m. to 70 cm. over a length of 2 m.
The fine-sifted portion passed directly to the drying ovens and the
coarse portion was brought, by means of spiral screws, to the
boiler-house, where it was employed for heating the steam boiler.

The drying oven was divided into several sections by shallow
tin boxes, which were connected alternately in a zigzag fashion.
The peat powder was driven through these by spiral screws and
passed through them from above downwards alternately from
right to left and left to right, while a current of hot steam passed
in the opposite direction between the tin boxes and escaped at the
top. At the temperature of the oven, which was from 40° to 50° C,
the peat dried until the percentage of water in it was 10 to 12.
It next passed from the oven through a funnel into the presses,
and was pressed at a temperature of 50° C. into pieces 180 mm.
long, 80 mm. wide and 15 mm. to 25 mm. thick, each of which
weighed about 375 g.

The presses were double-acting ones, lever presses or crank
presses, steam-driven, and with two pistons.

As the stroke of these presses was quite definite and did not

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 79

automatically regulate itself during action, frequent breakages of
various parts of the machinery were caused by the peat fed into
the machine not being of uniform density, and this, together with
the heating of the machine due to the heat contained in the
pressed peat and the complicated construction of the drying ovens,
gave rise to the necessity for frequent repairs and, therefore, to
troubles in the working. All these, together with high plant
costs and high working expenses, were detrimental to the wide use
of the process, and after a short time led to the closing down of
all these factories.

The costs of the installations were at the time very considerable,
and amounted, for instance, for steam ploughs, transport vehicles,
drying ovens, machines, buildings, and site at : —

Locality. Marks.

Haspelmoor . . . . with 4 Presses, to 300,000

Aibling . . . . „ 2 „ „ 240,000

Freiburg . . . . ,,3 ,, „ 225,000

Gwynne's method, which was used at the time in England
and Ireland, differed only in details and in the machines used from
Exter's method, which has just been described, and did not give
any better results from the commercial standpoint.

2. — Resumption of Dry Pressing by Peters, Stanber, the Buckau and

Zeitz Machine Factory, &c.

(At the end of the last, and the beginning of this, century.)

In recent decades extraordinary success in the utilization of
friable or earthy brown coal and inferior small coal was obtained
everywhere owing to the employment of dry presses which
have during this period been considerably improved (by Exter) .
A big market (even in the cases of long transport by rail or water)
has also been opened up for clean " press coal " for domestic as
well as industrial use. Under these circumstances it soon became
apparent that steps would once more be taken to employ the
plant which had proved successful in the " press coal " industry
for the manufacture of an equally clean and marketable press
peat from the raw peat, which was to be found almost everywhere
and which apparently cost nothing. As sufficient attention was
not paid either to the difference between the raw materials — mine-
damp brown coal or pit coal containing 55 to 60 per cent, of
moisture on the one hand, and raw peat raised from the bog with
85 to 90 per cent, of moisture on the other hand — or to local
conditions, these attempts must, from the commercial point of
view, end in failure, as the author of this handbook has always
maintained. The manufacture of a good, clean press peat, similar
to press coal, from peat mould by the process usually adopted
for winning press coal (especially when the well-known Zeitz or
Magdeburg stamp presses with plate or tubular drying ovens are
employed),1 presents no technical difficulties. With almost the

1 Further particulars are contained in Preissig's " Die Presskohlen-
industrie," Freiberg in Silesia, 1887, and in Dr. Friedrich Jiinemann's
" Die Brikettindustrie und die Brennmaterialien."

80 THE WINNING OF PEAT

same plant " half-dry " peat mould, containing the same amount
of moisture, can be worked without any special cement into clean,
firm and transportable press peat (peat briquettes) with the same
degree of technical success and at the same cost. The net cost,
however, of the raw material required for the pressing is, in the
case of the " half -dry " peat mould required, considerably higher
than in the case of the pit coal, and therefore the net cost of press
peat is considerably greater than that of press coal. Hence the
question of commercial success for the press peat factory can only
arise in the case of districts to which the cost of transport by car
or rail is rather high, and into which pressed brown coal, for
instance, cannot be delivered free at a price of 150M. for a double
wagon load of 10,000 kilos.

By not bearing these circumstances sufficiently in mind, failure
must inevitably result. Thus, at the end of the nineties, Stauber,
in connection with a Schoning machine company, being mistaken
as to the commercial value of such installations for the public,
erected two press peat factories in the middle of the Province
of Brandenburg, and therefore in a district where the brown
coals of Anhalt and Lausatia are always to be had at the very
lowest market prices, and intended these factories to serve as
models for similar installations in all the larger peat districts.

The first installation, at Trebbin, could not be got to work at
all, and the second, at Mittenwald, could only be got to work by
replacing their own patented devices by the sifting and drying
plants which had proved successful in the press brown coal
industry. After the loss of much capital, the result arrived at
here, which could have been predicted by any expert, was that
the cost of the product, which can be made and can be utilized, is
much too high in comparison with the ordinary prices of fuel in
the immediately surrounding district, even when the industry
is well organized and proceeds smoothly, and that, therefore, the
industry could not be maintained with any prospect of commercial
success. The peculiar characteristic of Stauber s plan was said to
consist1 in the emancipation of the industry from the air-drying
required by other methods, and thus making it independent of
wind, weather, and the season of the year, by a preliminary
artificial drying of the raw peat (which contained 80 to 90 per
cent, of moisture) in a drying drum with the aid of hot gases from
fires until the " half -dry " body contained the 60 per cent, of
moisture present in mine-damp brown coal powder. In this way
it was hoped that the continuous working, both day and night,
summer and winter, which is necessary for a large commercial
industry, would be possible.

Owing to the importance which at the beginning of this
century was once more attached by many (attracted by very
promising but incorrect statements of some speculators) to the
winning and utilization of peat in the form of press peat (peat

1 Cf. E. Stauber, Berlin," Torfbriketts als Ersatz fur Kohle," and Techn.
Rundschau des Berliner Tageblattes, Nos. 40 and 41, 1900.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT

SI

briquettes), detailed accounts of the various peat factories of this
class and of the results which are possible in the most favourable
cases are given in the second edition of this handbook, to which
reference must here be made.

In the present edition a detailed account1 of these may well
be dispensed with, since in the meantime the results obtained
in all these press peat factories have once more shown that the
working of such factories in a commercially remunerative manner
cannot as a rule be attained. For even with the low wages of
2-50M. for the ordinary day labourer and 3M. to 4M. for artisans
and mechanics (the rates of wages at present are considerably
higher), the actual net costs, including interest and amortization of
capital, calculated when the industry went smoothly, were : —

In the case of a plant with one press, the
capital being at least 200.000M.

For 1,000 sods press

peat 4-22M.

Or for one double wagon

equal to 10,000 kilos. . 105M.

In the case of a plant with two presses, the
capital being 320.000M.

For 1,000 sods press

peat 3-84M.

Or for one double wagon

equal to 10,000 kilos . . 97M.

These costs of production would be increased 30 to 40 per cent,
by the considerable increases which have in the interval taken
place in capital costs and in wages.

Press brown coal costs, on the other hand, according to its
quality, at Senftenberg Station, 80M. to 100M. ; at Berlin Station,
113M. to 133M. ; and Saxon press coal at Meuselwitz, 90M. to
115M. a double wagon.2

Assuming 28,000 briquettes to a double wagon, then 1,000
briquettes cost 3|M. to 4|M. at Berlin, carriage paid. The so-
called industrial press coal costs about 5M. less per double wagon.

In the manufacture of press peat, a given weight of the
finished press peat, containing 12 to 15 per cent, of moisture,
requires for the press peat itself and the fuel necessary for heating
the boilers and the preliminary drying of the materials, a weight
of raw peat, containing 90 per cent, of moisture, eleven times the
weight of the finished product, and since in the manufacture of
press brown coal the weight of raw material is not even double

1 Further particulars with regard to details of the capital and working
expenses may be seen in the second edition (1904) of this book.

*2In summer, 1914, the net cost in the case of Senftenberg coal was
50M. to 55M., and in the case of Meuselwitz coal 60M. to 65M. for a double
wagon at the works, the small coal costing 10M. to 14M. a double wagon,
that is 7 Pfg. to 9 Pfg. a hectolitre (70 kilos) at Senftenberg and up to 10 Pfg.
at Anhalt, according as day shifts only were worked or not.

In general it may be reckoned that 1 kilo of press coal will require in
raw material and fuel : At Senftenberg, 2 J kilos pit coal ; at Anhalt, 3 kilos
pit coal ; on the Rhine, 3J kilos small coal ; and at an Anhalt press coal
factory, which does not work under the most favourable conditions, there
are required for 100 kilos of press coal — 32 Pfg. for press coal, 13 Pfg. for
fuel coal, 12 Pfg. for wages, 5 Pfg. for general working expenses = 62 Pfg. for
100 kilos, or 62M. for one double wagon.

Meuselwitz wet press coal, 14 Pfg. being paid for coal from a deep
shaft, was manufactured for 55M. a double wagon, and sold in 1914 at
75M. to 80M.

82 THE WINNING OF PEAT

that of the finished product, these relations must affect very
considerably the commercial results of the two industries.

Even when instead of the artificially " half-dried ' peat,
which Stauber proposed to use, ordinary air-dried cut peat was
•employed as fuel for heating the boilers, it was found that the
change in the method of working produced no material alteration,
either in favour or against the cost of the process. While the use
of cut peat as fuel simplifies the working of the concern, the use
of " half -dried " peat renders it more independent of the weather
and the season of the year.

Other processes which were also proposed for the winning of
press peat, for the removal of fibres therefrom, and for the
artificial drying of peat, have not, as might be foreseen by any
expert, proved successful, but have indeed proved very expensive
for the experimenters.1 The above remarks also apply to the
various wet press processes, by which indeed a marketable,
firm and utilizable peat fuel can be obtained, but the com-
mercial value of which, owing to the complexity of the process
and the inferiority of every kind of peat to brown coal, may be
predicted as out of the question.

A press peat factory can become remunerative only when the
" half-dry ' peat mould (containing at most 20 per cent, of
moisture) required for the press peat costs, delivered at the press
or the steam plate driers, no more than the pit coal required for
press coal factories, and when, in the case of peat bogs at a con-
siderable distance from coal-mines, the difference in freightage
can be placed to the credit of the press peat factory. In the brown
coal industry there are many factories in which brown coal,
containing 60 per cent, of moisture and costing only 8 Pfg. to
12 Pfg. per 100 kilos, is made into press coal in a commercially
remunerative manner. In the peat industry there is no method
yet known by which it would be possible to win " half-dry " peat
mould (containing 60 per cent, of moisture) in large quantities,
and with a certainty which would guarantee continuous working
for a large scale industry at approximately this price.

The Swede Ekelund estimated the " half-dry " cut, or crumb
peat (containing 60 per cent, of moisture), required as raw material
for his own coking process at only 3 ore to 4 ore per hi. (50 kilos),

1 Especially Stauber's manufacture of press peat on the Dammersdorf
Estate, near Marlow, in which the peat was to be dehydrated by being
subjected to pressure between a movable piston and a perforated mantle,
and was then to be pressed through hot forming tubes and after being cut
into uniform sods, was to be converted by several days' drying into " an
excellent, firm and dry press peat." Also his " Removal of fibres from, and
artificial drying of peat for the production of press peat " (see E. Stauber,
Berlin, "Torfbriketts als Ersatz fiir Kohle "), and his " solution " of the
peat problem : "Drying peat in an air-tight canal by alternately pumping
out the air and heating the peat and then coking the peat," as well as his
artificial drying by destroying and bursting the capillaries and peat fibre
vesicles by super-heated steam in the Blostau Peat Factory, near Konigs-
berg, in Prussia (Techn. Rundschau des Berliner Tageblattes, Nos. 40 and 41,
1900),

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 83

which is equivalent to 6 ore to 8 ore or 7 Pfg. to 9 Pfg. for
100 kilos, delivered at the factory. He also stated that it was easy
to win anywhere such " half-dry" stuff at this price. In spite of
every endeavour we have not succeeded in finding even in Sweden
where peat of this kind could really be won at this cost in the
large quantities which are being considered here.

Plans and detailed estimates for large press peat factories with
artificial preliminary drying of the material to be pressed have
also been made by others. In Oldenburg, for instance, peat
containing 83 per cent, of moisture, raised from a drained bog,
' formed ' by machines into sods and dried in a shed until it
contained 80 per cent, of moisture, was to be sent through drying
canals (Moller and Pfeifer's method), which were to be heated
b>y hot air or hot gases from fires, attention being paid to the
recovery of the heat of evaporation. From the drying canals, in
which the percentage of water in the peat was to be lowered from
80 to 72, the peat thus " fore-dried " was to be sent in drying cars
direct to the drying rooms, one of which was to serve for drying
while the finished dry peat was being removed from a second
and a third was being filled with "fore-dried" sods. In the
drying room the water in the peat was to be reduced in three to
five days, by conducting hot air or hot gases (at 80° C.) from a
fire through the room, to 17 per cent., a percentage which was said
to be a suitable one for feeding the material to the presses. The
hot air required for this, as well as for the preliminary drying,
was to be obtained by mixing the hot gases from the boiler fires
with the air of the boiler-house, and was to be driven by blowers
into the rooms. We are not aware of the successful construction
and working of any installation of this kind.

In spite of every effort, only the following press peat factories
were actually at work or were in working order during the first
decade of the present century : —

(1) The Langenberg Press Peat Factory, near Stettin.

(2) The Ostrach Peat Briquette Factory, in Hohenzollern.

(3) Jrinowka Press Peat Factory, near Petrograd.

(4) The Press Peat Factory of the Griendtsveen Moss Litter
Company at Rotterdam.

A press peat factory near Konigsberg, in Prussia, another at
Schonau, near Stolzenberg, in Pomerania, and still another near
Teterow, in Mecklenburg, were built, but, like the Mittenwald
factory, they did not get any further than a few experiments
on pressing. The peat factory erected by the Beuerberg Peat
Briquette Company was not a press peat factory ; it made, in so
far as it worked at all, only machine peat with the aid of two
Schlickeysen machines. Of the four press peat factories first
mentioned not a single one, except the Russian one mentioned
under (3), is at present working in spite of the prolonged efforts
of the owners to make them commercially successful.1 There is

1 In the second edition of this handbook, pp. 107-110, further par-
ticulars are given with regard to details and working results of these
factories.

84 THE WINNING OF PEAT

now not even one peat press factory in Germany. At Langenberg;
it has been shown that, notwithstanding all attempts to improve
the press peat industry, mere agricultural utilization of the bog
gives a better return than the winning of press peat. The Ostrach
Peat Briquette or Coal Works intends to procure other machines
for another process in place of those of the press peat works which
have been shut down, but at the present time it is running only
its peat litter factory. In Finland, however, a large peat dust
factory with presses (according to Ekelund's method) has been
recently erected neat Riihimaki. So far as its success is concerned
nothing is yet known.

The erection of the Langenberg and the Ostrach Factories
was due to the Buckau Machine Company, near Magdeburg, that
of the Jrinowka Press Peat Factory to the Zeitz Foundry and
Machine Company at Zeitz, and that of the Dutch factory to the
Diisseldorf Iron Company at Diisseldorf-Grafenberg. The first
two were single-press plants ; the Russian one has two presses..
The factories did not differ essentially from the well-known
press brown coal factories. The Buckau Machine Company used
a Schulze tubular drier, and the Zeitz Company its own plate
drier. The Dutch press peat factory, instead of employing air-
drying, which is commercially the only justifiable process and
which was employed by the other factories, at the recommendation
of the Diisseldorf Iron Company, resorted to pressure for the
preparation of the " half-dry " press material, in order to ensure
that the industry could be carried on throughout the year. In this
method the raw peat was brought to a piston press, by which
it was carried through a mouthpiece as a continuous band,.
0-6 m. wide and 50 mm. thick, to a cutting contrivance by
means of which it was divided into pieces 0-6 m. in length.
Every thirty of these peat cakes, after being wrapped in filter
cloths by a machine, passed automatically to a lift by which they
were brought over a filter press in which these cakes were
dehydrated, in about twenty minutes, between grooved press
plates under a pressure of 100 atmospheres until their volume
had been reduced to one-half and the percentage of water had
fallen to about 50. It was stated that 0-14M. covered the cost
of manufacture of 100 kilos of these pressed peat cakes, which
formed the crude material for the subsequent dry pressing, and
also that the power required for a press was 2 h.p. (!).

It is said that in spite of all efforts the "half-dry stuff'
obtained by the fore-pressing contained 65 to 70 per cent, of
water instead of the 50 per cent, which was expected. This
difference is big enough to raise doubts as to the commercial
value of the plant, as a whole, for the manufacture of press peat.

Only the Jrinowka Press Peat Factory in Russia is said to be
still working, and this must be ascribed to local conditions and to
the personal influence of the proprietor on his customers. The
managing body of this press peat factory stated, for instance,
that the factory works satisfactorily with two steam presses
which are constructed for a yearly output up to one million pud

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 85

(16,380 m. tons) of press peat. It has been said that the two
presses give every day 4,000 pud (6^ double wagons) of press
peat from cut peat containing 30 to 35 per cent, of moisture,
and that, as a matter of fact, the sales amounted to 500,000 pud
(8,190 m. tons, or approximately 820 double wagons) in six
months. Under the unfavourable weather conditions which
prevail there, the net cost was 16 copecs a pud, or 100 copecs for
100 kilos of press peat ready at press, that is, without freightage,
amortization, &c. The selling price was 25 copecs a pud, or
150 copecs for 100 kilos, delivered in the city. The press peat is
used there in the better circles of society for stoves in rooms and
for kitchen fires ; some of it is, however, used in Hoffmann circular
furnaces for the manufacture of bricks. The Company hope to
reduce still further the net cost of the press peat by means of
a cheaper method of winning, which has been already introduced.
The scheme proposed by Amandus Kahl's Machine Company,
of Hamburg, must be regarded as not differing essentially from
the process of dehydrating by pressure used in the Dutch factory.
According to it, the " half -dry " press stuff was to be obtained by
employing artificial drying with suction of water and air instead
of the natural method of drying. The raw peat, which was to be
dredged and well mixed by a Strenge machine, was to be brought
over a field railway from the dredger to the peat press factory,
and then, after addition of water, was to be mashed by stirrers
into a peat pulp containing 90 to 95 per cent, of water. This
peat pulp was then to be dehydrated until it contained 60 per cent,
of water by a suction drier — the so-called Hencke separator,1 and
in this condition was then to be used as " half-dry " stuff for the
press peat factory. The suction drier may act quite well in other
industries (for drying distillery, brewery, and starch residues,
for instance), and in the present case may, as intended, " half
dry " the peat. This dehydration of the peat entails, however, so
great an expenditure for the machines and the working of the
suction pumps and the suction drier itself, that peat dehydrated
in this way should be too dear a " press stuff " for a press peat
factory to allow of the remunerative manufacture of a marketable
press peat. There are no reliable figures available with regard to
the actual cost of " half-dry " peat which has been dehydrated
according to this method.

3. — The various Wet Press Methods

The wet press method of Koch and Mannhart was employed
in 1858 on the Riet Bog, at Schleissheim, in the neighbourhood of

1 This suction drier consists of a revolving drum having a permeable
perimeter, over which runs an endless filter cloth, to which the peat to be
dehydrated is fed uniformly through a kind of sieve. The air is pumped
out of the drum, and in this way, under the pressure of the external air,
a part of the water of the peat becomes sucked out. The peat on the filter
cloth, which has been to a large extent dehydrated, runs above the
drum over some pressure and suction rollers, which are also said to remove
water from the peat.

86 THE WINNING OF PEAT

Munich. According to this method, the wet peat, as it comes
from the bog, is pressed mechanically until it has lost as much as
possible of its water and is then dried completely under cover,
or in the case of unfavourable weather in hot drying chambers.
The machine employed for this purpose consisted, according to
Dr. Vogel, of two iron cylinders, 4 m. in diameter, having sieve-
like surfaces round which closely woven press cloths passed. By
means of a special contrivance the water which collected under
the press cloth was able to flow away continuously through the
cylinders as the pressing proceeded. A special distributor is said
to have partially broken up the raw peat and to have fed it
uniformly to the rollers. A wide band of peat, about 6 mm. thick,
was thus formed, the peat at the same time losing a good deal of
its water and acquiring a considerable amount of solidity. Two
or more such bands were combined to a single band by pressing
once more. When the band of peat was sufficiently thick it was
cut into pieces of the desired size, and dried.

The peat bands, before they received their main pressing, on
passing through the large cylinders dammed up and fouled the
press cloths so that the latter ceased to act, thus giving rise to
frequent stoppages. Moreover, if the press cylinders were really
to exert a pressure, it would be necessary to allow them to revolve
slowly. For these reasons the daily output of the machine must
be small. For large outputs of pressed peat the number of the
machines must be large, and the plant of such a factory would
therefore be very costly. The interest and amortization due to
this, together with the costs of repairing the machinery, could
only result in considerable increase in the expenses of the
industry.

All these disadvantages were experienced in a high degree at
the first factory of this class, which was built at Schleissheim.
Although efforts were constantly made at the time to remove the
various defects and to decrease the working expenses of the
process, they met with only slight success, since the process,
owing to its cumbrous nature (repeated pressing with the object
of increasing the thickness of the bands by combining them with
one another), could not give a cheap product. Moreover, this
press peat, on account of its shape (that of a thin plate), was not
much adapted for burning economically. The factory, which was
the only one of its kind, closed after a considerable amount of
money had been wasted.

In this class we may also include all the unsuccessful proposals
or contrivances of Stauber, Schoning-Heine, the Dusseldorf Iron
Company, and others, in which peat, before further treatment,
is to be freed from its excess of water by the pressure, in one or
more stages, of grooved rollers, pistons, or plates against sieves or
filter cloths, even when the peat is also to be warmed or otherwise
treated with electricity (!).

It may be taken for granted that in a relatively short time, by
a continuous pressure of several atmospheres which can be applied
without difficulty, so much water can be pressed out from raw

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 87

peat containing, as a rule, 90 per cent, of water, that the amount
of water in the peat is lowered to 80 per cent. The further
dehydration of the peat does not, however, keep pace with the
increase in the pressure or in its time of application, but becomes
relatively smaller as the percentage of water becomes lowered
by the pressure to 70 or less and, finally, when the amount of
water in the peat has fallen to 65 to 60 per cent., it is not
worth taking into consideration even when the pressure is
100 atmospheres or more. Indeed, owing to the gelatinous or
pasty nature of the peat at this stage of dehydration, removal of
the water by means of even these high pressures ceases almost
altogether.

The removal of the water by pressure is facilitated by freezing
and thawing the peat beforehand, by heating the raw peat or by
mixing it with granular, pulverulent, porous, drier substances.
Heating the material to be pressed is the basis of the Ekenberg;
process of the "Wet Carbonizing'1 Co., Ltd., of London. In
Sweden and Germany attempts have also been made, with
employment of much capital, and simultaneous loss of capital, to
work factories of this kind, the commercial success of which cannot
but appear impossible when we bear in mind the calorific power
of peat and the unwieldy nature of the process.

According to Dr. Ekenberg and Engineer Larson the basis
of this method, which is also called the " wet carbonization of
peat," is : —

The peat (containing 85 to 90 per cent, of water), which has
been worked into a pulp by a mixing machine (Anrep) , is pumped
through a number of tubes in which it is heated to 150 to 200° C,
and at the same time it is subjected to a fairly high pressure, so
that no development of steam can take place. Partial carboniza-
tion of the peat is said to occur without formation of tar and
gaseous hydrocarbons, the calorific value of the peat increasing
by about 1,000 calories. It is claimed that the fibres of the peat
mass, subjected to this treatment, lose their colloidal properties,
and that the water can then be driven out of them by pressure.
This dehydrated peat is then converted by pressure into press
peat, which is said to possess a calorific power equal (?) to that
of coal. (Cf . the various methods and appliances under Patents
in Section VII, 1.)

Every wet press method, even when it can be carried out and
gives a marketable, convenient fuel, must from the nature of peat
be uneconomic, i.e., too dear.

For the same reason scarcely any other result is to be expected
from the process of the Wet Press Co., Ltd., of Wiesbaden,
which has been referred to recently in several technical publica-
tions as worthy of attention. In this process some peat, which
has been previously dried artificially, is added to the raw peat,
after this has been disintegrated in a machine, and the mixture
is exposed to a slowly increasing pressure between rollers and
press cloths. It is claimed that in this way the amount of water
in the peat can be lowered to 60 per cent., and that the peat can

88 THE WINNING OF PEAT

then be used with advantage either for the production of power
gas or for the manufacture of press peat.

By means of fairly large experimental machines it has indeed
been shown at Dortmund, Neustadt-on-Haardt, and at the
Malmoe exhibition of 1914, that the process can be carried out
technically with production of a press peat similar to press coal in
appearance, handiness, and transportability, and no one would
expect that it could not, since all such operations are technically
possible. It is, however, equally true that owing to the unwieldy
nature of the process, the artificial drying required for the fairly
considerable amount of the dry peat added, the high percentage
of water in the raw peat in comparison with that in mine-damp
brown coal, and the lower calorific power of. even well-dried
peat in comparison with that of commercial " press brown coal '
of medium quality, every expert must regard the commercial
possibility of the process as out of the question in the case of
every country, especially Germany, where brown coal and coal,
which have higher calorific powers, are accessible to everyone in
sufficient quantity and at the prevailing prices.

Dr. Heine and Rudeloff , of Berlin, wish to bring into operation a
new method of pressing, in which, unlike that of the Wet Press Co.,
no addition of other substances is made to the peat, and to
employ it in conjunction with the Heine artificial " carbonizing,
in heaps ,: (mentioned in Part II, under Patents) for the
utilization of bogs. According to this method, which is called the
' step-pressing " one, the material to be pressed is brought between
two conveying tracks to several presses, which operate inde-
pendently and in which the moisture is driven out by pressure,
which increases in stages. After two pressings the material is
disintegrated and is then again subjected to two more pressings.
This system of pressing, in which the pressure gradually increases
in stages, is said to open somewhat the cavities in the peat owing
to the resilience of the fibres, and to render it easy therefore to
drive out the residual water during the later compressions.

What has been already said of the method of the Wet Press Co.
with regard to its technical possibility and its commercial value
should in general also apply to this case.

For the same reason the technical, but not the commercial,
success of the processes for dehydrating peat of the Moor
Reclamation and Peat Utilization Co., of Ober Schoneweide,
Berlin,1 can be admitted. In this process the individual peat
particles are kept moving continuously during the compression.
The superposed peat fibres constantly change their position, while
the ever-increasing pressure forces the water out of the fibres or
capillaries. It is maintained that the motion of the mass produces
natural channels through which the water can pass out and flow
away. In this manner it is said that the percentage of water in
peat can be reduced within 30 to 40 minutes from 90 to 50 (!),

1 Ziegler, " Ueber Versuche der Torfpressung " (Proceedings of the
79th Meeting of the Central Moor Commissions, p. 19).

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 89

and that the peat can then without difficulty have its percentage
of water reduced to 25 by means of waste heat or air-drying,
yielding a very firm and thoroughly dry fuel. This method will
scarcely advance beyond the experimental stage.

4. — Press Processes with Simultaneous Electrical Dehydration
(Electrosmosis, Osmone, Pentane, &c.)

The co-operation of the electric current (the so-called electros-
mosis) has not in any way been able to alter the non-success of
the dry or the wet pressing of peat. Electrosmosis depends on
the fact that the passage of the electric current through a liquid
produces a motion of particles of the mass and " therefore allows
the enclosed liquid particles to ooze out through the cell walls
of the fine peat fibres." On this principle Count Schwerin, of
Wildenhoff, based his process for the electr osmotic dehydration of
peat, which was adopted by the Hoechst Dyeworks, and brought
into operation in Schwenzel Bog by the East Prussian Pentane
Works (see under Patents, Section VII, 2). The product,
which was brought into trade under the name " Osmone," was
prepared from the crude peat which had been made into a uniform
pulpy mass in the usual way by removing two-thirds of its water
electrosmotically in presses with the aid of pressure or suction,
and converting the air-dried product, by breaking up and sifting it,
into a marketable and utilizable fuel consisting of sods or powder.
The current consumption for the separation of 1,000 kilos of
water was found to be 13 to 15 kw.-h. By electrosmosis for
a quarter of an hour 1 cb. m. of ' osmosed peat," containing
70 per cent of water, was obtained from 1-5 cb. m. of raw peat,
containing 87 per cent, of water. When the product was air-dried
under cover it gave 169 kilos of " osmone," with 15 per cent, of
water, and therefore 1 cb. m. of raw peat gave 113 kilos of
" osmone."

From the economic standpoint the results attained by this
method bear no comparison with the running expenses and the
cost of the equipment employed in connexion with it. Not only
the Pentane Works, but also Osmone, Ltd., which was established
in 1905 at Berne, with a share capital of 1,800,000 francs, have been
shut down. A similar failure attended Bessey's method, in which
a powerful alternating current, working intermittently, was
employed (the water being pressed out in the intervals) — the
" secret process ,: of Kittler and other electrical dehydrating
processes.

5. — Hard Peat

A dense, cube-shaped peat fuel, prepared at Bad Aibling
according to the process of Baron von Verschuer, has been called
' hard peat." It is in essence a dense machine peat, which has,
however, during its preparation, been exposed to the action of an
electrical current, and has been finally dried artificially. Its
fracture is like that of the brown coal of Central Germany.

(2.595) H

90 THE WINNING OF PEAT

The peat, freshly cut in the ordinary way, is brought by means
of a field railway and a conveyer to a mixing machine, from which
it is, when well mixed, driven through an " electrical mouthpiece."
By the action of the latter the watery and resinous constituents
of the peat fibres are said to pass to the surface of the fibres, and
the gelatinous pulpy state of the body is modified so as to allow
the subsequent drying to proceed more effectively. The peat falls
from the electrical mouthpiece into a forming machine, from
which it emerges in two prisms, each of 8 x 8 cm. cross-section.
These are cut by knives into cubes of 8 cm. side, caught on plates
(1-05 x 0-22 m.) (pierced with holes), which are removed from
the rolling table, placed in layers of ten over one another on
the adjacent car, and brought to drying tunnels, which can be
closed by means of sliding doors.

Every eight tunnels (each 27-5 m. long, l-20m. broad, and
2-00 m. high), which lie beside one another and hold fourteen cars
each, are supplied uniformly with hot air, day and night, by means
of a fan. The wagons and the air current traverse the tunnel in
opposite directions. By this continuous and thorough removal
of moisture the peat fuel, which is finished in the course of a week,
is said to acquire a very high density which cannot be reached
by ordinary machine peat. The amount of water in the peat is
said to have fallen from the original 80 to 85 per cent, to 35 to
30 per cent., the cubes contracting to a volume of 6x4x3 cm.
each. One hectolitre of this " hard peat " weighs 46 kilos, and
1 m. ton requires a storing space of 2 • 2 cb. m. " Hard peat " such
as this is a solid body, almost as hard as stone, does not crumble,
and bears transport well.

This mode of proceeding increases the duration of the peat
season from 100 days to 250 days, and also renders the drying
independent of the weather and the time of the year.

For dailv outputs of 5, 12, 25 and 50 m. tons the costs of
plant are given as 36,000, 90,000, 150,000, and 280,000M.
respectively. When everything is written off the mean cost of
the fuel is 8-6 to 9-09M., and its mean selling price is 18M. per
metric ton.

No one doubts that this process can give a good, clean, trans-
portable fuel, suitable for household use. Its economic success
can, however, be questioned, since the cost of the " hard peat,"
according to the above particulars, is approximately the same as
that of press peat (peat briquettes), which was an equally neat
product and which, owing to its lower percentage of water, had
a somewhat higher calorific power, but which was so unable to
compete with commercial press coal in the most diverse districts
of Germany that there is not a single one of the press peat
factories proper any longer in operation.

It is said, however, that a fairly large " hard peat " factory
is to be established at Augustfehn, an experimental factory on
one of the Bavarian State bogs having proved the commercial
value of the process.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 91

D.— Eichhorn's " Ball Peat "

This process, which was discovered, and much elaborated
at the time, by the retired mining director, H. Eichhorn, at
Wdrschach, near Steinach, in the valley of the Upper Enns
(Bavarian Patent of March 11th, I8601), differs from all the
hitherto described ways of manufacturing condensed machine
peat less in its nature than in giving the peat the shape (spherical)
most favourable for its utilization as a fuel and in the machinery
and drying plant employed to attain this object and lower the
percentage of water in the fuel.

According to the Bayrische Industrie und Geicerbeblatt, June
and July, 1875, the following method was employed there : —

The peat coming from the trench in irregular pieces is worked
to a pulp or dough, as uniform as possible, in any macerating
machine (an ordinary crushing mill) suitable for the local con-
ditions, and is raised or pushed to the forming machine by means
of any ordinary elevator (windlass with rope and bucket, conveyer,
or screw).

In its original form the machine consisted, according to the
size of the factory, of one or more wooden or metallic drums

FiG.r 24.— Eichhcrn's " ball peat drum."

(Fig. 24) rotating round a shaft A . The cover of each drum had
a screw-shaped passage 5 S inside ; it also had one or two inlets E,
and the same number of outlets F.

As the peat issues from the macerator it is pushed into the
drum by means of a screw-shaft rotating in a funnel T.

Every portion k of the mass in and above the funnel, which
is pushed forward by a single rotation of the drum, and which
is sufficient for a single ball, is immediately separated (cut) from
the mass in the drum by a cutter and counter-cutter 5, and S2,
which are attached like the two branches of a pair of scissors,
one at the entrance to the drum and the other at the exit from
the funnel. The piece falls directly into the drum and after
a few rotations reaches the outlet F, where it has the form of
a ball 100 to 130 mm. in diameter.

After arriving there this and all the succeeding balls fall or
roll on the surface of a track, which is inclined at a suitable angle

1 According to the pamphlet " Der Kugeltorf von Dr. G. YVentz, Dr.
Lintner and H. Eichhorn, Freysing, 1867," H. Eichhorn had been engaged
before 1867 in winning peat on an experimental scale by the method which
was employed successfully later on by Weber and others, but was compelled
to abandon it owing to his efforts to give the peat during its winning the
form which is most advantageous for its combustion.

92 THE WINNING OF PEAT

and played upon by a current of air heated to 50° C, and on
which the balls, rolling forward automatically, are led through
the drying rooms (drying shafts).

The drying rooms were immediately under the forming
drums and consisted of a number (depending on the size of
the peat factory) of stone or timbered shafts 5 to 6 m. in height
and 3 to 5 m. in diameter. One of the tracks, mentioned above,
opens into each of these shafts and runs in a continuous spiral
to the sole or bottom of the shaft. The peat balls, all rolling
automatically over this extension of the track, reach the bottom
of the shafts, fill the latter gradually, and are subjected in them
(in 12, 24, or 36 hours, according to the nature of the raw peat)
to any desired degree of dehydration, by means of an ordinary
hot-air apparatus under the bottom of the shafts from which the
air, heated to the desired temperature, flows into the peat balls
through flues or vents in the vault (shaft bottom). The air
circulates round (enfilades) the peat balls on all sides, and
finally, charged to a large extent with moisture taken up from
the peat while drying, either escapes into the open through
outlets immediately under the inclined surface, or else it can be
used for the preliminary heating of the " unformed " peat.

According to the degree of dryness intended to be attained,
the peat balls are gradually removed through several side openings
in the lower part of the drying shaft and brought to their final
destination — their place of utilization.

As the charge in the shafts decreased it was to be replaced
from the drums and therefore forming, dehydration, removal
and finishing of the product were to be continuously carried on.

Just as the natural quality of the peat (from the lightest
fibrous to the heaviest bituminous peat, from marshy mud to
earthy grass peat) and the local conditions and requirements
of the customers varied among themselves, even so must the
construction and installation of the forming machine be varied.

A great advantage of this process was said to consist of its
being capable of being kept continuously working under all
conditions of weather (even in the depth of winter) and also in
a relatively small space.

According to calculations which were made, the following
results were said to be attained : —

One forming drum, rotating round its axis with the moderate
velocity of about 60 revolutions per minute and having only
a single screw-thread which allows only one peat ball to fall after
each rotation, gives in 24 hours about 86,000 balls, 100 to 130 mm.
in diameter, which, in the wet state, weigh about an equal
number of pounds and give at least 7,000 kilos of perfectly dry
peat. In a year of 300 working days a single drum gives, there-
fore, sufficient peat balls for about 2,100,000 kilos of anhydrous
peat. It requires for this output simply a machine of at most
| h.p., since the power in the case of the very moderate velocity
with which the drum rotates has only to keep up the pushing,
running, or rolling of 17 to 20 balls having a total weight of 10 kilos,

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 93

and overcome the slight resistance due to the screw in T while
this is gently pressing the soft peat required for one or two balls
against the external wall of the drum.

For carrying out the whole process of " forming " and drying
the peat under a single forming drum, only a simple shaft
structure consisting of four light walls 3 to 4 m. in length, the
same number of metres in width, and 11 m. in height, was said
to have been required for the complete dehydration in 24 hours
of the 86,000 balls produced by the drum in that time, or, there-
fore, for a yearly output of at least 2,100,000 kilos of anhydrous
peat. From the beginning of the forming to the completion
of the dehydration, with the exception of the stoker — that is,
only one man — simply the above described machine of f h.p.
(and the fuel necessary for the artificial drying) was required.

In arriving at the total power consumption for such a factory
the power required for ' forming ,: the peat, for driving the
grinding and tearing machine, and for raising the macerated
mass above the forming machines which are placed at the top
of the building should be taken into account.

The " condensation " of the raw peat is at least the same as
that obtained by the methods of winning machine-formed peat
described later, the two " condensations "' being due to similar
causes.

The peat balls, which have at first diameters of 100 to
130 mm., contract until their diameters are from 50 to 60 mm.,
and then have densities depending on the variety of the raw peat.
(Further particulars with regard to the ' condensing action '
of the process and as to the density of and the percentage of
water in various ball peats are given in Section V, H.)

The expectations entertained on many sides from this
process have nowhere been fulfilled from the commercial stand-
point, in spite of all the sacrifices made by the inventor himself.
The last peat ball factory,1 which was erected under Eichhorn's
supervision at Worschach in the Enns valley (1874), after working
for several years with slight success was abandoned and had to
give way to the winning of ordinary machine peat.

Since the process was first elaborated at Eichhorn's peat ball
factory at Feilenbach, near Aibling, which passed later on into
other hands, several factories of this class were erected abroad
in Russia, Sweden, and Norway, all of which, however, according
to reports received, had such high working expenses and required
so much capital, that they had to shut down after a short
industrial life.

1 For further particulars see H. Hausding's ' Die Torfwirtschaft
Siiddeutschlands und Oesterreichs," Berlin, Paul Parey.

94 THE WINNING OF PEAT

E. — Manufacture of Condensed Machine Peat

I. — Manufacture of Machine-formed Peat, Weber's

(Staltach) Process

1. — Essence of the Process. Weber's Machine at Staltach, Gysser's
Improvement, and the Peat-forming Machine of Hebert, of
Rheims

The mode of winning first elaborated by von Weber in
1858-59 at Staltach, in Bavaria, depends, as already mentioned,
on the following processes in disintegrating by machines the
peat pieces which contained roots and fibres, and had been
won from the marsh or bog with every kind of texture from
earthy to mossy ; tearing up the roots and fibres as much as
possible ; destroying the felty, spongy character of the raw
substance ; and on transforming the mass which was not at
first uniform in density into one which was quite uniform by
mixing it well. When formed, the peat was subjected
to the process of drying and to the natural condensation
(inseparable from drying) effected by the process and common to
all felted, pulpy bodies. This condensation depends on the con-
traction of the small fibres uniformly distributed in the pulp,
and in it the " humic " portions of the peat play the part of a
cement.1

The character of the raw peat, whether mountain, grass,
pitch, or moss peat, is of no special significance for this treatment,
as the process, when correctly carried out, has proved suitable
for every kind of raw peat. The result is, in fact, an almost
unexpected one ; even light and poor moss peat gives, when
treated in a very simple manner, a fuel which bears scarcely any
resemblance to peat in its raw condition.2

*Dr. Breitenlohner, in his pamphlet " Der Backtorf," gives priority for
the condensation of peat in a commercially correct way to the landowner
Hasselgren, of Dalsland, in Sweden, who in the year 1845 had already taken
out a patent in Scandinavia for his crane-mill method, which was employed
later on in many districts of Sweden. According to this method, the peat is
worked and ground into a stiff pulp in a vat like a pug-mill (called " Kran "
in Swedish), and then, when converted into a thick pulp, it is formed or
treated by the Hanoverian method. The process, therefore, in its nature
corresponds to that of von Weber.

Even if von Weber knew of this process, and one would scarcely assume
that he did owing to the incompleteness of his first experiments, no one
could contest with him the honour, which is no less great, of having intro-
duced this process into Germany and of having popularized it by the suc-
cessful erection of the first large factory of this type which, as a specimen
institute of the period, attracted visitors from far and wide. Without
doubt it was only after the erection of the Staltach Works that the manu-
facture of machine peat, which depends on the natural condensation of
a well-mixed raw peat, was taken up and became more widely spread.

2 Details are given in Section V, F, of the properties of the condensed
machine peat won in this way, and of its advantages over cut peat.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT

95

At Staltach the peat was raised from the bog with ordinary
shovels ; it was brought by means of cars on light railways
to the machine-house, and in the latter was fed into the tearing
and mixing machine, which was driven by a 10 to 12 h.p. engine.
The feeding of the peat into the mixing machine was carried out
by means of an elevator consisting of an inclined endless belt,
which was also driven by the steam engine.

Weber's machine, as originally constructed, was fitted out as
follows : —

By means of two bearings I I, the vertical shaft (Fig. 25) is
let into an iron vat, which is wide at the top and narrow at the
bottom.

The shaft has a number of crescent-shaped knives m m fastened
to it so that they follow one another along a helical line. In

-h n-Gr-

30 0,5 i.o M

' ■ ' ■ ■ '

Fig. 25. — Weber's Peat Machine.

the conical cover of the vat there are also knives n n, arranged
likewise in a helical line and placed at such intervals that each
knife on the rotating shaft passes between two of those fixed to
the cover of the vat and thus the peat caught between the
knives is torn and cut during the rotation of the shaft. The
disintegrated pieces, while being rotated and pressed downwards
by the knives which are arranged spirally, are mixed intimately
with other pieces which have already been similarly disintegrated.

In the earlier machines the last pair of fixed knives met in the
centre and served as a point of support for a second shaft-bearing.
Under this a screw s s made of sheet metal was fixed to the
shaft and by means of it the peat was pressed towards an opening
in the bottom.

The peat, which had been torn to pieces and mixed in this
manner, then passed into a car which had been placed under the

96 THE WINNING OF PEAT

machine. It was brought in the car to the forming table, where
it was made into peat sods in ordinary moulds and then put
into sheds in which it was dried.

After about three days the peat sods had become so firm that
they could be turned, and after a further three to four days they
could be footed or, for complete drying and to make room for
freshly moulded peat, they could be " ringed," since, owing to the
firmness they had by that time acquired, neither rain nor
sunshine could any longer injure them. (All the peat won at
Staltach was subjected to a further artificial drying for the
purpose of being coked. Further particulars with regard to this
are contained in the section on the Coking of Peat, Part II,
"The Utilization of Peat.")

Gysser's Improvement. — The defect of the first machine, just
described, was that the " forming " of the peat sods had to be
done by hand, which led to loss of time and labour, i.e., money.
This defect was removed by von Weber in conjunction with
Gysser, Metallurgical Director at the time of the Grand Duchy
of Baden, who, in 1860, at the request of the Government
of Baden, erected a peat factory at Willaringen according to
von Weber's model.

Gysser arranged the exit from the tearing and mixing machine
so that, as shown already in Fig. 25, it ended in a funnel-shaped
neck h through which the peat was pressed out in the form of
a smooth band. In this way the mixing machine became at the
same time a " forming machine."

In the case now discussed the mouthpiece had a diameter
of 80 mm. ; the peat bands had, therefore, a circular cross-
section. They were cut at the mouthpiece into lengths of 310 mm.
by means of sheet metal semi-cylindrical scoops, closed behind
and provided with handles. The cutting was effected by a
workman holding the hand-scoop before the mouthpiece, letting
the required length of peat band run into it and then moving
the scoop quickly from below upwards across the mouthpiece,
a second workman being at the same time ready with another
scoop to repeat the operation.

Two 6 h.p. steam engines were employed at the factory,
each of which, with one peat machine, had an output of
14,000 peat sods of the size given above in twelve working
hours.

This method of " forming " — the employment of a mouth-
piece attached to a cylindrical or conical vessel in which a spiral
or flat-bladed screw exerts a pressure on a mass (capable of being
formed) contained in the vessel and compels this mass to pass
through the mouthpiece in a continuous band — was not, however,
a new one. It had been used many years before that time and,
indeed, in a more fully elaborated form by Hebert, the previously
mentioned director of the peat factory at Rheims. At the
Paris Exhibition in 1855 Hebert had already shown fuel produced
by his forming machine and he was, therefore, the first, so far
as reliable information exists, who utilized the pressing action of

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT

97

a rotating screw for " forming " peat and who constructed and
employed such a machine. His process, however, received little
attention until after the erection of the Staltach Peat Factory
in Germany and it was also apparently unknown to the founder
of this factory — the reason for this may well have been the early
retirement of the inventor of the process from the direction
of the above-mentioned factory. Dr. Vogel, in his book, which
has already been mentioned, gives, from personal observation,
details with regard to this process and an illustration and
description of the machine in question. As this machine is to

iwnGr.

Fig. 26. — Hebert's peat machine.

be regarded as the precursor of all modern peat-forming machines,
a description of it, taken from the above-named source, will now
be given : —

Hebert's Forming Machine consists essentially of a cylindrical
vessel A, widened at the base which is rectangular in shape
(Fig. 26). It is 2-3 m. in height and in it a strong sheet-metal
screw rotates round an axis. The peat pulp, thrown in at the
top, is pressed by the motion of the screw towards the bottom,
and as it cannot escape there it is compelled to pass out sideways
through the openings a a. On each of two sides of the cylinder
(or rectangle) there are 13 of these openings, so that, therefore,
26 bands of peat are continuously pressed out of the large

98 THE WINNING OF PEAT

cylinder A through the tubes a, only one of which is visible on
each side of the illustration.

As the peat issues from the tubes a it is caught in 26 rows
of small boxes d d, which have the same size as the sods, are
open at the top, and are kept in motion by means of two pulleys
and an endless chain over two octagonal drums B B' . The
division of the peat bands into sods is effected by the knives s of
the contrivance h h, which consists of two cylinders h, in each
of which is a spiral spring. The rod g can be pressed downwards
until the knives s just cut through the peat and, when that
has been effected, is raised automatically by the spiral springs.
The knives themselves are fixed at suitable distances in the
socket v and can be moved, together with this, on the rod g.
At the end of the second drum B' the peat is pressed by the
endless belt e e, which runs on rollers, into the little boxes d d
until these reach the lower side of the first drum B, where
they deposit their contents — the wet, pressed, peat sods —
on the endless belt. At the last roller they are caught by
workmen in peculiar small hand-boxes m and brought to their
final destination.

While Hebert, when setting up his forming machine, required
a special machine for tearing the peat, von Weber advantageously
combined the two machines into one and thus simplified the
process and decreased the cost of production.

2. — Various Kinds of Peat-forming Machines

Every more or less successfully conducted manufacture of
machine peat which is at present in operation agrees with the
Staltach process so far as method is concerned. The processes
differ from one another only in the construction of the machines
employed for tearing, mixing and " forming " the mass. The
success of the enterprise and the quality of the machine peat
depend mainly on the plant, its output, and the power required
by it. We shall, therefore, describe more fully the machines
constructed for, and used in, the industry from the date of the
introduction and the improvement of the Staltach process to
the present day. The quality of the peat produced by these
machines depends mainly, as is shown later, on their mixing
action on the raw peat, and the latter in turn on the rotation
number of the knife shafts or screw shafts in the machines and on
the number and kind of the knives fastened to the shafts. With
reference to the former, which is the more important, we must
distinguish " Peat machines with slowly running knife shafts '
and " those with rapidly running and double knife shafts." In
nature and in effect the former may be compared with pug-mills
and the latter with sausage machines or willows, both of which
have obviously served as models for the kinds of machines
introduced into the peat industry.

Of the peat machines hitherto most generally met, those
with 1 to 30 revolutions per minute may be classed as machines

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 99

with slowly running knife shafts, and those with at least
60 revolutions per minute as rapidly running machines. The
revolution numbers lying between these are not found, as a rule,
in any noteworthy modification actually constructed, so that
even manufacturers' practice seems to justify the above definition
and characterization of the two chief varieties. The former are
usually vertical machines, and in recent times are adapted for
direct horse or capstan driving, the latter are horizontal machines
for mechanical driving.

(a) Vertical Peat Machines (with Slowly Running Knife Shafts)

(1) The Schlickeysen Machine and those related to it of
R. Dolberg and Co., Gewert, Stutzke Bros., Cegielski and Co.,
amongst others. — E. Schlickeysen, machine manufacturer of
Berlin-Rixdorf, made experiments in 1861 at first in a small
model machine, with the object of employing his pug-mills or
brick machines for the working and "forming" of peat. The
main part of these machines (as of those described above) — some
screw-blades fixed, however, in a definite order to a vertical
shaft inside a vat — effected to a certain extent the mixing of the
peat, and the screw formation of the knives was able to exert
a pressure on the mixed peat in the same way as on brick-clay
compelling it to pass as an endless smooth band of peat through
a mouthpiece, attached to the lower end of the vat.

In accordance with this assumption and with the principles
of the methods already mentioned in the preceding portion of
this section, the experiment gave a result sufficiently satisfactory
to justify the construction of peat machines of larger dimensions.
The first of these, which were, indeed, intended for steam power,
were delivered in 1862 to the peat factories of the Baron von Sina,
at St. Miskolcz, in Hungary, von Krafft, at Laufen, in Salzach,
the knight W. Rebhahn, at Zbiersk, near Kalisch, and many others.
The circumstances that smaller machines like these were also
made for horse-power and that relatively good results were
obtained with the Schlickeysen machines when the raw material
was suitable for them soon produced a big demand for the machines
and a fairly wide extension of the manufacture of condensed
machine peat, especially in the north of Germany.

The construction of the machines in the form in which they
were ultimately delivered, after several alterations had been
made in the original type, can be seen from Figs 27, 28, and 29,
the first of which shows a machine for horse-power and the last
a steam peat machine.1

Screw-blades, usually called " knives," are attached to a
vertical shaft which rotates in bearings at ax, a2, a3 (Fig. 27).
They generally consist of parts of a so-called Archimedean

1 Schlickeysen 's steam peat machines are no longer made in this earlier
form, which was at the time much used, but are now made in the horizontal
form seen in Figs. 50 and 51.

100

THE WINNING OF PEAT

spiral, and each part extends over about a quarter to one-third
of the circumference of the circle. In addition to these wide
screw-blades s s, there are straight stirrers b b welded to some
of the naves in order to assist the mixing action of the machine.
The knives are 15 mm. thick at the circumference, and increase
to a thickness of about 30 mm. towards the centre. They

±n.Gr.

• o 0 0 2 04

■HU^I ...1 I _ _1 |_ .

0 0 O.S 1.0 M

' ' ' I

Fig. 27. — -Schlickeysen's horse-driven peat machine.

differ, moreover, amongst themselves,
M3, M4 (Fig. 28) of the first, second,
counting from the top, show, and are
a way that their external bounding
screw-thread. They are arranged
vertically, the beginning of the screw
to Jth the diameter of the circle from

as the projections Mx, M2,
third and fourth knives,
fixed to the shaft in such
line is not a continuous
so that when looked at
surface of one knife is ith
the lower end of the knife

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT

101

immediately above it, and the latter knife covers the former by
the same amount when viewed in the direction of the motion,
that is, in the horizontal direction. In this way a mixing and
a pushing (or pressing) action of the knives are simultaneously
brought to bear on the added raw peat. The top knife is pro-
vided with a scraper /, which loosens any peat adhering to the
circumference of the vat and exposes it to the action of the knives.

In order that the raw peat should not stick between the
knives and rotate in the vat with the shaft, several stationary
iron rods d d, the so-called " cross-stops," are passed through the
vat between every two knives.

The base A , which closes the lower part
of the vat, is generally keyed to the shaft,
and therefore rotates with the latter. When
compared with the fixed bases in the other
machines used, it has the advantage that
the main part of the pressure exerted by
the knives on the peat mass, which would
act in the machine as a pressure directed
downwards on the shaft bearings and thus
produce friction, is relieved by the mass,
which is pressed downwards, exerting a
counter-pressure on the base fixed to the
shaft and thus relieving the shaft and its
bearings to the same extent. Moreover,
the peat on the revolving base rotates
with the latter and becomes mixed with that
which flows towards the exit B between the
base A and the fourth knife, and thus
receives a more intimate mixing than it
would if the mass coming from the top were
driven directly to the exit. In front of
the exit is the " forming piece " F, by
means of which the outgoing band is
" formed." The coherence, the smoothness,
and the cross-section of the band are due
to the closed smooth surfaces of the sides
of the " forming piece." The construction
and the attachment to the exit of • these forms are treated
further on in a special article.

With machines worked by horses, as in the case of pug-mills
and brick machines, the power is applied directly without
intermediate gearing by means of a capstan head C keyed on the
machine at the upper end of the shaft (cf . also Fig. 30) . According
to the size of the machine, the horse is yoked at a distance of 5 m.
to 8 m. from the centre, and the knife shaft makes H to 2 revolu-
tions per minute.

The machine is fixed on a wooden frame, together with
which it can be moved in the bog.

The steam peat machine, Fig. 29, which is also screwed on
a wooden frame, is exactly similar to that just described so far

Fig. 28.

102

THE WINNING OF PEAT

as the construction of the mixing and " forming " contrivance
is concerned. Its shaft, which in the case of the larger machines
makes 15, and in that of the smaller ones 25, revolutions a
minute, is, however, driven by means of double reduction gearing

o

T3

m

c

03

O
if)

W
o

2
"3

Xi

E

<U

c
>

a

I
oi

6

wheels 7? R and a belt-pulley 5 generally from the flywheel of
a locomotive.

One or two men are sufficient for throwing in the peat
required by a horse-driven machine. They shovel into the vat
the peat which has been brought in barrows to the machine.
In the case of machines driven by steam, either a platform is

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 103

erected at the level of the upper opening of the vat and the peat
is brought there in barrows by means of an inclined plane (the
barrow-way) and then thrown into the vat, or, as shown in
Fig. 29, the machine is provided with an elevator E E consisting
of an endless cloth running on rollers r r, or a scraper or bucket
elevator, driven from the intermediate gearing of the machine
by the aid of the belt pulley a and the intermediate gearing V .
In the latter case the workmen who bring the peat empty the
barrows or cars into the hopper T, which is attached to the -strut
beam of the elevator. The raw peat falls on the cloth, which
runs under the hopper in the direction of the arrow, and is
then thrown into the vat as it passes over the upper roller r,
at a speed depending on the rate at which the cloth is moving.
To prevent the peat from rolling back as the elevator cloth
ascends, brackets 50 mm. in height are fixed on the latter.

These steam peat machines were generally provided with
mouthpieces on two opposite sides of the vat. They worked,
therefore, on two sides, as may be seen from Fig. 29, and this
required for each working side, in addition to the labourers
employed in bringing the raw peat and in taking the freshly
formed peat to the drying ground as well as those (usually
two men) engaged in throwing the peat into the vat or on the
conveyer, one woman (or girl) for cutting the peat sods and one
girl for putting them on the barrow or car. Since the end of
the seventies these vertical machines have been more and more
driven out of use by the more convenient machines with horizontal
and rapidly running shafts constructed as shown in Fig. 51.

Machines worked by horses afforded an output of 500 to 1 ,000
sods an hour with a team of one or two horses.

Steam-driven vertical machines of 3 to 10 h.p. gave 10,000 to
50,000 sods, or 15 to 75 cb. m., of " formed peat " in a day.

The size of the freshly " formed " sods varies a good deal with
the peculiarities of the different machines, the special points of
view of the manufacturers, and the differences in the varieties
of the raw peat. In order to be able to compare, therefore, the
outputs of various machines, the yield of each machine is given
by the number of cubic metres of freshly " formed " peat as well
as by the number of sods made in a .ten-hour day.

It is advisable for more rapid drying and for more advantageous
combustion, as is pointed out further on, that the sods should not
in general exceed 2,000 c.c. in volume, which corresponds to a
length of 25 cm., a thickness of 8 cm. and a height of 10 cm.,
or to a length of 20 cm., a thickness of 10 cm., and a height of
10 cm. If estimates of amounts won or costs of winning are
based on such peat sods, which in this book are called " standard
sods," then 500 of these sods are contained in a cubic metre of
formed peat, and it is therefore easy to calculate the output
in number of sods (standard sods) from an output given in
cubic metres.

These peat machines, which originated from the Schlickeysen
pug-mills or brick machines, were soon imitated in Prussia,

104

THE WINNING OF PEAT

Pomerania, and Mecklenburg by several other machines more or
less modified (the modifications cannot, however, in all cases be
called improvements) . Some factories try to adapt their machines
to various kinds of peat and also to make them available for work
on a small scale, and therefore for wider circles and less wealthy
bog-owners.

To machines of the class just described belong the peat
machines of G. W. Gewert, of Potawern ; Stiitzke Bros., of
Lauenburg ; R. Dolberg and Co., of Hamburg and Rostock ;
H. Cegielski and Co., of Posen ; and several others.

y1^ nat. size.

Fig. 30. — Horse-driven peat machine with a four-band mouthpiece.

Fig. 30 shows a horse-driven peat machine of this type set up
in a bog. Driven by one horse and making two revolutions
a minute, it gives 800 to 1,000 sods or 2| to 3 cb. rri. of wet,
"formed" peat (therefore 1,200 to 1,500 standard sods of 2 1.
each) per hour, and costs 300M. to 400M.1

The labour required for attending the machine is given as
three men and four children or women. Two men are required
to throw up the peat and bring it on barrows to the machine,
which should be as near them as possible, while the third man

1 The prices given for this and the following peat machines are taken
from the price lists of the manufacturers concerned, current when the
German edition was being written (1914). They vary with the place of sale,
and should serve only as a general basis for comparison and for estimates
of costs.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT

105

takes charge of the throwing in of the peat. One boy cuts the
peat sods in front of the mouthpiece and places them on the
transport cars which are removed to the drying ground by three
or four girls or boys according to the distance to be traversed.

More recent machines have been made so as to let the peat
out of the mouthpiece in only two bands (but with double the
velocity) . These bands pass directly to the spreading boards,
which are pushed forward automatically on a roller track. The
peat bands are cut on the boards.

The wooden vat is about 1-9 m. high and 63 cm. wide;
on its shaft, which is rotated by means of a capstan, there are
generally two full screw-threads, and above these four quarter-
screw knives, which are arranged so that they form a complete
screw-thread.

Fig. 31. — Horse-driven, single-shaft peat machine, with intermediate
gearing wheels, of H. Cegielski and Co., Posen.

Sometimes in the case of these or similar machines a plate is
fixed edgewise inside the vat and immediately behind the lower
exit. The plate covers as much as possible of the space between
the lower knife and the bottom disc, in order to prevent the peat
from rotating with the bottom disc, so that on the further rotation
of the shaft it is pressed out through the forming piece.

(2) Peat Machines for Horse Driving with Intermediate Gearing
Shafts. — When working with horses, in order to obtain a better
mixing effect than that given by the ordinary single-shaft
machines in which the capstan is directly attached to the knife
shaft, these machines have been provided with intermediate
gearing shafts which support the capstan, and which, by means
of proportional gear transmission, give a greater velocity to the
knife shaft, and therefore have a better mixing action and give
a greater output. Fig. 31 shows a machine of this type with

(^595) l

106 THE WINNING OF PEAT

intermediate gearing wheels as constructed by H. Cegielski and Co.,
of Posen. It was built in two sizes, costing 470M. and 700M.,
with an output of 1,000 to 2,500 sods per hour in the case of
very fibrous peat, a two-band mouthpiece, and one or two horses.

With the same object, R. Dolberg and Co.,
of Hamburg and Rostock, have arranged
the double-shaft, horizontal peat machine
described further on in an obliquely
upright direction and provided it with
a trestle stand and intermediate gearing-
wheels as well as with a capstan, as
shown in Fig. 32. The top half of the
cover, together with the hopper, can
easily be removed in case of a stoppage
by loosening some cramps. Recently
double -shaft peat machine,' H- Cegielski and Co. have similarly con-
with intermediate gearing structed peat machines for working with

wheels.ofR.DolbergandCo horses> With the tw0 horses required to
Hamburg, and of H. Cegielski mi

and Co., Posen. drive the machine and 10 to 12 workmen,

the machine is said to give 2,000 to 2,500
standard sods (of 2,000 x.c.) or 4 to 5 cb. m. of formed peat per
hour. The price of the machine, excluding the draught pole,
is 800M. to 875M., and its weight 980 kilos.

(b) Horizontal Peat Machines (with Slowly Running Knife Shafts)

(1) The Simple Horizontal Peat Machine. — Partly in order to
avoid the necessity of feeding the peat into the high vats of peat
machines with vertical knife shafts and partly to avoid the use of
such heavy machines (especially those driven by steam) and there-
fore to replace them by machines which would be more easily
moved from place to place in the bog, attention was quickly
directed to the construction of the machine with a horizontal
knife shaft, which we are now about to describe.

Such a machine can be understood from Fig. 33, in which
A is the belt pulley, B is the body supported by the two
feet C C, M is the knife shaft or screw shaft, F is the " forming
piece," and T is the cutting table. The driving force exerted on
the belt pulley A by a locomotive (more rarely by means of a
horse capstan) is transmitted by double reduction gearing wheels
Rx and R2 to the knife shaft, which makes 20 revolutions a minute.
The body has a diameter of 300 mm. The knife shaft is provided
with the double knife M± and seven single half spirals arranged so
as to form a complete screw. The slope of the screw at the external
circumference is 14° to 15°.

While these horizontal machines have many advantages over
the vertical steam peat machines in regard to weight, price,
installation, and ease of feeding them with the raw substance,
they have the disadvantage, especially when working with impure
peat which has a tendency to form lumps, that the screw knives
do not automatically catch the raw peat fed into the funnel, so

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT

107

that the peat may accumulate there forming an arch over the
knife shaft. This affects the feeding of further quantities of the
raw peat, and, therefore, the output of the machine is generally
less than that of a vertical machine, in which both the screw
blades and the weight of the peat continually press the peat
towards the exit in the bottom of the vat, thus emptying the
upper part of the vat so that more peat can be added.

(2) Schlickey sen's Horizontal Machine with Feeding Rollers. — In
order to remove this defect of the earlier forms, E. Schlickeysen,
of Berlin-Neukolln, put in the funnel D (see Figs. 34 and 35) of
his older horizontal machines at a distance of 10 mm. from the
external circumference of the knife blades a feeding roller W,
which was rotated by the shaft by means of the cog wheels rx r2
and therefore revolved in the opposite direction to that of the

V20 n, Gr

joo 0 0.2 0.4 o.g o.s 1.0

i I ' ' 1 I I ! I I I I

20. M

Fig. 33. — Simple horizontal peat machine.

shaft. The feeding roller and the periphery of the knives exerted
the gripping action of a grinding machine, seized the peat mass
fed into the funnel, and brought it to the screw knives in the
cylinder H, which, in the case of this machine, consisted of separate,
double- and triple-winged screw knives.

In this way the output of the horizontal machines was indeed
generally increased, but when working with impure and fibrous
raw peat the defect mentioned above remained and in the case
of slippery raw material the roller glided by without gripping
and bringing it to the knife shaft. In the first case, moreover, the
knife shaft became surrounded by fibres and roots, so that
stoppages of the machine ensued and more or less frequent cleaning
was necessary.

Machines of this kind were shown at the Bremen Exhibition of
1874, and since then they have been employed in many peat
factories. In more recent times, however, they are constructed

108

THE WINNING OF PEAT

only in the form illustrated in Fig. 51, in which the gripping and
tearing mechanism is more efficient.

(3) The " Tube Peat " Machine of Ros, of Norkoping. — The
machine constructed by J. J. Ros, of Norkoping, also has a
horizontal cast-iron cylinder which is divided into two halves,

3*5 nat. size.

Fig. 34. — Older form of Schlickeysen's horizontal peat machine,

with feeding roller.

and in" which the peat is worked by a shaft furnished with knives.
The shaft, which passes through the cylinder, is supported in three
bearings and is rotated by means of a belt pulley. It is provided
with eight cast-iron screw-shaped knives, which, in combination

Fig. 35. — Cross-section of Fig. 34.

with wrought-iron knives fixed in the sides of the cylinder, cut up
the peat and drive it towards the screw at the narrow end of the
cylinder, which then presses the mass out through the mouth-
piece. As the shaft is prolonged through the mouthpiece, the
cylinder of peat which is pressed out has a hollow or tubular

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT

109

shape. Six pieces of wood are fastened round the mouthpiece and
project 37 cm. beyond the latter. The tube of peat is supported
by these pieces of wood until suitable lengths of it can be taken
up and removed by the so-called " gripper." The latter consists
of a circular board having two handles ; three wooden rods are
fixed to the board by iron uprights ; each of the rods has an
iron hook at its end. The tubes of peat are taken off in lengths
of 29 cm. to 36 cm. by inserting the iron points of the " gripper "
between the wooden pieces through the peat tube and then taking
the gripper away from the mouthpiece in a direction parallel to

in

0.2

0.4.

o.e

o.s

1.0

5on-Gr

! 0 31.

Fig. 36. — Peat Machine of Henry Clayton, Son, and Hewlett, London.

the wooden pieces. The piece of peat torn off by the iron hooks
is left on the wooden rods and is loaded on a peat-bier, ten of
which are mounted on a frame provided with wheels and movable
over rails. The pieces of peat are placed on the biers, and as
each of the latter holds five pieces, every fully laden car holds
fifty peat tubes. Each machine can keep four such cars going.
The tubes are unloaded on the drying ground in an erect
position and then either dried on supports or on simple trestles.
The driving of a machine of this type requires 2 to 2| h.p.
The labour requirements of each machine are three to four
energetic workmen and eight women or striplings for transport to

110 THE WINNING OF PEAT

and from the drying ground and for the drying operations. About
22 cb. m. of tubular peat sods can be won in an eleven-hour shift.

The pieces of peat are more bulky and more easily broken
than ordinary machine peat sods owing to the hole in the middle,
but, on the other hand, the facilitation of the drying by the cavity
is by no means an unimportant matter under the conditions
prevailing in Sweden.

Several machines of this type were employed at the time in
Wermland and were said to have been both efficient and easily
worked. This machine has not, however, been widely used
even in Sweden.

(4) Clayton's Peat Machine. — The peat machine of the Atlas
Factory of Henry Clayton, Son, and Howlett, of London, which
is shown in Figs. 36 and 37 in two different forms (in the former
as a " transportable machine " and in the latter as a " stationary
machine "), belongs to the machines with wide horizontal cylinders
and slowly running knife shafts.

The builders of this machine have tried to get rid of a dis-
advantage of the simple horizontal machines — that of not drawing
the peat to be worked automatically from the hopper — by con-
necting the horizontal cylinder A with a vertical funnel B, which
may be regarded as the vat of a vertical machine, and also by
bringing into this funnel a stirring arrangement or knife shaft M,
which, with the aid of the weight of the peat in the funnel and the
action of the full screw V under the knife shaft, make it possible
to withdraw the peat from the upper and feed it to the lower
cylinder.

At the same time, however, owing to the height of the hopper,
the advantage possessed by horizontal machines of enabling one
or two men to feed the raw substance with shovels into the machine
was lost. This machine was, therefore, provided with a peat
elevator (Fig. 37), which was worked by the intermediate gearing
shaft E and the belt pulley H. The elevator consisted of a chain
and an elevating drum K. By means of the drum and chain the
peat to be worked was conveyed in tipping cars up a track from
the cutting trench to the machine and then up an inclined plane S
to a platform from which it was fed into the machine.

The knife shaft M2 was provided over most of its length with
several square iron bars a, which passed during the rotation of
the shaft between the cross-bars b fixed in the cylinder. As every
two of the latter leave only a narrow passage for the former the
raw peat fed to the knives by the upright knife shaft and the full
screw V is caught by the knives or bars a on the horizontal axle
and forced against the edges of the fixed cross-bars b; in this
way the longer fibres, roots, or reeds are torn up, and at the same
time the whole of the raw peat becomes intimately mixed. The
peat pulp which has been thus disintegrated and mixed is gradually
pushed to the mouthpiece of the machine by the pressure of the
horizontal screw. A screw-blade fixed at the end of the shaft
presses out the pulp through four or five openings as smooth
bands, which are caught on boards moving easily on a rolling

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT

111

table, and cut into separate sods by a cutting grid G (containing
six tightly strung wires) by pressing the grid round its axis of
rotation until it strikes the spreading board.

The machine was made in two parts, so that in case of stoppage
the horizontal cylinder could be easily cleaned. The upper half
could be rotated round the hinges cc, and the machine could
therefore be opened when a fastening screw or pin had been
loosened. In order that fibres and roots might not remain adhering
to the knives and that they might be stripped off during the
motion of the knives, the latter were curved as may be seen in
Fig. 36a, and had their convex surfaces in the direction of rotation,
by which means any fibres adhering to the knives glided off

f

^jj nat. size.
Fig. 37. — Clayton's peat machine with elevator.

automatically. Finally, in order that the resistance due to the
passage of the rotating knives between the fixed ones would be
as uniform as possible throughout a revolution, the knives a a
were fixed screw- wise on the shaft, so that at any instant there
were only two of them exerting the shearing action with the
knives b b by which the peat fibres between them were dis-
integrated.

The peat machine shown in Fig. 36 was exhibited and worked
at the Bremen Exhibition in 1874. The machine was, however,
so massively constructed that it was too heavy to be transportable
over bogs which had small bearing power and it was also too
inconvenient to be used as a stationary machine. The following
process was recommended at the time by the builders as peculiarly

112 THE WINNING OF PEAT

suitable for winning " condensed peat " with their machine. The
peat obtained in or under water, and with, therefore, at least
90 per cent, of water, was to be brought to the machine for further
working. In order to remove a part of its water from the peat
before working it up the raw peat was to be filled into Clayton's
peculiar press cars, and during the transport of the peat from the
bog to the machine so much water was to be driven out of it by
a pressing contrivance that the residual crude substance would
then be in the more or less dry state required for its further
treatment.

Like all attempts to remove water from peat by pressure, this
one could not prove other than a failure.

Machines of this type were introduced into the peat industry
at the beginning of the seventies, and indeed, in Germany there
was one on the Testorf estate at Schonwalde, in Holstein, and
another at the peat factory of J. A. C. Pape, at Hamburg. Since
then they have been replaced in Germany by home-manufactured
machines, which, on the whole, are capable of giving a greater
output and at the same time are lighter in construction.

(5) General Characteristics of Peat Machines with Slowly Run-
ning Knife Shafts. — The output of the peat machines just described,
especially of the vertical machines with relatively wide cylinders
and slowly running knife shafts, is generally satisfactory when
treating marsh, pitch or bituminous peat, which is free from
non-humified portions — wood, roots, and grasses — and which
already has a certain amount of uniformity. Peat of this character
is kneaded by the knives as much as is required for " forming,"
the plant residues are at the same time mixed with it, and the
longer, humified fibres are torn up. The slowly rotating blades
with their wide surfaces (the vertical machines having diameters
of 500 mm. to 800 mm.) facilitate the motion of the mass towards
the exit. This motion is assisted by the weight of the peat in the
vat above the " forming piece" and hence it arises that in the
case of a raw peat (bituminous peat, marsh peat) suitable for
the machines, the output corresponding to the power applied is
a satisfactory one. In the case of well-humified peat the bands fill
the cross-section of the mouthpiece and a very firm, " formed "
peat, suitable for sale, is produced.

If, however, the consistency of the peat varies, and if there
are many hard, felted lumps, roots, reeds, grasses, or portions of
wood in the soft mass, or if the crude substance is for the main
part moss, root, or fibrous peat, the hard lumps have not time
during the slow rotation (2 to 25 revolutions per minute) of the
knife shafts to yield to the action of the knives, while the latter,
both on account of their low velocity and their thickness, are
unable either to tear or cut up the roots and grasses in the peat.
The more or less long fibres and stems of grasses adhere to the
knives, entwine the axle and the screws which fasten the knives
to it, producing a blocking of the machine which the cross-bars
in the vat are unable to prevent, and therefore they diminish still
more the mixing action of the spiral knives, which in any case is

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 113

only a slight one. The output is unsatisfactory when we are
dealing with a very fibrous moss peat.

The same statement holds also with regard to the quality
of the machine peat when the peat worked is either fibrous or
a mixture of different kinds.

It follows from the nature of the case, the experience of the
author, and experiments which he made with this object,1 that,
the more intimately the mixing and kneading takes place in machines
in the case of one and the same peat, the more the fibres suspended
in and felted with the peat are torn apart and disintegrated, the
more closely arranged are the particles of peat on the subsequent
evaporation of the water, the more the peat contracts on drying, and
the greater the density of the peat made by the machine is when
compared with that from unmixed peat.

In the case of one and the same raw material its value increases
with the density of the dry peat obtainable from it, since in one
and the same volume both the quantity of the fuel and its firmness
increase with the density, also its water-absorbing properties,
which have a prejudicial effect on its combustion, decrease, so that
the defects of hand peat, mentioned earlier, appear to be the more
completely removed, and therefore, other circumstances being the same,
a machine peat appears to be all the more valuable according as
the peat manufactured by the machines is denser {or heavier) .

Hence the value of machine-made peat depends mainly on
the amount of "condensation" that sets in "during the drying,"
and this in turn depends only on the degree of mixing attained by
the machine, while the pressure itself which the screws or spirals in
the machine exert on the peat is infinitely small and has no effect
on the density of the machine peat. It is only just sufficient for
pressing out and " forming " the thick, pulpy peat, so that there
can be no question of a real pressing (by means of mechanical
force), and therefore of " press peat " and " peat presses " in this
method of winning peat.2

Not only are the slowly running, thick knives (they have
nothing in common with real knives except the name) unable to
exert a cutting or tearing action on plants mixed with the peat
which are not yet completely humified (and many kinds of peat
mainly consist of only half -humified fibres, grasses and roots),
but their mixing action is also very slight in itself (as we may
easily see from a simple calculation)' and is only just sufficient
for specially pure and uniform marsh and mould peat.

The vertical steam peat machine in Fig. 29, for example, has,

for an output of 30,000 peat sods, 80 x 80 x 235 mm. each, a vat

diameter averaging 550 mm., the free cross-section of which is

approximately 2,300 sq. cm. Hence every second a quantity of

. 30,000x8x8x23-5 ^ nBA ^

peat measuring — — — — — = 1,2M c.c. must pass through,

10 x 60 x 60

1 Cf. Section V, E and F.

2 See the foot-note on pp. 69 and 70 with regard to the erroneous
designation of these peat machines as peat presses.

114 THE WINNING OF PEAT

and its velocity is, in consequence, approximately 0-6 cm. per
second. The vat itself is filled at most to a height of 60 cm.
above the exit, so that the charge requires approximately 1 • 66
minutes to pass through the machine. During this time the knife
shaft rotates 15 x 1-66, that is, only 25 times (corresponding to
15 revolutions a minute) — a number of rotations insufficient to
mix intimately a quantity of raw peat equal to 2,300 x 60 or
138.000 c.c, that is, 138 1. For 100 1. of peat, this would give
18 revolutions of the screw shaft, while this rotation number,
which characterizes the mixing action of a machine,1 amounts
to 50 to 150 per 100 1. in the case of machines with rapidly
running knife shafts.

A figure which is still more unfavourable than that just
calculated is obtained in the case of horse-driven machines making
about two revolutions per minute.

These and the above-mentioned defects of machines with slowly
running knife shafts {blocking easily, too slight a disintegration and
mixing of a peat which is not uniform in itself, and therefore a
product which is poor in quality and small in quantity) quickly led,
as the machine peat industry grew, to the construction of the
machines described in the following article on machines with
rapidly running or double knife shafts, with which machines,
indeed, the more modern installations are alone concerned.

Machines with special mixing or tearing contrivances are
comparable with these machines so far as mixing action is con-
cerned.

(c) Peat-forming Machines with Rapidly Rotating or Double

Knife Shafts

General Characteristics. — Owing to the horizontal arrangement
peculiar to all these machines a small height is possible for the
machine. (This is of advantage for feeding, and, moreover,
enables the weight to be kept down.) Not only do the knife
shafts rotate with a velocity of 75 to 250 revolutions per minute,
but for the same output these machines have also a narrower
diameter for the cylinder than the older ones. Hence, as the ratio
of the volume of the cylinder to the surface of the cover along
which the screw knives tear and grind the peat is small, the
mixing action of the rapidly running knife shaft is still further
increased.

The horizontal rapidly running machines, like the vertical
machines, were at first constructed with a single shaft, which was
provided with screw knives arranged in a continuous spiral for
bituminous or " liss " peat and with separate knives arranged
round the shaft along the curve of a screw for fibrous peat. In the
first case, when working fairly pure and uniform peat, a big yield
(in quantity) was obtained at the expense, however, of the mixing,
while in the latter case the separate knives, usually striking past
counter-knives, were intended only for cutting and tearing the

1 Cf. Section V, A, 1, " On Knives and Screws."

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 115

fibres, and another part of the screw shaft, which generally con-
sisted of a continuous screw, pressed out and " formed " the mass
at the mouthpiece.

In some cases, however, and especially in that of unripe,
fibrous peat, the knives became entwined with fibres and carried
the peat round with them during their rapid rotation without
pressing it through the mouthpiece, and, therefore, the output of
the machine was decreased.

This disadvantage is overcome partly by means of the fixed
counter-knives set in the wall of the cylinder and partly by a
second shaft, placed near the knife shaft and which is fitted with
screw knives wound in the opposite direction to those on the first
shaft. The screw knives on the second shaft work into those of
the first, and during rotation the two shafts clean one another,
while at the same time both push the peat in the same direction
towards the mouthpiece. In this respect we can divide rapidly
running machines into those with a single knife shaft and those
with two knife shafts.

Some of these machines are provided with special feeding and
tearing contrivances.

(1) Fundamental Types of Horizontal Machines. — Starting
from the principle, which to some extent was supported by the
experience gained with the vertical slowly running machines, that
a working substance which, like peat, occurs in nature and even
in one and the same bog with much want of uniformity in quality,
cannot be worked by one and the same machine of a fixed type
(a universal machine) with even approximately the same degree
of success in the different cases, the civil engineer Leo Seydl, of
Berlin, at the end of the sixties invented a series of machines, the
various members of which he proposed to employ for the manu-
facture of condensed machine peat. The machines were numbered
according to the series in which the raw peats were arranged in
order of consistency, beginning with uniform bituminous peat and
ending with raw peat having the consistency of moss and fibrous
peat, rich in roots.

Corresponding to this, the machines with the lower numbers
had a more or less great mixing action, and those with the higher
numbers had, in addition, a more or less great tearing action.

Seydl's peat machine No. 1 consisted of a single wrought-iron
screw, 400 mm. in diameter and having a slope of 9° at the external
curve of the screw. The shaft of the screw had a velocity of
220 revolutions per minute, and its main action was to crush the
raw material against the inner surface of a plate-metal drum
which surrounded it. The machine is shown in longitudinal
section in Fig. 38.

It was screwed on a low wooden sledge in order that it could
be more easily moved in the bog. The screw shaft A was rotated
either by means of the hook-joint a and lay shaft from a horse
gear or by a belt pulley, fixed on the screw shaft, which was driven
by a steam engine (locomotive) . The raw material was fed through
the hopper B.

116

THE WINNING OF PEAT

The hollow cylinder (plate-iron casing) D tapered like a funnel
towards the exit C and ended in a mouthpiece F, which was 100 mm.
long and 150 mm. wide. The peat band emerged from the machine
through this mouthpiece in the form of a cylinder and passed to
the spreading boards L, which were carried on movable rollers
under the mouthpiece. The peat was cut into sods and brought
to the drying ground on the boards.

This machine was recommended (and used) by its constructor

Fig. 38. — Seydl's machine for bituminous peat.

only for kneading black, friable, bituminous or marsh peat which
was completely free from non-humified plant remains.

If the friable, bituminous peat was in part still permeated with
slightly humified or non- humified plant residues the machine, was
no longer able to work the body with advantage. In the latter
case a double-shaft machine was employed.

The latter machine, like that shown in Fig. 40, had two screws
which lay near one another, but, unlike those in the figure, were
quite smooth. The screws worked into one another throughout

Fig. 39. — Seydl's mixing and forming machine for fibrous paste.

their whole lengths, so that when the two knife shafts A and B
were rotated together by means of a pair of gear wheels r r, the
screw blades of one shaft worked in the empty spaces between
the screw blades of the other. Not only was a more intimate
mixing of the peat to be treated possible by means of this machine,
but a tearing up of half-humified fibres and a grinding of any
knots and hard lumps present in the peat took place. The screw
blades as they glided past one another freed themselves from
fibres and thus prevented stoppage of the machine.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 117

The various machines which followed these differed from one
another less in their external appearance than in the arrangement
of the screws and spirals. For tearing a fibrous peat they were
arranged, as Figs. 39 to 41 show, so that separate portions of
a discontinuous screw s, s2 s3, acting partly as knives and partly
in conjunction with the others as a screw-thread, tore up the
fibrous and woody peat as well as possible and at the same time
pushed it to the exit.

According to the nature of the raw substance, that is, according
as it was more or less felted and fibrous, the shafts were provided
with a varying number of knives which were to exercise a cutting
and tearing action on the peat. In this way the various modifi-
cations of the Seydl machines arose.

i r i ' ' * r-t

Fig. 40. — Ground plan for Fig. 39.

The first machine of this type, i.e., with two adjacent knife
shafts and screws working into one another, was constructed at
Powunden by Steenke, formerly of Z6lp and later of Elbing, in
conjunction with von Besser. In 1864-1865 they had one of these
machines built, utilizing the contrivances employed in the well-
known sausage machines. However,. they had little success with
it except for its use in working black mould peat.

All these machines, however correctly they were planned,
suffered from various errors of construction and were altogether
too lightly built. They were replaced by the improved forms
about to be described.

(2) The Modern Multiple-shaft Peat Machines of Dolberg,
Heinen, Strenge, Wielandt, Schenck, Sugg and Co., Anrep,
Akermann, Koppel, &c. — The circumstances, already mentioned,
that the consistency of peat varies a good deal even in one
and the same bog, that one will rarely be inclined to use
a special machine for every special class of peat, and that even

US

THE WINNING OF PEAT

then favourable results are not always obtained, have led to
further improvements of these machines. The most widely
employed types are illustrated in the following figures.

The cases and supports of the machines are usually made of
cast-iron, the shafts of wrought-iron, and the knives of cast-steel.
As a rule they have two adjacent knife shafts M and N, which
rotate in opposite directions, and each of which is supported in
two bearings L L fixed outside the cylinder (Figs. 42 to 45).

Fig. 41. — Cross-section for Fig. 38.

The use of the machines for different kinds of peat, which is
to a certain extent feasible, is made possible by the fact that the
knives, which consist of sectors, can be arranged by means of
bosses and adjusting screws in various ways with respect to one
another, and, indeed, from that of a continuous screw s s to that
of quite separate knives q q and qx qx. The more the quarter

5^ not. size.
Fig. 42. — Double-shaft peat machine : general arrangement.

screws are separated from one another, that is, the more they act
as striking or cutting knives, the more complete the destruction
of the moss and the tearing and cutting of fibres and roots will be
when the revolutions of the machine are 75 to 100 per minute.
The more the quarter screws are pushed together, i.e., the more
they tend to form a complete screw, the more powerfully the
bituminous and friable peat will be kneaded and crushed at the

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT

119

circumference of the double cover A, which closely surrounds the
knives, and the more its forward movement towards the exit F,
and therefore the output of the machine, will be affected. All
intermediate positions between these may be realized, but
obviously the knives q q and qx qx must be so arranged and set
up that the blades of one shaft during every revolution of the
two by the pair of cog-wheels a a will intermesh with the blades
of the other shaft. The screws of one shaft must, therefore, have
right-handed and those of the other left-handed threads. As in
the case of the preceding machines the rotations of the two shafts
in opposite directions never allow the peat contained in the
machine to rotate with the shafts and also the various knives by
their motion into and through one another usually clean them-
selves from roots, fibres, &c, and while continually cutting and

Fig. 43. — Double-spiral peat machine of R. Dolberg and Co., Rostock.
For the same machine, with an elevator, see Fig. 46.

crushing the mass the two sets move it to the " forming piece " in
the exit.

Machines of this kind were first manufactured in the seventies
of the last century by Grotjahn and Pieau of Berlin, later
Pieau of Munich. Figs. 42 and 43 show the general arrangement
of the machines.

In later and more modern machines the central axis of the
mouthpiece makes an obtuse angle with the axis of the machine,
and it is thus made possible for the transport boards which catch
the " formed peat " to be placed on the rollers from the side of
the front part of the machine instead of being pushed from behind
on the runners under the machine. Machines of this type are
built by R. Dolberg and Co., of Hamburg and Rostock ; Sugg and
Co., of Munich ; A. Heinen, of Varel ; Stiitzke Bros., of Lauen-
burg ; Dr. Wielandt, of Oldenburg ; W. K. Strenge, of Ocholt
(Oldenburg) ; Karl Schenck, of Darmstadt ; Jahne and Son, of

120

THE WINNING OF PEAT

Landsberg-on-Wartha ; H. Cegielski and Co., of Posen; Aleph
Anrep, of Emmeljunga (Sweden), together with Munktell's
mekaniska Verkstads Aktiebolag, of Eskilstuna, and Aadals
Bruk's mekaniska Verkstad, of Christiania ; Aktiebolag Aker-
mann's Gjuterie and mek. Verkstad, of Eslof ; Abjorn Anderson's
mek. Verkstads Aktiebolag, at Svedala1 ; Arthur Koppel, of
Petrograd and Moscow, and others.

The machines, which are named after those who offer them
for sale or who build them, agree in the main with one another
in external form and internal arrangement and are illustrated
by Figs. 42 to 45. They differ only in the greater or less
care with which they have been constructed, in their solidity,
and in the arrangement of the elevator, the driving gear, and the
mouthpiece.

All these machines are delivered to order without or with

Fig. 44. — Double-spiral, rapidly rotating peat machine, with
continuous screw-threads, for bituminous peat.

peat elevators (Figs. 43 or 46). The elevator usually consists of a
transporting chain fitted with scrapers which glides in a channel
delivering above the hopper of the machine. The raw peat
thrown in at the lower end of the trough-shaped channel is raised
until, having reached' the end of the trough, it falls directly
into the hopper. The elevator is driven from the intermediate
gearing shaft.

The mouthpiece or forming piece usually consists of a single,
double, triple, or even, in the Strenge machines, of a nine-
chambered copper " forming piece." According to the nature of
the peat the " forming piece " is square, arched, or circular in
cross-section. Sometimes by means of double walls with scales

1 For a detailed description of these single-axle Swedish peat machines
and their output see Osterr. Moorzeitschrift, 1906, p. 8 et sqq.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 121

on the inside the issuing peat band can be moistened. (Further
details are contained in Section V, A, 2, " On Forming Pieces and
Mouthpieces.")

The screw has a slope of 10°, its diameter is generally from
25 to 35 cm. and is, as a rule, 32-5 cm. ; the length of the
double cylinder (without the mouthpiece) is up to 800 mm. ; the
outputs of these machines are given as follows : —

Per hour.

Size of the

machine in

Output.

Work-

Approximate
weight of

Approximate
price in

Price of

elevator

horse-power

Standard

Formed

men

machine in

Marks.

in Marks.

required to

sods,

peat,

required.

kilos.

drive it.

10x10x20
cm.

cubic
metres.

4-6 h.p.

3-4,000

6- 8

12-14

500

600-650

700

8-10 h.p.

5-6,000

10-12

15-18

600

800-900

800

11-18 h.p.*

6-8,000

12-16

18-22

900

1,000-1,100

1,000

20-25 h.p.*

8-10,000

16-20

20-24

1,000-1,200

1,200-1,800

1,100

30-40 h.p.*

12-14,000

24-28

25-30

—

2,000-2,300

2,400f

* Including side-driving of the elevator.

t 23 m. in length.

The sods actually made are, as a rule, bigger than the standard
sods given in the table.

Fig. 45. — Double-spiral, rapidly rotating peat machine, with
discontinuous screw-threads, for fibrous peat.

The iron chain elevator, which is 8 to 10 m. in length, is
well able to feed the peat machine and replaces eight to ten men.
The large machines with elevators further require : A support for
the conveyor (130M. to 300M.), a side-driving gear for the chain
elevator (160M. to 300M.), a wooden or iron transport contrivance

(2595)

K

122 THE WINNING OF PEAT

for the locomotive and peat machine with hand levers (450M. to
600M.), a transport contrivance for use with steam power (800M.
to 900M.), and, finally, rails at 25M. to 30M. a metre.

The outputs given above are, however, attained only when the
raw material is a suitable one ; if this is not so, the actual figures
are less than those quoted for these machines according to the
experience of peat factories which work peat either very rich in
fibre or containing roots and wood.

In recent times, in order to diminish the number of workmen
and to decrease considerably the cost of winning the peat, the
larger machines of this kind, especially those of Strenge, Wielandt,
Dolberg, Schenck, Anrep (Svedala), amongst others, are provided
with an automatic scoop dredger or with a dredger and conveyer
instead of a conveyer only, and at the mouthpiece side of the
machine with a sod spreader (in the case of machine peat) or
a peat pulp spreader (in the case of machine pulp peat) and also
with a cutting contrivance which is driven by the motor of the
machine. For large outputs, especially for such as are essential
for the smooth working of big power stations, these machines are
said to have already proved very successful in the case of black,
ripe mould peat which did not contain much wood. (See details
with regard to these in this Section, E, III, under large scale
industry peat machines, &c.)

The power required for a machine increases with the amount
of fibre in the peat, and also according as the peat machine is
or is not provided with special preliminary mixing and tearing
contrivances (knife blades, counter-knives, "feeding rollers ,:
and tearing rollers).

In the case of the machine with the dimensions given above,
the peat moves through it with a velocity of —

150,000,000
1 -66 x 830 x 10 x 60 x 60 Cm"
or, approximately, 3 cm. per second, and requires, therefore,
27 seconds to traverse the length, 80 cm. In this time each of

the two shafts makes or, approximately, 45 revolutions.

Hence 90 rotations of the shafts are made in a quantity of peat

830 x 1-66 x 80
equal to - 1., or, approximately, 110 1., so that

82 revolutions of the mixing contrivance correspond to every
100 1. of the peat. The mixing action of these machines can
thus be compared with those of others.

It has been shown in many cases that, in spite of the inter-
meshing spiral knives and their relatively good mixing action,
these machines are not able to work a very fibrous moss peat
which contains tough, non-humified roots mixed with it. The
latter become firmly attached, as in the case of the machines
already described, to the front periphery of the knife blades
(which, of course, are not sharp, cutting knives) and, indeed,
so firmly attached that they either decrease the yield of the

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 123

machine or break the knives if the work is not frequently
interrupted in order to clean the machine. As may be seen from
Fig. 42, the cleaning of the machine is facilitated as much as
possible by making the upper half of the cylinder capable of being
turned over.

To overcome this defect by better tearing and mixing, the
double-shaft machines are sometimes provided with special
cutting and tearing contrivances, as, for example, in the Dolberg
peat machine, Model No. lc, shown in Fig. 47. This also has two
knife shafts, but is, on the whole, more or less strongly constructed.
On each shaft there are eight knife blades, having hardened and
sharpened cutting edges, which so work against counter-knives,
fixed on the bottom of the machine that the peat fibres become
well torn or cut. Towards the end of the shaft the knives are
again arranged as a continuous spiral. These machines are also

Fig. 46. — Double-spiral peat machine with elevator (in " back position

provided with a preliminary crusher above the hopper when this
is specially desired.

They are in use as follows : —

(a) Dolberg Peat Machines in Germany. — The Board of
Control of the Wiesmoor, at Aurich, employs over 20 machines
of the more recent type with the scraper conveyers, 16 to 20 m.
in length, used in combination with them ; the Hanoverian
Colonization and Bog Utilization Society (the overland power
station at Dammer Moor) employ eight machines, each having
a daily output of 300 cb. m., or 120,000 to 140,000 sods, all of
which are fitted with automatic sod spreaders ; at the Aurich
Wiesmoor one of the bigger machines, with a dredger and a sod
spreader, 55 m. in length, is employed.

These machines are used in Austria by Moritz Fuchs at
Szered on the Waag ; in Russia by Leopold Riesberg at Petrograd,
C. F. Schulze at Reppin, near Werro (Lithuania), the Muhlgraben
Chemical Factory at Riga, Count Czapski at Minsk, the Russian

124

THE WINNING OF PEAT

Company for the manufacture of explosives at Petrograd, Count
von Menden at Rakiturja (Kursk) ; in Switzerland by the
National Councillor Berger at Langenau ; in Norway by Adalsog
Hasle, of Brug, Fedge Torfbrug at Bergen, amongst others.

(b) Heinen's Peat Machines. — These machines are employed by
Johann Free at Oldenburg, the Klein-Scharrel Peat Works at
Oldenburg, H. Steinfeld at Augustfehn, Hinselmann and Lieken
at Einfeld, near Neuminster, the Scherrebeck Press Peat Co.,
Ltd., at Scherrebeck, the Quarzbiehl Peat Factory, near Fletzen,
in Bavaria, amongst others.

(c) Peat Machines of Stiitzke Bros. — These machines are
employed on the Griineberg demesne, near Lubichow (West
Prussia), by Albert Rahn at Marienburg, Paske, Conraden,
near Arnswalde, the Sebastiansberg Peat Works in Bohemia,
at the Zollen demesne, near Soldin, the Terra Chemical Works at
Rostock, Stengel at Gnewin (Lauenberg), J. Pinn at Melkendorf,
near Eutin, Hugo Meyer at Riga, the Koppenow demesne, near
Lauenburg, amongst others.

Fig. 47. — Double-shaft peat machine with counter-knives in the base
of the cover. Ft. Dolberg and Co., Rostock.

(d) Cegielski Machines. — These are used at the Lussowko
(Posen), the Pakoslaw (Neutomischel) , the Rzadkowo (Colmar
district, Posen,) and the Pomerzany (Gnesen) demesnes, and by
the Goslawica Sugar Factory (Konin district of Russian Poland).

(e) Anrep's Machines. — These machines are used mainly in
the peat factories of Sweden, and especially also in those of Russia.

(3) Peat Machine of L. Lucht, of Kolberg. — This machine,
which is now constructed by the Kolberg Machine Company of
Kolberg, consists, as may be seen from the longitudinal section,
Fig. 48, and the cross-section, Fig. 49, of a single screw shaft M ,
lying in a hollow cylinder A B, which can be driven by a pair
of conical wheels by electrical means or with the aid of a belt
wheel by means of a steam engine (locomotive) or with the assist-
ance of a cross-joint U and a capstan pole by means of horses.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 125

The macerating and tearing contrivance is in the wider part A of
the cylinder, and consists of a number of knives a, fastened to
the shaft, which work against counter-knives c fixed in the
external cover of the cylinder. The counter-knives prevent the
peat from rotating with the shaft, and at the same time cut and
tear the fibres and roots adhering to it.

The tearing or cutting knives a a are separate screw blades, the
straight cutting edges of which strike closely past the fixed
counter-knives and together with the latter exert a shearing
action on the peat thrown in through the hopper, not only
tearing the fibres but actually cutting them. The counter-
knives are fixed on the one hand in the cover of the cylinder
and are caught on the other hand in grooves turned in the nave
of the shaft cover, and therefore the screw knives are always in
close contact with the counter-knives along the cutting edges of
which they glide. All wood, roots, fibres, &c, coming between
them are, therefore, cut into small pieces.

Fig. 48. — Peat machine of L. Lucht, of Kolberg.

The screw shaft can be moved in the longitudinal direction by
utilizing the pivot s in the rear of the machine. To prevent
fracture of the knife blades by their striking the counter-knives
when the screw shaft is displaced, which would occur if they were
rigidly connected with the shaft, the knives are fixed on pieces
of cast-iron, which are fitted to the shafts by means of springs
and slots so that thay can move in the longitudinal direction of
the shaft. In this way the pressure of the spiral on the shaft,
even when the latter gives way to it, can never injure the knife
blades, as the shaft can move through the latter without altering
their position in relation to the fixed counter-knives.

In the narrower part B of the cylinder the spiral on the knife
shaft is continuous. In addition to its crushing action against the
cover of the cylinder, its main object is to catch the torn up and

126

THE WINNING OF PEAT

mixed peat in the wider part of the cylinder, force it to the mouth-
piece F, and press it out through the " forming piece " fixed to
the latter. In order to remove a more or less inherent defect of all
single-shaft and also in the case of very fibrous peat of double-
shaft peat machines (the twining of fibres and roots round the
knife shaft and the blocking of the machine due to this), Lucht has
placed above the screw shaft a " cleaner " S, which is characteristic
of his machines. This consists of a star-shaped wheel in a case G,
which is closed externally and connected with the cylinder merely
by a narrow slit d. The teeth of this wheel, the shape of which is
shown in the illustration, work into the spaces of the screw so that
they fill these as much as possible and when the screw rotates
in the direction of the arrow they are moved forward — the star

Fig. 49. — Peat machine of L. Lucht, of Kolberg. Cross-section

of Fig. 48.

itself acquiring a rotatory motion — and in this way new teeth
of the wheel are constantly meshing into the spaces of the screw.
These teeth, which have a very intimate contact with the screw,
in the first place clean this of all adhering fibres and roots, and
in the next place, by stopping the peat in the spiral and thus
making it impossible for the peat to share in the rotary motion
of the shaft, cause it to be moved to the mouthpiece F and to be
pressed out of the latter.

In consequence of this ingenious arrangement, the output
of the machine is relatively large even when the raw material is
impure or very fibrous.

The back-pressure exerted by the screw shaft is taken up by
a steel core pin s. The friction is thus diminished and easy
running of the machine is attained.

The machine shown in Figs. 48 and 49 corresponds to No. 3 in
the following list (p. 128) ; the diameter of its screw is 33 cm.,
and the total length of its cylinder is 100 cm.

The number of the revolutions of the knife shaft per minute
is 30 to 40 when driven by horses, and 50 to 75 when driven by
steam power. According to the quoted output, 86 cb. m. of

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 127

freshly formed peat in a ten-hour shift, the velocity of the peat

. ' .. ,. . 86,000,000

in the cylinder is — — — — — — — — - — — — cm., or 3-8 cm. per

10x60x60x0-75x855 F

second, so that a charge of peat takes - — = 26 seconds to pass

3" 8

through the cylinder.

^ 50 x 26,

During this interval the knife shaft has been making

that is, about 22 revolutions in the charge of the cylinder,

0-75 x 855 x 100, , „A t A . ,

- L, or approximately 64 1., so that, compared with

the earlier machines, 34 to 35 revolutions of the knife shaft
are made for every 100 1. of peat, a mixing action which is
fair in itself, but which is increased by means of the shearing action
due to the many knives of the cutting mechanism.

As may be seen from the illustration, the machine is made of
iron with the exception of the supporting frame, which is made of
wood. This is said to facilitate the transport of the machine in
the bog, at the expense, however, to some extent, of the solidity
of the whole machine.

A transporter is also supplied, when desired, with each machine,
in order to increase its transportability in the bog. The trans-
porter, which is indicated in the illustrations by the dotted lines,
consists of a shaft W with two cranks k, two wheels r, two levers h.
and a third movable wheel rx. When the machine is to be moved
from one place to another the lever h is raised, and the machine,
thus placed on the wheels, can be moved easily by two men over
planks placed under the wheels.

Wooden conveyers 7 m. in length and 500 to 900 kilos in weight
cost 500M. to 900M. ; iron chain elevators 10 m. in length and
2,600 to 3,200 kilos in weight, for machines Nos. 4-7, cost 3.250M.
to 4,000M.

An iron transportable frame, on which the peat machine and
the elevator can easily be moved as a whole, costs 1,000M. to
1,250M.

The larger machines are provided with a roller-way for
removing the peat sods, by means of which the boards with the
sods can be brought automatically to the drying ground and
the empty boards again brought back to the machine. Such
a roller-way costs 50M. to 60M. per linear metre ; the driving
contrivance with winch costs 840M.

Machines of this type with iron elevators and roller-ways are
in operation at the peat works of E. Koy at Rosenort, East
Prussia, and Lange and Gansowsky at Kaberot, near Braunsberg,
amongst others.

(4) Schlickey sen's Horizontal Peat Machine with Gripping and
Tearing Contrivance. — To increase the mixing action and ensure
a good output even in the case of peat which is very heterogeneous,
slippery and fibrous, E. Schlickeysen, of Neukolln-Berlin, has

128

THE WINNING OF PEAT

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WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 129

provided his horizontal peat machine of the eighties with a special
gripping and tearing contrivance instead of the feeding rollers of
the older machine (Fig. 34) and has also equipped the front
portion of the knife shaft with cast-steel knife blades which work
between counter-knives. The front edges of the knife blades are
constructed in a scientific manner with curved cutting edges. 1
As Figs. 50 and 51 show, a strong iron roller D, which is keyed
to the belt pulley and driving axle A , lies in the hopper B above
the knife shaft C. The roller is provided with narrow tearing
teeth, which play between the six steel knives F rotating in the
cylinder B. The teeth then pass through six counter-knives or
" strikers " H, which are fixed on an axle G, and are kept continu-
ally pressed against the roller and the tearing teeth by means
of a counter-poise lever J fastened to their axle. The raw peat

Fig. 50. — Schlickeysen's peat machine with gripping and tearing contrivance

and elevator (in back position).

(consisting of sods which are not uniformly big and felted but
hard and soft, friable and fibrous, and mixed with decayed roots)
is thrown into the hopper B and is caught by the teeth, the shaft
of which makes 200 to 240 revolutions per minute, and is partly
thrown by these with a velocity of 3 to 4 m. to the knife blades F
lying under them and partly carried round to the counter-knives
or strikers H, where it is then torn to pieces, and any peat which
may be entwined on the teeth is stripped off and fed to the
screw knives F. The edges of the screw knives are turned
accurately, so that the cutting action against the sharp-edged
steel bars P may be as good as possible. The mass thus worked
is pushed to the mouthpiece by the other screw blades or knife
blades. By this arrangement all the coarse pieces of peat are
uniformly broken up, the felty consistency of the peat is destroyed,

1 Cf. Section V "On Knives and Screws."

130

THE WINNING OF PEAT

and almost all the roots and fibres, which are only partially
humified and slightly friable, are torn up or, in so far as they
twine round the knives, they are cut as much as possible, stripped
off these, mixed and worked with the rest of the peat. If the

Fig. 51. — Schlickeysen's peat machine with gripping and
tearng contrivance.

cylinder is in danger of being obstructed by the hopper becoming
too full, then the strikers H, owing to the more or less strong
pressure of the peat against them, are raised together with the
counter-poising lever J into the position denoted by the dotted

Fig. 52. — Schlickeysen's digging and forming
peat machine.

A . Driving pulley.

V. Intermediate gearing.

T. Hopper with tearing contrivance

F. Mouthpiece.

/. Peat band.

b. Driving mechanism for digging
arm.

h, k, a, D. Regulator for digging

arm.
Z. Outlier,
s. Automatically adjustable

digging arm.
G. Digging and dredging

chain.

lines. In this position the strikers stop stripping the peat off the
teeth E which therefore do not feed new peat to the cylinder, so
that the knives F in a short time again work freely. When this
occurs, the increased pressure ceases to act on the strikers ; these
return to their usual position, and normal working is then restored
in a few minutes.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 131

By means of this arrangement the action of the feeding roller D
{provided with the tearing teeth E) is made 'certain so far as
the feeding of the peat is concerned, and at the same time the
tearing and the mixing actions of the machine are increased
to an extraordinary extent. The number of rotations (about
60 to 80 per minute) of the knife shaft corresponding to an output
of 100 1. from the machine must be increased by a part of the
rotations made by the toothed roller A E in the same amount of
peat, when comparing the mixing action of the machine with those
of the various machines mentioned in the earlier articles of this
section. The " run of the machine ' can be regulated to the
consistency of the peat and for the power employed by moving
the weight /. The trap-doors K, K' , K" , allow of access to the
interior of the machine. Stones, pieces of iron, and thick, hard
wood may not get into the tearing and mixing mechanism without
endangering the machine. The counter-knives P P can be with-
drawn, cleaned, and again put back without opening the cover
of the cylinder. These machines have a greater mixing and
condensing action than those without any special tearing-
mechanism which have been already described. They are
stoutly constructed, and are on sale, like all the other machines,
with elevators and with special transport frames, as may be seen
from Figs. 50 and 52. In a somewhat modified form they are
now built by Schlickeysen's successors, the Rixdorf Machine
Co., Ltd., of Berlin-Neukolln.

The prices, outputs, weights, &c, of the various sizes of
machines may be seen from the following particulars : —

No.
of
ma-
chine

Width
of

cylin-
der.

ui.ni.

Steam

power

required,

h.p.

Rotations per
minute of

Knife
shaft.

Teeth
shaft.

Daily output (ten hours).

Sods
(2 1.).

Raw-
peat,
cb. m.

Formed peat.

Fresh,

in
kilos.

Air-dry, ap-
proximate
number of
kilos.

Ap-
proxi-
mate
weight
of

Price
of

Machine.
Kilos. Marks.

1

2

2a
3

200

3-5

60

180

i
8,000

24

16

4-5,000

600

300

5-6

► to

to <

30,000

90

60

15-20,000

1,000

400

6-10

80

200

40,000

' 120

80

1-24,000

1,800

500

12-14

*>

70,000

210

140

30-45,000

3,000

800
1,500
1,800
2,500

It is advisable to equip only the bigger machines with
elevators. An iron chain elevator 10 m. in length, with an iron
channel for the machine No. 3 costs 1,500M. Four axles with
strong track wheels and supports, serving as a transportable
frame for the peat machine and the locomotive, cost 440M.
Two lever appliances for advancing the frame and the superin-
cumbent machinery cost 100M. A No. 3 machine with all these

132 THE WINNING OF PEAT

accessories costs, therefore, 4,550M. For working such a machine
there are also required : —

Marks.
50 m. of ordinary rails on which the supporting frame with 2,000

the machines can be placed, and over which it can be

moved
One 10 h.p. locomotive, for peat-firing . . . . . . 6,000

400 m. of field rails, 50-60 cm. gauge 1,500-2,000

4 turntables 200-300

6 transport cars, each taking 15 boards, and these, in turn, 600-800

each 12 sods •

15,640
Sleepers, planks, winches, pumps, woodwork . . . . . . 3,060

2

men.

5

men.

. . 1 boy.

1

man.

. . 2

men.

. . 6

men.

. . 6

men.

. 23 labourers

Total . . .. 18,700

Or approximately 19.000M. to 20.000M.

According to particulars obtained from the factory, No. 3
machine requires, when working with good mould peat, the
following labourers for : —

(1) Stripping the peat and grubbing out the roots, &c.

(2) Digging the peat and throwing it on the elevator

(3) Placing in the boards to catch the formed peat

(4) Cutting the peat into sods

(5) Loading the boards on the cars

(6) Transporting the cars

(7) Tipping the boards on the drying ground

(This may also be done by women).

Total . .

In Mid-Germany these operations are paid for at the rate of
16M. for a thousand boards (12,000 sods of 2 1. each, or 24 cb. m.
of wet formed peat). For clamping and transporting to the
storage sheds, 4M. per 1,000 boards are paid, i.e., altogether 20M.
from the grubbing of the roots to the storage of the peat in the
sheds. The wages paid for a day's output of 70,000 sods are
approximately 120M. To this must be added the cost of : —

Marks.

One engine driver per day . . . . . . . . . . 6

Various operations, including two men (bringing fuel to the

locomotive) . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Firing locomotive with waste peat . . . . . . . . 5

23

Twelve women for turning the peat on the drying ground and

for collecting it . . . . . . . . . . 36

Interest, amortization, stand-by of machines, altogether
20 per cent, of 20.000M., i.e., 4.000M., or for the output
of one of the 100 working days . . . . . . 40

General expenses and ground rent together, about 4,000M.,

or for a single day's output . . . . . . 40

Wages as calculated above . . . . . . . . . . 120

Total . . . . 259

In the case of these machines 15 cb m. of raw peat give, on
the average, 10 cb. m. of wet machine peat, equivalent to 3 cb. m.
of dry peat, weighing 2,300 to 3,000 kilos. Each of the fresh

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 183

sods has a volume of 2 1., measuring 8 x 10 x 25 cm., and
contracts on drying to a sod measuring 6 x 6 x 18 cm.,
or 648 c.c, that is, to one-third of its original size.

With the output, given above, of 30,000 to 45,000 kilos of
dry peat for a No. 3 machine the over all net cost of 100 kilos
of dry peat is 0-58M to 0-80M., according to the quality of the
raw peat.

Machines of this type have been delivered to the Zintenhof
Cloth Factory, late Wohrmann and Son, of Zintenhof, near
Pernau (Lithuania), to Baron Grevenitz for the Demesnes Depart-
ment of Pernau, to Count Alexander Buxhofden, of Cludowo
(Russia), amongst others.

The better condensing action of these machines can be deduced
from the fact that the dry sods from a " forming piece "135 mm.
square contracted to a cross-section of 80 x 70 mm., and were so
dense and firm that they could be planed and polished, while sods
from the same raw peat made by another (Russian) machine with
the same forming piece contracted to only 120 x 110 mm., and
were still so friable that they could be broken into crumbs by
the hand.

(•5) Schlickey sen's Automatic Digging and Forming Peat
Machine. — In order to replace the costly operation of digging the
peat required for a machine peat factory with a big daily output,
for which it is sometimes difficult to procure a sufficient number of
workmen, by the more independent, more rapid and cheaper
machine labour, and, therefore, to facilitate the working of large
bogs, Schlickeysen has proposed (as Mecke and Sander, of Olden-
burg, did in the seventies) to combine an automatic dredger, or
digging machine, with his horizontal steam peat machine.

The iron chain elevator well known in peat machines was made
also to act as a dredger or peat scraper. Plate-steel scrapers s s,
which have sharp front edges, revolve round pivots, and can place
themselves into the working direction, are attached to an endless
hinged chain (Fig. 52) driven by the working machine and passing
by means of rollers round an outlier Z provided with a digging
arm s s. When gliding over the bog the scrapers, by their own
weight and that of the digging arm m, penetrate into the bog
so deeply that, throughout their working widths, they shave or
plane off thin layers of peat and raise it, thus loosened, in
scraper cells which are enclosed on the sides, first to the hinge D
of the arm at the surface of the bog and from there onwards
through the ascending channel of the outlier Z, at the end of
which the peat falls either into the hopper T of the peat machine
or into cars placed under the end of the channel.

The digging arm m lies at first on the horizontal surface of the
bog ; when working, however, its free end sinks automatically,
pressing by means of its own weight the digging scrapers into the
bog, and it can thus dig the peat to a depth of 3 m.

The driving is so arranged that the conveying and digging arm
can be rotated as desired round the axis of the hopper of the peat
machine and can be raised or lowered with reference to this axis.

134 THE WINNING OF PEAT

The whole machine can also be moved forward during the
working.

The elevator with its digging arm when engaged at working
digs in every position required, no matter whether it is rotating
or lowering itself, standing or moving, and during each of these
phases of working raises the substance which has been excavated.1

We do not know whether, after the death of Schlickeysenr
who contributed much to the development of peat machines
and brick machines, plants of this kind with digging machines,
forming machines, and electrically driven, such as have been
considered for some more or less large peat factories, have been
constructed. The idea of peat-dredging machines for large scale
industries has, however, been taken up and developed by others.
This is discussed in more detail under E, III, of this Section.

(6) Heinen's Peat Machine, with Preliminary Tearing and
Mixing Contrivance. — A. Heinen, of Varel, has, like Schlickeysen,
provided his double-shaft peat machine (cf. Figs. 53 to 56) with
a special preliminary tearing and mixing contrivance for working
more or less ripe bogs or for getting a better mixing action. As
the illustrations show, this contrivance consists of one or two
pairs of knife shafts a b and c d placed between the hopper and
the knife shafts proper and driven from the belt pulley shaft.
The peat, thrown in at the top in irregular pieces, when partially
broken up, torn and mixed by the upper knife shafts is fed by
these to the spiral knife shaft e f.

. In order to avoid obstruction of the machine by fibres and roots
adhering to the knives, the tearing and mixing knives and blades
are made in the curved form discussed more fully in the section
on knives and spirals. The curved form of the knives favours
the automatic removal of the fibres.

1 E. Schlickeysen had previously intended to attain in another way the
winning, on a large scale, of dense, handy fuel by automatic dredging or
digging machines. A ploughing, mixing, and forming peat machine, similar
to the well-known steam ploughs, was to be moved over the bog, and in this
way the uppermost dried layer was to be simultaneously loosened, worked,
and " formed." Instead of the ploughshare, he thought of using a peat
screw, acting like a plough or a knife. The screws were to be arranged so
that they could be raised or lowered, and a mixing spiral in a cylinder was to
be attached to each of them. The whole machine was to run on wheels on
a plank way. The mode of working was to be the following : Two loco-
motives, set up at the two sides of the working field, draw this peat-digging
machine backwards and forwards by means of a wire cable and on each
occasion the sunken front screw works by its open front part becoming
pressed into the bog through the whole length of its course by the forward
motion of the whole machine. In this way the screw cuts a piece of peat
with a cross-section the same as that of the screw, works it at the same time
in the closed part of the cylinder into a uniformly dense, doughy mass of
peat, and again spreads it on the surface of the peat field, which has just
been ploughed, as a long continuous band of peat " formed " by means of
a mouthpiece placed at the rear of the cylinder. The band of peat is then
to be cut into separate sods by hand. So far as is known this arrangement
has never been employed. Even on account of the fact that the bog was to
be worked from above downwards, and that its very moist upper surface was
to be used as a drying ground, the process was not a suitable one for the
purpose.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 135

In determining the mixing action (cf. p. 122) of this machine
part of the number of rotations of the fore-mixing knife shafts
is to be added to the number of rotations of the knife shafts
corresponding to 100 1. of the formed peat. The output of a 6 to

Fig. 53. — Double-shaft peat machine with preliminary tearing and mixing
contrivance. A. Heinen, Varel.

8 h.p. machine of this type is, according to the manufacturer,
50,000 to 60,000 sods or 100 to 120 cb. m. of freshly " formed "
peat in a ten-hour shift.

These machines have been acquired by the following peat
factories : Johs. Free, formerly the International Company for

Fig. 54. — Peat machine with chain elevator (in back position).
A. Heinen, Varel.

the Utilization of Peat, Ltd., of Oldenburg ; the Brettberg Peat
Factory, near Lohne, in Oldenburg ; M. Damhof, of Groningen ;
K. Lieken, the Einfeld Peat Factory, near Neuminster, in Holstein ;
Hermann Voigt, of Neudorf-Platendorf, near Gifhorn, and the
Ouarzbiehl Peat Factory, Munich.

136

THE WINNING OF PEAT

II. — Manufacture of Machine Pulp or Machine Dough Peat
in Hanover, Oldenburg, Denmark, and Sweden

The process is in general that sketched in Section III, p. 30,
for the manufacture of pulped, stroked, or trodden peat by the
Hanoverian or Dutch method and differs from the latter process
only by the kneading and mixing of the peat being effected by
machines instead of by treading with the feet. The peat can be
obtained in a denser and firmer condition and also in a greater
output by means of the machines.

The raw peat is won by any of the known methods of digging,
cutting, or dredging, and is thrown, after the addition of water
if it does not contain sufficient of this (about 90 to 95 per cent.)

Fig. 55. — Preliminary tearing and mixing contrivance of A. Heinen's
double-shaft peat machine.

to give a fluid pulp when ground in the machine, into a tearing
machine with rapidly running knife shafts by which the fibres and
roots are torn up or crushed and the whole mass of peat is con-
verted into a uniform pulp. The latter flows out of the mouthpiece
of the machine and is spread in a layer, 15 to 20 cm. high, over
the peat field (which has been levelled beforehand) in the
immediate neighbourhood of the machine. For this purpose the
drying field is divided into sections by means of planks which
prevent the pulp from flowing out. After some days, when the
mass has lost a great part (approximately 40 per cent.) of its
water, partly by evaporation and partly by soaking into the
ground, it is trodden firm and levelled by workmen with boards
strapped under their feet. Before it begins to split as the drying
proceeds it is cut longitudinally and crosswise into regular,

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 137

rectangular sods of the usual sizes by slanes, cutting discs, or long
knives, by hand or machine labour. The sods are left in the open
air and frequently turned for further drying. In Denmark the
peat is stroked into sods in moulds. Sometimes, especially in
North-west Germany, the peat pulp, which has been spread and
is ready for dividing, is cut in more or less large (30 sq. cm.) pieces
and after some days each of these is again divided into three sods.
These sods are " ringed," clamped, and when dry are collected
into sheds in the usual way. As the disintegration and mixing of
the peat are facilitated by addition of water and as a uniformly
dense mass is more easily obtained when much water is present,
and, further, as the evaporation of the water, therefore the drying

Fig. 56. — Preliminary tearing and mixing contrivance ; cross-section.

cf the peat, takes a relatively long time, the contraction of the
peat and its increase in density are favoured in every respect.
Although the fuel thus obtained in regular pieces is not quite
smooth and clean externally, it is extraordinarily dense and firm
and is very suitable for transport, for coking, &c.

The winning of this pulp peat can, however, take place only
in the summer months (up to the end of July), since the pulp
peat if made later rarely becomes dry owing to the large
amount of water originally contained in it.

Unless the pulped mass which has been won late in the year
is wintered between high banks for further working-up in the
following spring, a winning season for this process of only ninety
days can be relied on, while in the case of the manufacture cf
machine-formed peat a winning season of 100 to 125 days may
be assumed.

i2595) L

138

THE WINNING OF PEAT

The first man who carried out the manufacture of pulp peat
and the preparation of dough peat by machinery was, so far as
is known (and, indeed, in the year 1868), the father of the bog-
owner R. J. Ruschmann, of Varel. He was driven to this process
mainly by failures in the preparation of machine-formed peat.
These failures led him to give up entirely the " forming " of the
raw peat which had been worked in the machine, and to treat
further the peat mass coming from the machine, after it had been
made sufficiently fluid by the addition of water, exactly like the
Hanoverian kneaded or trodden peat. The favourable results thus
obtained soon procured an introduction for the process, especially

Fig. 57. — Triple-shaft pulp peat machine, with elevator.

into Oldenburg, Hanover, and Bremen, and from these districts
into others which were situated farther away. The machines
which gradually came into use for the manufacture of this pulp
peat are almost as varied in construction as the peat-forming
machines. The most important of them are the following :—

7. — The Hanoverian Pulp Peat Machine.

This peat machine, which was first constructed in 1868 by
Cohen and Moritz, of Hanover,1 for Ruschmann's Peat Factory,
at Varel, and which in a similar form is still in use even at the

1 This firm no longer exists.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 139

present day, is shown in Figs. 57 and 58, in front and side views.
It consists essentially of several tubes or cylinders C, 180 mm.
in diameter, in each of which a screw shaft rotates, making
220 revolutions per minute.

These screw shafts are driven by a locomotive with the aid of
a pair of conical wheels on the intermediate gearing shaft a and
a belt pulley. A horizontal stirrer or mixer N is contained in the
funnel T, into which the raw peat is fed, and is kept in motion, at
the rate of 90 revolutions per minute, by the intermediate gearing
shaft a with the help of the pair of spur-wheels Rx R2 ; its object
being to mix the raw peat put into the machine with the water
which is at the same time made to flowr into the funnel, usually
by a pump driven by the locomotive, and feed the mixed mass
in regular quantities to the working screws which lie under the
funnel.

The machine is fixed on a frame A A , which is provided with
four wheels and can be transported on a frame-rail S 5 placed

^ nat. size.

I

Fig. 58.— Side view for Fig. 57.

under the machine. At fixed intervals it can be moved, together
with the locomotive employed in working it, beside the cut-out
working trench. On the opposite side of the machine the peat
is spread for drying. In this way the labour of transporting the
raw peat to the machine and the peat pulp from the machine to
the drying ground is made as small as possible.

The trenches are laid out 3 m. in width. When the depth of
the trench is small the peat-diggers throw the raw peat directly
into the hopper of the machine, but in the case of deeper bogs
an elevator E is combined with the machine, as shown in Figs. 54
and 57. The outlier of the elevator can rotate round the axle c
according to the depth of the trench and is supported by the
roller- wheel L while the machine is being moved forwards.

140 THE WINNING OF PEAT

The elevator consists of an endless cloth on which laths or
boards m m are fixed. It is driven from the shaft b by means of
the upper drum 0 and the belt pulleys V and W. The elevator E
is now generally placed in the longitudinal direction of the
machine (the so-called " back elevator " seen in Fig. 54).

The peat is converted into a uniform thin pulp while passing
through the screw tubes. At the front the pulp flows into the
box K or into cars moved under it and by means of which it is
transported to the drying ground.1 The latter has a width of
about 25 m. and runs parallel to the peat trench, but is so situated
that the peat machine is between the drying ground and the peat
trench. In this way three men with hand barrows can remove
from the machine and spread 200 cb. m. of raw peat in a day.

This quantity of peat gives about 40,000 sods or 35 to 40 cb. m.
of air-dry peat, weighing 30,000 to 40,000 kilos. With 15 to 18
labourers the cost of winning alone, without ground rent and
general expenses, is, therefore, 0-20M. to 0-30M. for 100 kilos.2

This machine, modified by F. J. Miiller, of Prague, has come
into use in several Austrian peat factories. In order that the raw
peat might be torn and mixed more efficiently the horizontal
shaft N of Figs. 57 and 58, on which some knives were fixed, was
replaced in these machines by one or two grinding drums according
to the nature of the raw peat. These drums, like the well-known
beet rasps, were provided with saw blades on their covers.
J. Miiller has also fitted his machines with screw shafts working
into each other, such as are described on pp. 118 to 121 for the
double-shaft forming machines, in place of those of the above
machine which were arranged separate from one another. In this
way he obtained a very intimately kneaded and well-mixed peat
pulp, a result which is of great importance for the subsequent
condensation in the case of coarse-fibred raw peat containing
much wood mixed with it ; and in some cases, indeed, the final
decision as to whether this method of winning is likely to be
suitable or not will depend on the amount of this kneading and
mixing.

2. — The Oldenburg Pulp Peat Machine

This machine was introduced by George Mahlstedt, who was
at the time Director of the Oldenburg Canal Construction and
Peat Manufacturing Co., Ltd., in a bog belonging to this Company.
Several of these machines were constructed by the machine
manufacturer Beeck, of Oldenburg ; they may be regarded as
modifications of the Ruschmann machine. As may be seen from
Fig. 59, the machine consists of only two adjacent tubes and screw
shafts. The bearings of the screw shafts also are in this case

1 The pulp peat made in this way, even when the raw peat is worked
with little or no addition of water, can be formed in moulds on the ground
like dough peat, or by the machine itself (by means of a mouthpiece
screwed on the front of the machine), as in the case of the forming machines
described earlier.

2 Cf. Section V, E.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 141

fixed outside the cylinder, both in the front and in the rear, so
that a stoppage due to clogging of the bearings with fibres cannot
take place.

The machine, which is screwed on a frame provided with four
wheels, can be easily moved in the bog on planks or rails placed
under the wheels.

Such a machine is intended, when working regularly, to treat
on an average 100 cb. m. of raw peat in ten hours and to require
for attendance (including the bringing of the peat to the machine
but excluding the drying operations) nine labourers and an engine-
driver. A 5 to 6 h.p. locomotive is required to work the machine.
The price of such a machine amounts to about 900M.1

Fig. 60 shows a triple-shaft peat machine of this kind with
a preliminary tearer, as constructed by A. Heinen, of Varel. With
an output in a ten-hour day of 50,000 to 60,000 sods, equivalent
to 120 cb. m. of " formed ': peat, and with a consumption of

Fig. 59. — Double-spiral pulp peat machine.

power of 5 to 6 h.p., it costs 900M. Machines of this type have
been used by Ruschmann and Co., of Varel, Suhren and Thien,
of Bockhorn, in Austria, the Hahn Peat Factory, and by
P. Thaden, of Rastede.

3. — Machine for making Pulp Peat, of A. Ingermann, of Koldmoos

For cases where a locomotive or other mechanical power is
not available and the winning is not to be carried out on a large
scale, A. Ingermann, of Koldmoos, near Gravenstein, has built
the machine described below which can be driven with the aid of
a horse.

1 The output obtainable from the machine during a short trial may be
far greater than this. On the occasion of the industrial contest at Bremen
Exhibition in 1874 one of these machines worked 2 cb. m. of peat into peat
pulp in three minutes, which corresponds, therefore, to an output of

10x60x2

■ ; = 400 cb. m. in ten hours. When judging a machine all the

credit should not, however, be given to outputs of this kind, obtained in
short trials under specially favourable conditions.

142

THE WINNING OF PEAT

The machine (Fig. 61) consists of a kneading mill A which is
driven by one or two horses by means of a cross-joint on the
shaft W, an axle-tree and a capstan. The square wooden body
has a width of 55 cm., a height of 70 cm., and is plated on the
inside. Six or seven crescent-shaped knives are fixed on
a vertical shaft a a contained in the body. The knives move
between several cast-iron ribs attached to one of the inner walls
of the body, and in this way grind the peat. At the opposite side
of the body there is another vertical shaft b b which is connected
with the first by a pair of spur wheels r± r2, on which there are
several round, sharp cast-steel discs. These pass through the
external wall of the body and are contained in a box fastened to
this wall. As the shafts revolve in opposite directions the discs
glide over the inner knives in such a way that they cut any fibres
adhering to the knives and thus prevent stoppage of the machine
or diminution in the cutting action of the knives. The knife shaft
makes 24 and the disc shaft 8 revolutions per minute.

Fig. 60. — Heinen's triple-spiral pulp peat machine, with preliminary

tearer and mixer.

The rectangular shape has been selected to allow of the
machine being more easily and cheaply constructed of wood, of
the ribs being conveniently fitted in, and also in order that more
or less firm and tough pieces of peat, stones and roots, which
might be a source of danger for the cutting knives and be likely
to cause breakage, can be pushed by the curved knives into a
corner. They either remain in the corner until the body is being
cleaned or are gradually broken up as the rotation and crushing
proceeds.

One side-wall can be raised, like a flap, to facilitate the cleaning
of the machine. The motion of the knife shaft is effected by the
horizontal axle lying under the body, with the aid of a pair of
conical wheels. While the cross-joint for making union with the
shaft of the capstan is at one end of the shaft W, a crank k is
fixed on the other side, which can be seen in the illustration. By
means of a rod the crank sets a suction and pressure pump P in

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 143

motion which feeds the water required for its working into the
body of the machine. The stroke of the pump is adjustable and,
therefore, the intake of the water can be regulated at will.

When the raw peat in the body has been converted into
a uniform pulp by the rotation of the knife shaft it passes out
through an opening, which can be closed by a flap by which the
outflow can at the same time be regulated into a box K placed
in front of the opening. The front wall of the box consists of
a flap which can be lowered and in this way the peat can be
allowed to flow into barrows placed underneath, or it can easily
be withdrawn by a workman by means of a rake.

Fig. 61. — -A. Ingermann's pulp peat machine.

The peat is brought to the drying ground and is further
treated as described for the Oldenburg process, or, as frequently
happens in more or less small industries, it is emptied into a
forming barrow like that shown in Fig. 62, and by means of this
— a workman pulling the barrow behind him — the pulp is moulded
into sods by the rotation of the drum wheel and is at the same time
spread for drying.

The " forming " barrow consists of a drum wheel R on the
cover of which two rows of moulds are fixed. These glide during
the motion of the barrow under its hopper and thus become filled
with the pulp which has been thrown into the hopper. In order
that the latter may not fall through the open moulds into the
wheel there is an iron protecting plate on the latter and along
this the pulp may be pressed. To prevent the peat sods from

144

THE WINNING OF PEAT

falling out too soon a protecting plate is also fixed below and
outside the moulds. This keeps the peat in the moulds until
they reach the lowest point when it falls out of the moulds,
forming two rows side by side.

According to its size the wheel contains 30 to 40 moulds ;
every time it rotates 30 to 40 sods are, therefore, moulded and
spread

Fig. 62. — Forming barrow for pulped and moulded peat.

After three or four days pulp peat moulded in this way becomes
so firm that it can be footed, and after further drying it may be
" ringed." Although machines of this type have proved very
suitable when the industries and outputs are small, since with
five men and one strong horse, or two more or less weak ones,
up to 16,000 sods of peat can be moulded and spread in a day;
they have, however, in the course of time been displaced by
simpler band-forming machines or pulp peat machines.

4. — Hodge's Peat Boat in Oldenburg, Peat Dredgers, &c.

Amongst the machines for winning machine-pulped or machine-
kneaded peat must be included Hodge's peat boat, which was
at first acquired by a private company in connexion with the
construction of the Hunte-Ems Canal and later taken over from
the company by the State of Oldenburg, the well-known dredgers,
such as the Fimmen boat dredger, bucket dredgers, " wash '
and " suction " dredgers, &c, in so far as these are combined
with a special mixing or kneading machine.

Hodge's peat boat was first built in Canada.1 In a peat boat
of this class there are digging, elevating, and disintegrating
machines, as well as distributing channels. There is a diagram
of the boat in Gartenlaube , 1873, No. 37.

The peat-digging machine consisted of two large spirals,
3-5 m. in diameter, placed in the front of the boat and driven
by the aid of cogwheels by the engine in the back portion of the
boat. These screws cut their way through the level bog by
excavating a canal 6 m. wide and \\ to If m. deep. The forward
motion of the screws in the bog was about 4| m. per hour.
It decreased as the density of the bog increased, varying from

1 Engineer, July and August, 1872, and Polytechn. Zentralbl., 1872.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 145

100 to 50mm. a minute. The breadth and the depth of the cutting
in the case of the Hunte-Ems canal were not sufficient for the
purpose intended. Several cuttings were, therefore, made along-
side one another and also under one another when the depth of the
peat deposit allowed of this being done. The peat raised by the
screws was brought to the bow of the boat from which it was
conveyed by an elevator to the disintegrating machine. After
addition of water it was disintegrated and intimately mixed with
the latter. The pulped peat passed through a long tube, in which
it was further disintegrated by revolving and fixed knives, to
a considerable distance over the adjoining bank on which the
peat was deposited. The bank was levelled and consolidated by
workmen beforehand.

There were several openings provided with flaps at intervals
along the tube. The peat could, therefore, be allowed to flow
out of the tube at any desired distance from the bank. It was
spread in a uniformly thick layer and levelled, the workmen
using small boards provided with handles for this purpose. For
spreading the peat on the surface beyond the discharging channel
the aid of horses was required.

When a large amount of the water contained in the spread peat
had soaked away or had been evaporated, the peat was cut into
sods by special machines in order to dry it more fully. According
to statements which have been received, a peat boat such as this
raises 6 x 1 • 50 x-4 • 75 = 42 • 75 cb. m. per hour. The boat, together
with machines, implements, wages, &c, for an output of 100 cb. m.
of air-dried peat fuel every ten hours cost 35,000M. to 40.000M.

Although the peat boat is said to have worked quite well in
grass and green bogs in Canada, the Canal Construction Co., of
Oldenburg, was not commercially successful. When the Company
wound up the State took over the boat, and in the service of the
latter it. worked with good results in the construction of the
Hunte-Ems Canal. Considerable quantities of peat were raised
every year. It was well mixed and spread on the side, and from
it large quantities of a good mud peat were obtained and sold
at a price slightly above the cost of production. The cutting of
the canal, therefore, cost nothing.

In the construction of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal the well-
known bucket dredger and other dredgers of the same type
working to a depth of 10 m. raised up to 300 cb. m. of raw peat
per hour.

5. — Mecke and Sander's Peat-dredging Machine1

At the end of the seventies Mecke and Sander, of Oldenburg,
believed they had solved the problem of manufacturing, cheaply
and on the large scale, a saleable and transportable machine
peat by a process almost the same as this, in which their peat

1 Compare the pamphlet, " Der Torf und dessen Massenproduktion nach
dem zeitigen Stande der Wissenschaft und Technik," by Dr. H. Stiemer,
Engineer, Halle, 1883, in which there is also a diagram of the machine.

146 THE WINNING OF PEAT

dredgers were utilized. The peat-pulping machine was a multi-
spiral one, and was provided on one side with a peat dredger and
on the other with a peat pulp distributor. The whole could be
moved or transported along the trench on a latticed frame
supported by wheels and rails. The dredger could be raised or
lowered to suit the depth of the bog ; it stopped automatically
when obstacles were encountered and could be again set going
when the obstacles were removed. It consisted of sharp, saw-
edged dredger buckets, mounted on a chain which was set in
motion from the power shaft by cogwheels and chain pulleys.
The dredging buckets rasped the peat in thin layers from the face
of the bank and brought it, when thus finely divided, to the
mixing machine. The latter, like the Hanover-Oldenburg pulp
peat machine, consisted of two shafts which were provided with
winged screws and rotated in opposite directions in the same case.
The peat, cut simultaneously through the whole height of the
peat bank and conveyed by the dredger to the machine, was
intimately mixed in the latter and the uniformly dense peat pulp
thus obtained was pressed out through a wide mouthpiece to the
distributor. The latter consisted of a belt formed of sheet-iron
plates, 0-15m. wide and 0-5 m. long, which were connected to
two parallel guiding chains. The belt ran over drums and support-
ing rollers. It was driven from the main shaft and as it passed
under the mouthpiece it was fed with peat pulp. The latter was
thrown off the belt and spread on the underlying, levelled drying
ground by a car, constructed like a snow plough, which was
movable along the upper flange of the spreader. The width of
the drying ground and the length of the distributor (usually 24 m.
to 30 m.) corresponded to the depth to which the peat was cut.
In consequence of the absorbing power of the drying ground,
which had been freed beforehand from its grassy coat and the
upper layers of which were already fairly free from excess of
moisture, the drying of the pulp and the contraction and natural
compression associated with it were said to be so facilitated that
the upper surface of the peat pulp could, after two or three days,
be levelled and compressed by boards placed under the feet of
the workmen and the sods could then be cut longitudinally and
transversely. The sods were said to have dried in five to six
days to such an extent that they could be footed and, after a
further twelve to fourteen days, clamped. It was not necessary
that the peat should dry rapidly as the ground seldom required
to be covered more than twice in the same year. The whole
machinery moved forwards automatically and continuously during
the operations and in this way the amount of the peat layer
rasped off the trench wall could be regulated as desired. The
average forward motion per hour was given as 15 m. During
its work the machine was said to describe a serpentine course
which, by means of loops at the ends, allowed the machine to
turn and which stretched over the whole of the bog area worked.
In bogs which contained roots and other obstacles to such an
extent that the use of the dredger was not possible, an elevator,

>

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 147

fed by hand, was substituted for the latter, and the cost of winning
the peat was, in consequence, somewhat increased. Even when
it rained continuously for weeks the operation of the machine
was not stopped— the peat pulp was spread beside the line of
cutting and sufficient time for the drying and clamping of the
peat was always available. When the surface of the bog would
not bear the great weight of the machine the latter was mounted
on a flat-bottomed boat, with the dredger in front, so that the
machine by dredging and working the peat was able to cut its
own canal.

The builders of these machines1 guaranteed their daily out-
put as 100,000 sods. The cost of the plant, including machinery,
rails, and housing accommodation, was 36,000M., and the annual
working capital was 17,500M. The cost of the peat was therefore
1-75M., or, after adding 0-25M. for trade expenses, 2-00M. for
1,000 sods. As 1,000 sods weighed 500 kilos when air-dried,
100 kilos of the air-dried peat cost 0-40M. Nevertheless, the
peat-dredging machine of Mecke and Sander did not continue in
use long, owing mainly to the machine having too weak a con-
struction and to the dredger not being so completely automatic
as it was supposed to be. In most cases the nature of peat
bogs will render the smooth working of automatic digging machines
verv difficult. Owing to the frequent occurrence of wood and
roots in bogs the dredger must be strongly constructed so as to
suit the peat, and constant supervision, as well as the timely
removal of large roots and tree stems, will be necessary.

6. — The Strenge Peat-dredging Machine

This dredging and pulping peat machine was a further
development of that of Mecke and Sander, just described, due
to the late Oltmann Strenge, the owner of a peat factory at
Elisabethfehn. Machines of this type were first used at the
Strenge Peat Factory at Elisabethfehn and afterwards at the
Schwaneburg Peat Factory at Ramsloh, in Oldenburg.

The machine in its earliest forms consisted of a dredger,
a conveyer, a mixing machine, and a spreader, driven either by
a 25 to 30 h.p. locomotive or electrically, and moving forward
automatically during its work. The dredger or digger could be
adjusted both for angle and depth of working, which took place
at the side of the bog. It dredged the peat vertically, and as
this took place simultaneously through the whole depth of the
bog the different layers of peat were well mixed during the
dredging. The peat was thrown on a conveyer consisting of a
channel with a chain of plates or belt, by which it was brought
to a double-spiral mixing and kneading machine. From the
latter the peat fell on to a screw conveyer, which brought it to an

1 Mecke and Sander, of Oldenburg. The firm has been extinct for
several years, and therefore these dredging machines, on which great hopes
•were placed at the time, have disappeared from the market.

148

THE WINNING OF PEAT

automatic spreader consisting of two troughs inclined at an angle
to one another and the bottoms of which were pierced with
holes. A roller moving in the trough levelled and distributed
the peat. The trough case trailing behind over the spread peat
pressed the pulp into a uniform layer, the height of which was
30 cm. to 40 cm., and the width 15 m. Several days after the
spreading of the peat its surface was levelled by means of boards
strapped under the workmen's feet, and the sods were then cut.
For this purpose a workman, or a machine, drew a roller with
cutting discs, about 20 cm. in diameter, across the peat layer.
The distance apart of the cutting discs corresponded to the width
of the sods, and the height of the layer to the length intended
for them. During the further drying and contraction the peat
strips separated from each other, and after six to eight days
they were divided by a cutting disc, 1 m. in diameter (Fig. 63),
supported on the peat layer by a broad roller on each side of the
disc. In large factories, as, for instance, that of the Wiesmoor

Fig. 63. — Cutting disc for pulp peat.

Power Station, where two Strenge dredging machines of the
1906 model were at work up to 1912, the cutting of the peat
cake was effected by a hand-guided, electrically driven poly-disc
cutter (Fig. 64). The further drying operations — footing, re-
footing, clamping, castling — of this pulp peat were carried out
in the usual manner.

By removing the spreader and connecting a screw conveyer,
10 m. to 15 m. in length, to the mixing machine, the peat could be
worked after addition of water to a thinner pulp, and this mud
peat (Schlammtorf)1 is allowed to flow either into wide trenches
or between tree trunks so as to form a more or less high layer
(about lh m. in height, which subsides to about 1 m.), where
partially covered it is allowed to winter and in the following
spring is cut into sods in the ordinary way. This process was used
during the later summer and early autumn months (July to
September), when there was a risk that the machine-pulped
peat could not be sufficiently dried before the setting in of

1 Not Schlammtorf (washed-out peat), which has quite a different
signification (see p. 67).

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 149

frosty weather, in which case it would be injured by freezing.
In this way the usual season of 100 days was said to have
been extended to 180 to 200 days.

After the death of Oltmann Strenge his son took over the
construction and the further development of these machines
as. well as the erection of machine peat factories for the firm of
W. K. Strenge, of Ocholt, in Oldenburg. Since about 1910 the
Strenge " pulp peat " dredging machine with spreader has been
converted, especially for large industries, into a " formed peat '
dredging machine with automatic sod spreader. The Strenge
pulp peat machines of the 1906 model are no longer in use, and
the same may be said of the 1910-1912 models, which were
provided with a sliding board by means of which the sods, cut
into lengths, were laid crosswise on the spreading band and

Fig. 64. — Multiple-disc cutting contrivance for pulp peat.

tipped on their ends on the drying ground. These machines have
all been changed to machines like those at Wiesmoor of the
1914-1915 model described fully in the following section so that
Strenge pulp peat machines are no longer manufactured.

7. — Danish (Sparkjaer) Machine-pulped Peat Winning

In Denmark, especially Jutland, peat is won in the large bogs
mainly as machine peat, and, indeed, almost entirely as machine-
pulped peat. The first of these factories was the Okj aer-Mosebrug
Peat Works, which was erected in 1873, but was closed several
years ago owing to the bog having been cut out. The director
of the factory was the Danish nobleman, M. Rahbek, of Sparkjaer,
who has rendered exceptional services for the extension and
the commercial success of peat winning in Denmark.1 There
are about 90 machine peat works in Denmark, having altogether
an annual output of about 90,000 tons of dry peat fuel Only
a few of these are machine-formed peat works, the others manu-
facturing machine-pulped peat, so that of the total annual output

1 Meddelelse No. 3 fra Moseindustrie-Foreningen, October, 1902, Viborg.

150 THE WINNING OF PEAT

about 10,000 tons consist of machine-formed peat. The Danish
(especially Jutland) bogs1 are mostly high bogs overlying low
bogs. Their depths are up to 10 m., and their contents consist
of well-decomposed mould peat. The peat is dug and either
brought to, and worked in, a vertical machine, or the machine
can be moved on the bog, or it is screwed to a flat-bottomed
boat which floats in the peat drain. In the latter cases the
peat is thrown into the machines and worked up at the place
in which it is won. In both cases the crude peat is worked into
a pulp after the addition of water and is afterwards formed
into sods.

According to Rahbek, the mixing machine consists, as a rule,
of a wooden case 2\ m. to 2| m. in length and about 55 cm. in
width and depth. It is shaped like a closed trough, has an
opening for rilling in the peat, and is provided with a shaft,
furnished with knives and blades and making about sixty
revolutions a minute. A transporter carries the peat pulp, which
issues from one end of the mixing trough through an adjustable
opening, to a loader, from which it passes into the tipping car,
which is drawn (generally by horses) to a " forming " and drying
ground, well drained, and situated at as high a point as possible.

Fig. 65. — Moulding and stroking frame.

The peat pulp is moulded in frames, 183 cm. long, 141 cm.
wide and 8 cm. high, each of which is divided into 55 spaces
for the sods (Fig. 65). The surface of the drying ground acts as
a bottom for the frame. In the smaller factories 80 to 90 of these
frames, and in the Okjaer Factory 166, lie in a row along the
front of which a temporary railway track is laid. The peat pulp
is emptied from the tipping wagon into the forming frames over
which it is spread (stroked) by means of large wooden shovels or
stroking boards, so that each sod space becomes filled. When
the row of frames has been filled and stroked, and therefore
4,400 to 9,130 sods have been formed, the railway track is moved
sidewards through the width of a frame, and the frames are
tilted up and drawn after it. The frames are provided with
handles g g in the front and with 50 cm. arms a a (formed by
prolonging the sides of the frame) behind, on the extreme ends
of which they are supported while being drawn forward, so that
the frame itself moves over the moulded sods without touching
them, the ends of the arms slipping along the surface of the

1 For the Danish and Swedish machine peat factories, see Hans Schreiber
in Oesterr. Moorzeitschrift, 1906 and 1913.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 151

ground between the rows of sods. On an average, each sod
has a volume of 3,000 c.c. =31., and weighs when wet 3-5
and when dry 0-5 kilos.

The line of rails for the frames lies at right angles to the main
line , with which it is connected by a pass-by or a small traverser.

The work of drying the sods is usually carried out by children,
by whom the sods are placed, when (after four to fourteen days)
they are sufficiently firm, on their narrow sides supporting one
another in an inclined position. After a further eight to twenty
days the sods, which are then only " half dry," are gathered into
beehive-shaped heaps or stacks 2 m. in height, where they are
fully dried and from which they are finally despatched to their
place of utilization. Every two of these heaps contain 630 sods.
This work is done by the bigger children and women.

The power required for converting the peat into a thin pulp
is less than that required for making machine-formed peat and
amounts to only 4 to 6 h.p. It is generally obtained from a
steam engine and in a few cases from a petroleum engine. The
work is carried out only in summer, from about the middle of
April to the middle of August. During this period most of the
factories have about 80 to 90 working days ; a few, however,
have over 100 working days. At the Okjaer Bog, for instance,
a 2 to 3 h.p. peat-pulping machine, placed in a flat-bottomed boat
and served by four men (one man digging and throwing up the
crude peat, two men transporting the peat pulp, and one man
moulding the pulp), produced every hour an amount of pulp
corresponding to 1-2 to 1-4 m. tons of dry peat. The cost of
drying was 18 ore = 0-20M. for every thousand sods, each of
which weighed, when dry, 0-5 kilo or, therefore, 0-40M. per
metric ton.

The total annual output of all these factories, in addition to
50,000 to 60,000 m. tons of hand peat, is easily disposed of,
generally for use in factories (brick-making, glass furnaces,
farms, &c), and for household requirements. The selling price
of the peat fuel is 9 to 12 kr. for 1 m. ton (in the case of truck-
loads), being always about 3| to 4 \ kr. more than the cost of
winning, and 10 to 12 kr. less than that of English coal. The
winning of machine-pulped peat is being further extended in
Denmark (Jutland) as a result of the experience gained during
many years.

8. — The Anrep-Jakobsson-Svedala Machine-pulped Peat Winning,
or the Winning of Machine Field Peat by means of
Jakobsson's Spreading, Stroking, and Cutting Machine

In Sweden and Norway, where the winning of machine-pulped
peat has extended considerably, a more or less remunerative
winning of peat fuel on a large scale with a reduction in the number
of labourers otherwise necessary is attained in a manner worthy
of our attention. In this process, not only the transport of the peat
from the working trench, but also the spreading, levelling and

152

THE WINNING OF PEAT

cutting of the peat pulp on the drying ground are effected by
machinery. For this purpose Abjorn Anderson's mek. Verkstads
Aktiebolag, Svedala, have combined their Anrep-Svedala mixing
machine (with dredger or elevator) with the spreading, stroking
and cutting machine illustrated in Fig. 66, which has proved very
useful. The peat pulp is brought in tipping wagons from the
mixing machine to the drying ground where it is tipped on the
rimmed platform of the spreader, which can be moved along the
drying ground by means of a wire rope. The peat is spread in long
layers, beside one another, each having the thickness of a sod and
a width of 1|- to 2 m. Its surface is made smooth by means of a
weighted leveller and it is then cut into 15 to 20 bands, each having

Fig. 66. — Jakobsson's spreading, stroking, and cutting contrivance for

machine " field peat."

the thickness of a sod, by a mechanical cutter at the end of the
platform. After some days the strips are cut crosswise into sods
unless this has already been done by a mechanical cross-cutter
attached to the spreader and leveller.

9. — Galecki's Method of Winning Pulped Peat

We need not discuss in detail this process, which is said to have
been tried on an experimental scale in Russia, since it would occur
to no one in Germany to employ this troublesome and expensive
method for the preparation of peat which in no case gives a pro-
duct better than the well-known machine-pulped or machine-
formed peat. It is considered briefly here only because it has
been recommended1 repeatedly by Peat Societies and in journals.
The problem, " To prepare a fuel equal to coal in calorific power,
but cheaper than the latter, " is here solved only in reports, which
show little technical knowledge, and are therefore open to objec-
tion. According to these reports, the peat is first to be purified from
its " injurious admixtures," sand, clay, lime, and non-humified

1 Further particulars will be found in Dingier' s Polytechn. Journ., 1900,
p. 768, and 1901, p. 367.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 153

fibres.1 The winning of the peat from the undrained bog is
effected by a kind of cutting machine. The peat block, cut by
sinking a knife or cutting blade from above downwards, is worked
with the peat water to a uniform pulp in a box which is connected
with the cutting machine and the bottom of which can be closed
by a slide. The stirring arrangement or mixer contained in the
box consists, like all peat kneaders, mainly of several rotating
knives or toothed rollers lying above, or alongside, one another.
The projections of these rollers work into one another, tearing up
the fibres and kneading the peat. The closed box is then elevated
by means of chains, a trough is pushed under it, and the contents
are emptied into the " wash-out." Every cut is supposed to raise
1 cb. m. of peat, and after each cut the machine is advanced by
the thickness or width of a cut. The "wash-out" consists of
a transportable box, which also contains a mixer, the rotating
axle of which is kept in motion by hand or by the driving
mechanism of the box. The washer is brought by two workmen or
a horse to the filtering place, where the contents are continuously
beaten up by the stirrer and the whole mass is converted into
a uniform pulp. In this further treatment of the peat, the sub-
stances mechanically mixed or chemically combined with it which
are soluble in water, are said to separate (!) from the peat. The
" washed-out " material is to remain a short time in the filters
to allow the heavy impurities to subside.

In the side of the " wash-out " about 18 cm. from the bottom
there is an opening, which can be closed by a slide, the inner
portion of which is covered by wire gauze by means of which the
" washed-out " peat when it passes from the box to the filter is
freed from roots, stones, fibres, more or less large pieces of peat, &c.
The filter, which serves for converting the peat pulp into peat
dough, consists of a bottomless frame, about 275 cm. in length,
150 cm. in width and 20 cm. in height. When the filter is freshly
filled the layer has a height of 20 cm., but this, on drying, falls
to 10 cm. The layer is then divided by means of wooden cross-
bars into pieces 20 to 30 cm. in length and 15 to 20 cm. in width
and spread, best on a well-mown sward (!) or on well-harrowed
ground, any sand still adhering to it then falling off (!). After
two or three days these peat sods, which in all the laudatory
notices are wrongly called peat briquettes, could be stamped and
placed on a movable " multi-drier," as the multiple drying frame
used is called. After about six days the peat, which is then
sufficiently dry, is brought to an adjacent " dry press ,: to be
pressed (?) and kept (?) for use. The so-called dry press has,
however, nothing in common with either the drying or the
pressing of peat and is therefore as misleading a term for the
contrivance as the name peat briquettes is for the product.

1 If a peat should contain such admixtures as these it is better to let it
rest quietly in the bog, going on with its conversion into coal ; it should not
be disturbed for conversion into peat fuel. In any case the peat fibres
should be left as fuel in the peat.

(2595)

M

154 THE WINNING OF PEAT

The " dry press" consists of a beam with a board (!) over it,
" weighted in all cases with some stones or bricks," between
which the sods (in layers of 10 to 15) are placed, piled over one
another, on their flat sides. " As all the edges were exposed to
the air, the " briquettes " contracted gradually, while the edges
of the flat sides, subjected to the counter-pressure, could not turn
up. As they did not, however, contract suddenly, their splitting
and crumbling were avoided."

No detailed consideration of this ' ' solution of the peat problem ' '
is necessary. It is to be deplored that reports and statements of
this character have had circulation in serious German publications
without attention being drawn to their errors. Just as inappro-
priate according to the above as the machinery and processes
utilized appear to be for the winning of this mud or pulped peat,
so also are the assumptions on which the table of costs is based.
With one overseer, one night watchman, fourteen labourers and
two horses, 20 cb. m. of dry peat, i.e., 10,000 to 12,000 kilos of dry
sods, are said to be made in 11 hours from 150 cb. m. of peat pulp.
For this purpose there were required : One cutting machine with
a mixer and an elevating mechanism, four " wash-outs," 60 filter
frames, four exit sieves, 20 wooden trellises, 300 drying trestles,
two cars, 30 scrapers, three " schock " of boards, rails, sidings,
utensils, &c, costing altogether 13,000M. In the estimate the
wages for 11 hours are for a man 1-62M. and for a woman
1-08M., amounts which are not even half of the corresponding
sums paid for eleven hours' work in every machine-formed peat
factory. Nevertheless, even in this estimate the cost of manufac-
ture, including petty expenses, for 100 kilos of the peat is 0-60M.

The product of Galecki's process is, as the above description
clearly shows, simply a machine-pulped or machine-mud peat
produced in a very roundabout manner by means of a cutting
and a mixing machine, then cut into separate sods, and finally
dried on trestles. It has no advantages over machine-pulped
peat, and is also very much dearer than the latter.

III. — Fully Automatic or Large Scale Industry Peat
Machines with Dredgers and Automatic Sod Spreaders

The idea of combining the peat machine with a dredger (see
p. 130) in order to reduce the number of workmen employed
was realized first by Mecke and Sander, and afterwards by
Schlickeysen. It has since been taken up by others, who
have still further diminished the number of workmen required by
effecting the transport of the fresh sods to the drying ground and
the spreading of them there by the machine itself, that is, by
means of automatic sod spreaders. Owing to the increasing
scarcity of labourers for agricultural industries, the necessity of
putting the peat industry on a secure basis and of decreasing
the cost of winning, especially in the case of great industries — for
example, those of gasification, coking, bog power stations, &c. —
this is to be regarded as a notable development of peat machinery

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 155

Although the employment of peat dredgers instead of human
labour for cutting and throwing the peat into the conveyers is
difficult in the case of unripe bogs abounding in wood and roots,
and in many cases cannot be carried out at all, it may, however,
be assumed that in the case of ripe, well-humified peat, free from
considerable quantities of roots and wood, peat dredgers of this
class give satisfactory results, especially when the bog consists
mainly of bituminous or mud peat. If undecomposed roots or
other woody parts are contained in the bog, these will cause
considerable derangement for the whole industry, since disturbance
of the working, both for the machinery and its attendants, occurs
whenever the dredger fails or is temporarily thrown out of gear
to allow of the obstacles being removed by hand. When the
dredging peat machines are fitted with automatic sod transporters
and spreaders, the many workmen otherwise required for wheeling
and spreading the sods on the drying ground are dispensed with,
and therefore a temporary cessation of disturbance of the industry,
owing to the machine's inability to dredge, is no longer so
important as it was in the case of the earlier dredging peat
machines, which were not furnished with sod spreaders.

By contact of the dredging scrapers with more or less large
obstacles (root stems, stones, &c), parts of the dredger may be
injured. To prevent this the driving gear may, with advantage,
be provided with a friction clutch or safety pulley by means of
which, when the occasion arises, the driving power is automatically
thrown out of gear, if not completely stopped (as in the case of
an electric motor), by the big resistance until the obstacle is
removed.

Among fully automatic or large scale industry machines of
this class, which are already in use apparently with good results,
may be mentioned : —

1. — Wielandt's Peat-dredging and Forming Machine

Dr. W. Wielandt, of Oldenburg, was one of the first to provide
his peat-dredging and forming machine with a sod spreader.
The machine (Fig. 67) rests on a frame which has a uniform
forward motion of 15 to 20 m. an hour over a field railway of
60 cm. gauge. It consists of a double-spiral mixing and forming
machine to which the peat is brought by a bucket dredger
connected obliquely with the forming machine and working to
a depth of 2 to 5 m. and a width of 0-8 to 1 -2 m., of a sod cutter,
and also of a sod spreader which is connected with the frame and
is 20 to 30 m. in length. The latter consists of a conveyer belt,
formed of plates, which catches the peat sods at the mouthpiece
and as soon as the band, loaded with sods, has reached the end
of the spreader throws the sods over the whole width of the drying
ground.1 The machine and frame at the same time move forwards.

1 Although the peat sods on being tipped cannot be said to keep their
shape so well as Fig. 67 indicates, they do so, however, to an extent which
is amply sufficient for the operations of drying and utilizing the peat.

156 THE WINNING OF PEAT

All the parts — dredger, mixing machine, sod cutter and spreader
— are driven generally by electricity, by the machine itself.
A revolving " stripper " is combined with the machine in the case
of bogs which have not been " stripped." By its means the layer
to be stripped is shaved off and thrown sideways into the
working trench.

A peat-dredging and forming machine of this class weighs
(without the driving machine, electro-motor, gas-engine, or loco-
motive 8,000 to 10,000 kilos and costs 17,000M. to 22,000M.
It requires 25 to 35 h.p. During the work the dredger can be
elevated or lowered and inclined more obliquely or more acutely.
It can be raised and placed crosswise when the machine is being
moved from one trench to another. If the bog contains wood
the slope of the narrow working trench (approximately 1 m.)
must be searched by one or two workmen for any wood which
may be contained in it, and this, if present, removed.

As the surface dredged has a width of only about 1 m. the
peat fed to the machine is relatively drier than that from ordinary
working trenches of 3 to 5 m. in width and, therefore, the formed
peat thus won requires a shorter time for drying. Accordingly,
it is said that peat winning with this machine can be continued
until September, and that the season may, therefore, be assumed
to have a duration of 140 days. The drying of the sods after
spreading is facilitated by their pentagonal or oval cross-section,,
which allows the rain to flow away more or less easily. The
length of the working day may, without difficulty, be increased
to eighteen hours, since few labourers are required.

Experience gained by this method indicates that the peat
spread by the machine can be clamped after one to two weeks.
After a further two weeks it can be removed from the bog in
an almost air-dry condition. The same drying ground may thus
be used four to six times in a single season so that with a yearly
output of 10,000 m. tons of fuel peat and a drying ground 30 m.
in width one double-sided trench (two cutting surfaces) 3 km. in
length appears to be sufficient.

Since 1909 several of these machines have been in operation
at Wielandt's Peat Coking Factory at Elisabethfehn, and at the
Johannisburg Peat Factory near Papenburg, also amongst others
at the Oldenburg Clinker "Works in Bockhorn, at the Royal Salt
Works at Rosenheim, at the Hesep Peat Factory near Meppen.
In the last-named factory the two machines first installed are said
to have given such satisfaction that seven more have been ordered.
A preliminary condition for a satisfactory output from this
machine is that the bog should be as free as possible from wood
and roots, otherwise the output of the dredger will be decreased.

The peat-dredging machines of the Elisabethfehn works were
at first driven by benzine engines, which at the end of the season
(September) were empk^ed as locomotives for the transport of
the peat over the railway to the factory, &c Since 1914 the
peat dredgers have been driven by electricity, the machines giving
greater outputs and the cost of labour being decreased.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 157

In the summer of 1914, apparently one such machine of the
intermediate type, working on day shifts only, gave 5,370 m. tons
of air-dried sods of peat. According to the statements of the
manager the cost of dredging, mixing and spreading the wet
sods on the drying field, so far as wages to labourers were con-
cerned, was 0-61M. for every metric ton of air-dried peat. The
drying required 13-05M., the delivery 9-77M., and other costs
were 3-67M. for a railway wagon load (10 m. tons), so that 1 m. ton
of air-dried peat delivered at the factory cost 3-26M. If we add
the cost of electric current1 and that due to amortization of the
cost of the peat-winning plant, the total cost at the factory of
the air-dried peat is about 4M. per metric ton, a price which may
be diminished by increasing the size of the machine or by working
better (i.e., denser) peat, free from roots.

Fig. 67. — Wielandt's peat-dredging machine with sod spreader.

Professor Keppeler and Dr. Birk2 obtained somewhat different
results in a trial made with a similar machine in July, 1914,
at the Peat Coke Company's bog at Elisabethfehn. The results of
the trial, which lasted two days and was attended by unavoidable
stoppages and interruptions, were calculated on the assumption
that a full ten-hour day had been worked.

The dredger and the machine worked about 400 m. tons of raw
peat and required the service of one dredger guide (5M. a day),
one preparer (4M.), and three rail layers (3M. each).

The 400 m. tons of raw peat, the percentages of water and

dry matter in which were 92-82 and 7-18 respectively, contained,

therefore, 28-72 or, approximately, 29 m. tons of dry peat, and

29x100 „ e . , . , ,,

gave- = 41-4 m. tons of air-dried peat containing the

6 100-30

30 per cent, of water which was usually found in it.

1 Most of the current could be generated from the excess coke-oven
gases, and, moreover, on the average it was only 18 kw. costing approxi-
mately 25 Pfg.) for each machine.

2 Mitteilungen, 1915, No. 10.

158 THE WINNING OF PEAT

The sod conveyer and spreader laid on the drying ground
1 ,595 rows containing on an average 40 sods each and, therefore,
63,800 sods with an average weight of 6-26 kilos each.

With an initial cost of 15,000M. for the machine and 5.000M.
for the motor, accessories and cable, that is altogether 20,000M.,
and allowing 3,000M., that is 15 per cent., for interest and
amortization, we have : —

Marks.

Interest for 1 shift of 10 hours . . . . .. 30-00

Current, 10 X 10 (?) kw.-h. at 0-45M 4-50

Wages (as reckoned above) . . . . . . 18-00

Total . . 52-50

and the cost of 1 m. ton of dry peat, spread wet on the field, was,

therefore, about 2M.

When " stripping" is not effected by the machine itself, as

happened in the trial, the wages of three more labourers must

61-5

be added (9M.) making — = 2-20M.

28-72

To the cost of the drying operations we must add those for
' heaping," " rowing," transporting, and storing, which amounts
to 1-2M. for 1 m. ton of air-dried peat or 1-71M. for 1 m. ton of
anhydrous peat. The total costs are, therefore, 2-2 plus 1-71
= 3-91M. for 1 m. ton of anhydrous, or 2-80M. for 1 m. ton of
air-dried peat containing 30 per cent, of moisture.

We can see, however, from this, as also from the comparison
of costs in Section V, F, that the cost of winning calculated from
a more or less short trial, even when this lasts several days, will
be below the cost actually found in a trial lasting a season and
is, therefore, not to be taken unreservedly as the average cost for
a whole year's operation.

2. — The Strenge Large Scale Industry Machine with Sod Spreader

As already mentioned on p. 149, W. K. Strenge, of Ocholt,
has constructed the Strenge peat-dredging machine in its new
form, Model 1910, Model 1912, and Model 1914-15, as a peat-
forming machine and has at the same time changed the pulp
peat spreader into a sod spreader to enable a large scale industry
to become commercially more satisfactory. Originally, the Strenge
peat-dredging machine was built and employed as a pulp peat
machine. Fig. 68a shows such a machine with a sod spreader
and also with peat sods tipped on the drying ground. In this,
as in the older Strenge machines, the dredger is suspended by
a pulley-block, as in Fig. 68, on the conveying channel, which
is also suspended by pulley-blocks on its supporting brackets.1
In this way the dredger, which is driven by means of a removable
square shaft by the power driving the whole machine, can be
adjusted to the various depths of dredging. The dredger working
with a vertical chain, being adjustable and displaceable, allows
of a dredging depth up to 4 m. and a cutting breadth of 3 to 4 m.

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 159

Sometimes two dredgers work alongside one another with one con-
veyer. The mixing and forming machine is a double-spiral one
and presses the kneaded peat mass through a seven to nine sod
mouthpiece. As the peat bands issue from the mixing machine
they pass, according to the 1912 model, to a sliding board inclined
to the side at an angle of 90° and kept slippery by water dropping
on it. In the 1914-15 model the peat passes to the sod spreader
after it has been cut into sod lengths by an automatically
moving paddle or water wheel. In the earlier types the sod
spreader was usually only 30 m. in length, but in that of 1914-15
it can be constructed up to 75 m. in length according to the
width of the drying ground. It consists of an endless Gall's chain
which returns, when empty, to the mouthpiece of the machine, and
the plates of which, when the whole tipping line is filled with sods,
are tipped by means of a lever. In this way the sods are spread on
the drying ground and, indeed, in the 1912 model the sods are

Fig. 68. — Strenge's peat-dredging machine with peat pulp spreader.

usually end on towards the front. The sods can also be laid flat,
as in the 1914-15 model, which, having no sliding board, throws
the sods directly on to the drying ground. The speed of the
spreading belt can be adjusted by hand or electrically to the
speed of the emerging peat band. This ensures uniformity and
continuity of the j)eat band on the belt as it runs out. The
sod-cutting wheel runs on ball bearings and can be set in motion
only by the peat band. The frame which supports the moving
Gall's chain is arranged in a transportable manner and is moved
forward by a power winch as the dredger advances. As the
machine digs trenches with vertical walls in the bog, it is possible
to throw the stripped upper layer easily and with little expense on
the cut-away surface. So far as position is concerned, the safety
of the machine, which is heavy in itself, is ensured by laying the
rails for the machine and motor about 7 m. from the edge of the
bank and by putting the motor in front of the cut-out trench.
The machine is said to win and work 20 cb. m. of raw bog every
hour, and for this purpose a 35 to 40 h.p. locomotive or a 60 h.p.

160

THE WINNING OF PEAT

electro-motor is required. All the operations are effected by power
from a single source. In addition to the mechanic the operations
require three labourers for laying the rails, two for stripping the
bog, one for tipping the sod spreader, two or three girls at the
machine to prevent more or less large roots or pieces of wood
from getting into it, one girl at the pump for feeding the
machine, and one girl for regulating the speed of the spreading
belt. Altogether, there are the peat ganger and ten to twelve
labourers, including five or six girls.

Machines of this type are also constructed for small industries.
These have a dredger width of only 1 m., are adjustable for
depth, and have sod spreaders 30 m. in length. The older
machines of the 1910 and 1912 models have been recently altered
to the 1914-15 type.

In the case of a large scale industry machine with an output of
5,000 m. tons of air-dry peat for a season, the expenses attached
to 1 m. ton of air-dry peat, containing 20 to 30 per cent, of water,
are given as follows (it is assumed that wages are 40 to 45 Pfg.
an hour for men and 25 to 30 Pfg. for women, that a locomotive
is used for driving, and that the width of the layer to be stripped
is about 1 m.) : —

Marks.

Wages for attendants at the machine

0-80

Wages for " piling "

0-55

Wages for " clamping "

0-40

" Waste " peat for heating

. .

0-25

Transport of peat (2 km.) . .

. .

0-45

Salary of overseer

0-20

Repairs

0-20

Contributions for insurance

■ . . .

0-05

Amortization of machine (30,000M

. at 10 percent.

) 0-60

Amortization of bog

. .

0-20

Contingencies

. .

0-30

Total for 1 m. ton

4 • 00

(calculated on the basis of the usual daily output, which, however,
according to practical experience, is greater than the average
for the year's output, and therefore the average cost per metric
ton of the peat for the whole year will be somewhat higher
(cf. Section V, F.) A benzine locomotive with tip wagon is
provided for drawing the dry peat to the stores or the place
where it is utilized. The value of the bog has been assumed as
500M. for a hectare. One cubic metre of air-dry peat (loosely
packed) weighs about 350 kilos.

These machines, with sod spreaders 30 to 50 m. in length,
were used in 1912 at Strenge's Peat Factory at Ocholt, and
similar machines, with sod spreaders 75 m. in length, were used
in 1913-14 at a bog fairly rich in wood in Russia, and at the
Schweger Moor Power Station near Osnabruck. A machine
with a sod spreader 65 m. long and a double dredger, or with
two dredgers working alongside one another at different depths
in a bog rich in wood, and which was intended for day and night
work, was used in 1914-15 at Raubling Peat Factory (Upper

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT

161

Bavaria), and at Wiesmoor Peat Factory, near Aurich. In recent
times these machines are also built with a rear stripper, which,
as the dredger advances, places the layer, which has been stripped
to a depth of 1 to 1| m., back into the cut-away portion in a regular
manner and as wide as is necessary for the subsequent agricultural
industry. For such a machine (electrically driven) with an output
every ten hours of 120,000 sods, 40 x 12 x 11 cm., a gang of five
persons is said to be required, including one dredger guide,
three rail layers (also employed in other work), and one spreader
guide. Working day and night, the output of one of these
machines may, according to the nature of the bog (!), amount
to 10,000 m. tons of dry peat. The older machines have mean-
while been altered, as already stated, to the latest 1914-15 model.
A large scale industry machine of this class with a spreader
75 m. in length weighs approximately 28,000 kilos and costs
(without locomotive or electro-motor) about 30,000M.

m

Fig. 68a. — Strenge's large scale machine with sod spreader.

3. — The Baumann-Schenck Peat-dredging Machine with

Sod Spreader

This machine (see Figs. 69 and 70), designed by Fr. Baumann,
of Mannheim, and constructed at the machine factory of
Charles Schenck, of Darmstadt, consists also of a dredger and
conveyer for bringing the dredged peat to the double-spiral
mixing and forming machine. The latter is provided with a
sod former, by means of which the sods are " formed " by knives
acting radially in an iron drum containing twelve chambers.
By " forming " and arranging the sods at the side of the cover
of the drum their separation is said to be facilitated and ensured.

162

THE WINNING OF PEAT

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WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 163

The sods pass from the sod former under the drum to the lower
belt of the sod spreader, which has a length of up to 100 m., and
is described in more detail and also illustrated in Section V, A, 4.
One of these machines has been installed in the peat factory of
the Royal Rosenheim Salt Works at Raubling Bog.1 It is said
to deliver, form and spread in a second three sods having a volume
of 5*4 1. and a length of 10 cm.

In spite of the unavoidable stoppages due to working troubles,
the average hourly output of this machine amounts to 35 to
40 cb. m. of formed peat, and for this amount five labourers
are required, viz., two men at the dredger, one man at the spreader,
and two or three men for moving forward the rails. When the
whole belt is full the motor is thrown out of gear and the sods
(approximately 500) are spread by means of a hand wheel from
the driver's box, the operation requiring about half a minute. In
the new t}'pes the spreading is said to take place automatically
during the working of the machine. The dredger, unlike those
of the Wielandt and Strenge machines, which operate from below
upwards, dredges from above downwards. The object of this is
to disintegrate more fully the upper, tougher layer of peat and
to mix it with the lower layers. The buckets of the dredger at
Rosenheim are provided with sharp, rigidly fixed knives, so that
roots of 5 cm. thickness, unless they give way and pass into the
buckets, are easily cut into pieces 4 cm. in length. Searching
for roots when these are present in the bog requires constant
attention, and an attempt has been made to avoid it by replacing
the dredger by a multiple-disc cutter. The price of the whole
machine is about 30,000M. A 40 h.p. alternating current machine
serves as motor for the mixing machine and the spreader and
a similar one of 20 h.p. for the dredger.

Feeling that, especially in bogs containing wood, dredging peat
is not the best way of working, Baumann is at present employed
in constructing a peat-sawing machine which is supposed to be
much cheaper and also to require fewer labourers than the large
scale industry dredging machine. As the results of experiments
which have been made, it may be expected that a uniform, well-
mixed, heavy, air-dry peat, having a density of 1 to 1-1, will be
won even in the case of a raw peat which is light and of little value.
The characteristic digging implements are light saw drums, which
are arranged over one another in groups of three or four on a
movable beam placed against the side of the trench. The peat,
after being cut, is delivered by means of a belt conveyer to the
mixing and forming machine. To cut the necessary amount of
peat from the side of the trench, the machine requires a forward
motion of 1*5 to 2 cm. a second and this is also the depth of the
cut. The screw-shaped, wound-up, angle-irons of the sawing
wheels have a diameter of 2| m. and are provided with sharp-
edged ribbon saw blades. As each tooth describes a circle

1 Cf . the description of the peat factory of the Rosenheim Salt Works
in Section V, G.

164

THE WINNING OF PEAT

different from the others, the whole surface is covered, the some-
what strongly grown roots being said to offer enough resistance
to permit of their being chopped sufficiently small by the cutters.
A group of cutters working the whole surface of the trench wall
has over 100 m. of cutting edge and a mean velocity of 4 m.
instead of the 2 to 3 m. of cutting edge and the 0*5 m. velocity
of the buckets of the ordinary peat dredgers hitherto used. Hence
a considerable increase in output, in addition to continuous
working, is believed to be possible.

It remains to be seen whether these hopes will be realized in
operations extending over a considerable period.

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Fig. 70. — Baumann-Schenck large scale machine with sod spreader.

4. — The Large Scale Industry Peat Machine of R. Dolberg and Co.

The machine, which is illustrated in Fig. 71 (only half the
length of the sod spreader is, however, shown), consists, when
viewed from left to right, of a transportable trestle support for
a dredger bridge on which rest a dredger, moving in and out,
and a rigid conveying channel of a peat-mixing and forming
machine with a sod cutter, transportable support and railway
track, and of the sod spreader, which has a length of 50 to 60 m.
and which is supported by four cars and a railway track. The
dredger bridge is suspended at the supporting car on two pulley-
blocks and by this means the dredger can be raised or lowered.
The bridge has a length of 16 m. whereby slipping of the vertical
face of the bank is prevented since no violent vibration reaches
the dangerous zone. The spreader starts from the mouthpiece
where it is supported on the car under the machine. It consists
of a latticed iron frame, carrying the endless band and capable
of being rotated as a whole round its long axis. To prevent
bending and to enable it to be moved forward with the dredging
machine along the dredging bank, it is supported at its end and

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 165

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166

THE WINNING OF PEAT

at three intermediate points (therefore every 14 to 15 m.) in
' turn rings " on field railway cars. The crude peat won and
raised by the dredger from a face about 5 m. in width and up to
4 m. in depth is brought through the channel of the conveyer
to the mixing machine, from the quintuple mouthpiece of which
it emerges and passes, after division into separate sods by
a cutter, to the conveying belt of the spreader. This consists
of an endless Gall's chain driven by an electro-motor at the
end of the spreader, and which can be held up at any moment
either for tipping the spreader or owing to a stoppage due to
any cause. With a suitable depth of bog (at Wiesmoor approxi-
mately 2 m.) the whole length of the spreader is filled within
four minutes. When this is attained, the workman in the turret-
shaped power car at the end of the belt signals the fact, the

Fig. 72. — Drying ground covered with sods from an automatic sod spreader.

mixing machine is thrown out of gear, and the whole spreader
(latticed support and band) is rotated by a man on an elevated
platform in the middle of the spreader, who at the same time
puts into action the electro-motors in the supporting rings on the
field railway cars. In this way the whole quintuple band of peat
which has been cut into separate sods is spread on the drying
field. The spreading of the peat band and the return of the
spreader to its original position by further rotation in the same
direction takes only forty seconds. The whole machine must
then be moved forward 50 cm. to 60 cm. by automatic driving of
the transporting frame of the mixing machine and of the four
supporting cars of the spreader.

When the work proceeds smoothly and the band is emptied
fifteen times every hour, the output of the machine is said to be
100 cb. m. of raw peat in ten hours. By exchanging the driving
wheels this output may be further increased. The six railway
tracks necessary for moving forward the whole machine must be

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 167

laid as the work proceeds, and this is best done once a day, either
in the morning or in the evening. For working the machine the
following are required : One man each at the supporting car,
the dredger, the mixing machine, the middle of the spreader and
the end of the spreader, making a total of five men and one
overseer. The electro-motors required for driving are a 13 h.p.
motor for the dredger, a 20 h.p. one for the mixing machine,
a 10 h.p. one for the spreading band, and a 10 h.p. one for rotating
the spreader and moving forward the dredger bridge support,
amounting in all to about 50 h.p.

Fig. 72 shows a drying field covered with sods by means of
an automatic spreader.

In order to ensure the greatest possible smoothness in working,
it has been found from the experiments carried out at Wiesmoor
with the first machine of this kind that several alterations were
necessary.

5. — Other Large Scale Industry Machines

In Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Russia, and Canada, the well-
known forming or field press peat machines have been provided
with the dredgers of Ekelund, Munktell, and x\nrep, and the more
or less automatic peat spreaders or sod transporters of Jakobsson,
Korner, Eslof, Persson, and others, with a view to converting
them into large scale industry machines. The details of these
machines, with the exception of the Jakobsson spreader and sod
cutter for field press peat described on p. 152, do not differ much
from those just described. (See also particulars under Patents,
Section VII.)

F. — Machine Peat Powder and Machine Peat Dust for

Fuel Purposes

H. Ekelund, of Jonkoping, believes he has solved the problem
of burning peat by winning the peat by machines, not in the form
of sods but in that of powder or dust, and burning it in furnaces
as coal dust is burnt in the well-known coal-dust furnaces. The
engineer E. Nystrom reports1 on a factory of this class erected
near Back, in Sweden, by the Aktiebolaget Torg, as follows :
" The peat is won with two different peat-dredging machines.
One of them is on the upper surface of the bog. It consists of
a dredger, a kneader, and a conveyer, which places the peat pulp
into the tipping car for transport to the drying field. The machine,
which weighs 18 to 20 m. tons, requires a gang of eight men and
has an output of 40 cb. m. per hour. The other machine is on
the cut-away surface, and has also an output of 40 cb. m. of peat
per hour. The machines are driven electrically from the electric
power station for which the peat winning is intended. The
dredged and kneaded peat pulp is brought in tipping cars by

1 " Anlaggning och Fabrikation of Torfpulver vid Back," Jara-Kontoretts
Annaler, 1910, No. 7, p. 587.

168 THE WINNING OF PEAT

means of small petroleum locomotives to the drying field, where
it is tipped, levelled with an electrically driven ' smoother ' or
' leveller,' and cut first into strips and finally into sods. The
dredging machine and the 'leveller' together require 75 h. p.
The peat is next clamped, and when air-dry it is collected into
the sheds. From here the air-dry peat (with 30 to 50 per cent,
of moisture) is brought in tipping cars (holding 1 cb. m.) by means
of a ropeway to the floor of the factory immediately above the
crushing machine, where it is thrown into a coarse crusher, from
which it passes to a fine crusher. By the aid of an elevator the
well-ground and sifted peat powder is brought to the drying
ovens, where it is dried until it contains about 15 per cent, of
moisture. It is again ground and sifted, so that finally a very
fine powder is obtained, which, when packed in closely woven
sacks, is ready for transport. The factory is designed for a yearly
output of 10,000 m. tons. The results show that in the case
of peat dried beforehand to 50 per cent, of moisture the daily
output is 15 m. tons of powder, containing 12 to 13 per cent, of
moisture, and in the case of peat containing 40 per cent, of moisture
the output in the same time is 21 m. tons. The powder required
as fuel amounts in the first case to 12 per cent, and in the second
to 9 per cent, of the finished product. Hence a metric ton of the
peat powder containing 15 per cent, of .moisture costs 8-50 to
9-50 kr., including interest, writing off, &c. The weight of 1 hi.
of peat dust, packed in sacks, is 35 to 44 kilos. The installation
costs are given as 150,000 kr."

The economic success of a factory of this kind is not impossible
in Sweden, where coal is dear and wages low. In Germany the
installation and working costs would be considerably higher,
and even in Sweden these costs of manufacture would generally
be greater than those given above, since the bog at Back is
peculiarly adapted for the manufacture of peat powder.

After several experiments with peat-firing for locomotives,
the Swedish State Railways Department has decided to acquire
a peat bog at Hasthagen, not far from Lake Wettern, with
a view to manufacturing peat powder for continuous use on its
railways. About 20,000 m. tons of peat powder are to be used
yearly in the locomotives of the Fallkoping-Nassjo railway line,
which is approximately 100 km. long and runs on the southern
shore of Lake Wettern. The bog contents will suffice for about
twenty years, and at the end of this time the cut-away bog will,
as arable land, have a value of 45,000M. The calorific power
of peat powder is said to be two-thirds that of coal, and the
manufacturing costs correspond to a price of 20M. (per metric ton)
for coal at Jonkoping railway station, or 17-55M. at Gothenburg
(on the Cattegat). The costs of the whole lay-out are given
at approximately 1,150,000M., including purchase of land and
alteration of the locomotive furnaces (Zeitungdes Vereins Dentscher
Eisenbahnvencalfitngen, April 29, 1916).

The statements in the foot-note on p. xix may be supplemented
by the following : " The Vako Bog belongs to a company for the

WINNING OF ARTIFICIAL, PRESS, AND MACHINE PEAT 169

manufacture of peat powder by the method of Porat-Odelstierna
(somewhat different from that of Ekelund), which was tested at
Riihimacki, in Finland, and is perhaps somewhat better than that
of Ekelund. The ground peat is dried by air heated by peat gas
furnaces. The company obtained a loan of 500,000 kr. from the
State. The Solwosborg-Almhut railway is not a State railway."

(2595)

Section V

DETAILS OF WINNING AND PROPERTIES
OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT

A. — On some Important Particulars with regard to Peat

Machines and their Use

In this Section we describe the component parts, such as
knives, forming pieces and cutting contrivances common to
all peat machines and on the nature of which the output of
the machine depends both in quantity and in quality. Special
importance is therefore to be attached to their being suitably
constructed. The peat machines described in the previous sections
in so far resemble each other that the chief component which
is known to be suitable in the case of one kind of machine
can be transferred either unchanged, as in the case of the cutting
contrivances, or with unimportant alterations, as in the case of
knives and forming pieces, to another type of machine.

In the following the contrivances hitherto employed, with
their advantages and defects, will be described in detail so that
by paying attention to the statements made here we shall, as
occasion requires, be able to select the type which is best suited
for the attainment of commercially successful results.

1. — On Knives and Screws

If a peat machine is to provide from the very start for all
the demands to be made on it, especially with regard to the
treatment of every kind of peat, the mode of action of the knives
or screws fixed on its main shaft must be a fourfold one, and must
consist of —

(1) Crushing and tearing the lumps, hard or felted pieces of
peat, and semi-humified plant remains contained in the raw peat.

(2) Cutting (in the proper meaning of the word) the fibres of
moss, wood and sedge such as occur in a slightly humified fibrous
peat or a humified peat containing a large amount of impurities
of this kind.

(3) Mixing and kneading dissimilar peat layers into a mass of
the greatest possible uniformity. .

(4) Pushing the peat inside the machine from the hopper to
the mouth and (in forming machines) pressing it out through the
mouthpiece with the object of " forming " the peat.

In the case of the machines which are in use, these four
conditions are only partially fulfilled — frequently only those
mentioned under (1) and (4) are satisfied — and this is why many
peat machines, even amongst those still employed, although

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 171

suitable for the treatment of marsh or mould peat are not so
for that of fibrous peat.

In the machines which have been described in detail in the
preceding section —

(1) The mixing and kneading effect is produced by the revolu-
tion of a shaft, provided with separate screws or knives, in a vat
or cylinder which is filled with peat. Hence it depends on the
number of revolutions made by the shaft for the amount of peat
which passes through the machine, and therefore in the case of
different machines it is all the greater and the more complete the
greater the number of the revolutions of the knife shaft for a given
amount of peat. In the case of the machines described above,
100 1. has been taken as the unit for this determination ; the
number of revolutions corresponding to this unit, according to the
calculations made for the various machines,1 is from 18 to 140,
and the mixing actions of the machines are in the same ratio as
these numbers. The knives and screws of the various machines
differ so little from one another in construction and arrangement,
so far as mixing is concerned, that we cannot attribute to the
one or the other form a considerably greater or smaller action
for a single revolution of the screw shaft. The rotation numbers
determined for the different machines suffice therefore for the
comparison of the mixing effects.

(2) The crushing and tearing action of the machines is due to
the fact that the rough and broad surfaces of the knives or screws
glide near fixed walls or parts of machines (counter-knives, cross-
stops, &c.) specially made for this purpose and grind the peat
through the narrow intervening space. They thus crush the peat,
seize the fibres and roots adhering to fixed parts of the machine in
the case of single-shaft machines or in the case of the double-shaft
machines any that may adhere to parts of the machine which
are in motion in opposite directions and (in the most favourable
case) tear up these fibres. This action takes place chiefly owing
to the motion of cast-iron or cast-steel screw blades, 15 to
20 mm. thick, inside a cylindrical cover fitting closely round
them either at the counter-knives which have been inserted or
where the various knives of one screw shaft strike through the
corresponding spaces of a second shaft.

The action increases with the area of the gliding and crushing
surfaces and with the number of striking edges to which the
crushing and tearing are due. The action of the latter is again
directly proportional to the rotation number of the knife shaft.

Consequently the crushing and tearing action of a peat machine,
like its mixing action, increases with the number of revolutions
of its knife shafts corresponding to a given amount of peat, and
therefore for different machines their crushing actions are in the
same ratio as their mixing actions. For mixing machines which
differ in construction the number of striking edges or separate
knives has also to be taken into account.

1Ci. pp. 112-135.

172

THE WINNING OF PEAT

(3) A cutting action, which in the case of a fibrous raw material
is indispensable for the quantity and the quality of the output,
and also certainty of tearing action, can never be attained with the
knives and knife shafts of peat machines by mere motion (even of
knives as sharp as razors)1 through the peat, but can only occur
when —

(a) Either their sharp edges (sickles), like those of real knives,
strike through peat which is held in position by some or other
contrivance (cross-stops or counter-knives), or when the peat
fibres are compelled to glide along the former, when they are
cut as it by a saw ; or

(b) When thick (blunt) knives, with edges like those of a pair of
scissors, while rotating with the shaft are moved quite close past
similarly shaped knives, which are either stationary or rotate
in the opposite direction, at an angle which is less than 40°,
as in the case of the long or the circular shears (Fig. 73).

The preservation of sharp, sickle-shaped edges, according to (a),
is, in the case of peat machines, a very difficult if not quite
an insoluble problem. Most of the cast-iron, wrought-iron, or
cast-steel knives or screws met with in the peat machines hitherto
employed have front edges from 3 to 10 mm. in thickness, and
do not conform to the first condition. Therefore, a real cutting
action can never be attained by their means although all the
manufacturers ascribe this property in a more or less high degree
to their machines ; nor is this in any way improved by bringing
either, as in the single-shaft machines, a stationary flat or round
bar between two of these rotating knives past which the latter
strike at a distance of 5 mm., or, as in the double-shaft machines,
by letting them strike through at the same distance from the
various knives of an adjacent shaft.

Of the other peat machines hitherto used only that of Lucht,
the horizontal machines of Schlickeysen and Heinen with pre-
liminary tearers, the Dolberg machine, and machines like these
with lower counter-knives contain knives which exert a cutting

action according to paragraph (b), the
front edges of which, as may be seen
from Fig. 73, strike closely past the
stationary counter-knives, thus trying
to attain and render possible a shearing
action and therefore a mincing and an
advantageous working of fibrous peat.
An estimate of the cutting and shear-
ing action of different machines can be
obtained from the number of clipping knives fastened to the
knife shafts and the rotation number of the latter. For purpose
of comparison, the figures to be used should be those obtained

Fig. 73. — -Shearing knife.

1 With the materials hitherto used for knives, east-iron, wrought-iron,
cast-steel, and the like, such sharp knives can neither be made nor
kept sharp ; these so-called knives therefore, always have working edges
3 to 10 mm. in thickness.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 173

by multiplying the rotation number for 100 1. by the number of
clipping knives.

It can be seen, therefore, that in every case, in addition to the
number of the several front edges of the screw blades which exert
a shearing action, the number of revolutions of the knife shaft
corresponding to a definite amount of peat (100 I.) which may be
called the comparative rotation number of the knife shaft, directly
affects the quality of the peat machine's output, and that therefore
the rotation number is the chief thing to be considered when an
opinion is to be formed with regard to either a peat machine already
constructed or a new one about to be built.

Nevertheless, the increase in the mixing and tearing action
relative to that of the corresponding comparative rotation number
has its limits, so that finally the expenditure of power required
for the larger number of revolutions does not bear an economically
favourable ratio to the increased mixing action due to it. Although
a definite value cannot be assigned to this limit, which varies
for different kinds of peat, it has been ascertained from results
obtained with machines which were working well that in these
cases 80 to 120 revolutions correspond to 100 1. of the peat. Of
course, when making calculations, only that part of a machine
and its volume in which there is a shaft provided with knives
must be taken into consideration. A calculation such as this,
when made for various machines, shows at once that, other
conditions remaining the same, the mixing action, and therefore
the quality of a machine peat produced from a given raw peat,
are the poorer —

(a) The greater the diameter of the cylinder of the peat
machine in question ;

(b) The shorter the part of its knife shaft or screw shaft which
is mounted with knives ;

(c) The fewer the separate knives or blades present ;

(d) The greater the amount of the peat to be treated by the
machine in a given time.

These are facts which, if not taken into account when the
machine is being selected, usually become apparent only after
close observation over a considerable working period and, some-
times, as experience again and again proves, in a manner by no
means to the advantage of the winning.

The fact that with various kinds of machines otherwise
famed for their large outputs the peat produced still leaves much
to be desired, inasmuch as the sods during the earlier drying
period may break up rather easily and fall apart owing to the
action of rain and in the later drying may split, easily tearing
and crumbling, is to be attributed solely to the slight mixing and
kneading action of the machines. The greater the latter action
the greater is the power of resistance towards rainfall of the
freshly formed peat and the smoother, firmer and denser the dry
peat will be and the more it will consist of unbroken sods.

Only in the case of pulp peat machines is the mixing of the
knife shafts rotating in them considerably increased by addition

174 THE WINNING OF PEAT

of water to the raw peat. By this treatment the peat, which in
itself already contains 80 per cent, or more of water, is disintegrated
by the rapid motion of the screw shafts, mixed intimately with the
added water and minutely distributed by the circulation through
it of a relatively large amount of water from which it can settle
uniformly and become dense during the slow evaporation of the
water which occurs later. In this way a fuel is obtained which
is as good as machine-formed peat, although the crushing and
cutting action of the pulp peat machines owing to the type of
screw shaft hitherto used is nearly always considerably less than
that of the machines now generally employed for the production
of machine-formed peat.

The cross-stops and counter-knives inserted in the other
machines at fixed distances from the rotating knives generally
only prevent the peat from twining round the knife shaft and
from rotating with the latter in the part of the cylinder in question.
Thev have a beneficial action on the mixing power of the machine,
and only in the most favourable case, when working with fibres,
roots, and plant remains which have been already half humified,
are they able to effect even a partial tearing of these.

A large portion of the fibres, especially when working with
unripe fibrous and root peat, adhere to the front edges of the
knives, which even at the present day are often radial and bounded
by straight lines, during the continuous motion of the knives
through the peat, and, indeed, they cling all the more firmly
and in the greater number the longer the rotation lasts, until
finally the knives, especially in the case of single-shaft machines
without any special contrivances, become completely entwined
and no longer answer their purpose.

Straight edges for the separate knives or screws which produce
a mixing and tearing effect must be regarded as a great drawback
in the case of all those forming machines to which an actual
cutting action cannot be attributed, since they decrease the speed
of working, or when the much entwined front edges strike against
similarly entwined cross-stops and counter-knives, give rise to
fracture of the knives and, therefore, to working troubles.

If we consider, for instance, the spiral knife, illustrated in
Fig. 74, of a single-shaft peat machine, and if we assume the
edge a, which is radial and bounded by straight lines as was
formerly the case in all these machines, to be the moving front
edge, it will be evident that the peat fibres met by this edge
must necessarily adhere to it, in a clamped or hooked fashion,
since the motion of the peat and its fibres is exactly at right angles
to that of the knife-edge. If these fibres are not so decayed that
they are torn to pieces as they pass by the cross-stop b, which is
fixed in the cylinder at a distance of several millimetres from
the moving knife-edge, they will be only still more firmly pressed
to it, since the direction of the motion remains the same, and
accumulating layer by layer must give rise to blocking of the
machine -and to breaking of the entwined knives as the space
between these and the cross-stops will have become too narrow.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 175

This disadvantage is to a large extent avoided by making the
front edge of the knife curved as at c. The curve is so shaped
that the motion of the peat takes place at an acute angle to the
knife-edge. This helps any adhering fibres to glide off and enables
the knife to rotate in the peat without catching and carrying
round all the fibres it meets in its course. In this way the knife
glides through the peat with the same mixing effect, and without

Fig. 74. — Shearing edge.

Fig. 75. — Shearing edge curve.

the disadvantageous action of the radial-edged knife. The removal
of any fibres which adhere to the front knife-edge is greatly
facilitated by the knife-edge emerging from the cross-stops at b b1
almost in the direction of the curved edge. Also the tearing
action of the edge c when it first meets the counter-bars is

Fig. 76.

considerable, since it then makes with the counter-bar an angle
/3 = z n m o (directed outwards), whereby any adhering fibres are
either torn, cut, or stripped off. A partial cutting effect may be
due to the latter operation, since even a rough, blunt knife is
capable of cutting fibres drawn along its edge, while this is scarcely
possible for even a sharp knife so long as the fibres are simply
pressed perpendicularly to the cutting edge, as is the case during
the rotation of the edge a.

176 THE WINNING OF PEAT

The most suitable form for this curved edge is governed
by the condition that the angle a = Z m n o, determined by
experiments as the most favourable for peat, must be the same
for every point of the curved line and, therefore, the direction
in which a particle of peat or a fibre is struck by a portion of
the rotating knife must always be the same.

The mathematical name for the curved line which satisfies
this condition is the logarithmic spiral,1 the exact form of which
can be obtained without difficulty by means of the equation given
in the note.

For constructive purposes the bounding line of the knife is
obtained with a sufficient degree of accuracy by dividing the
distance from the centre to the circumference into (as many
as possible) equal parts, 1, 2, 3, 4 . . . . describing circles
(Fig. 75) through these points with the same centre M, drawing
the radius Ml, drawing a line ab from 1 until it cuts the circle
marked 2 making an angle 90°— a with the radius, where a denotes
the angle which every portion of the front edge of the knife
is to make with the direction of rotation, in a similar drawing
manner the line b c making the same angle with M b, and so on
until the broken line abcdefg is obtained. The curved line
desired is then completed by drawing an enveloping line to which
the various parts of the broken line are tangents.

According to experiments made by the author on this subject
with various knives and curved edges, a suitable value for the
edge angle for the knives of single-shaft machines is, in the case
of those which do not work against cross-stops, 30°, and for those
which work against cross-stops, 35° to 40°.

More or less prolonged working with peat rich in fibres and
roots showed that with different types of knives fixed on one
and the same shaft, the separate knives which had a straight,
radial front edge were thickly covered with roots and fibres, and
rotated in the machine as lumps without definite shapes, while
the knives which had edges formed according to the given curved
line remained almost free from adhering matter of this nature.

The disadvantages of straight, radial bounding lines as front
edges of separate knives and screws, when working with peat
rich in fibre, hold for double-shaft in exactly the same way as
for single-shaft machines.

Fig. 77 shows in a simple manner the cross-section through the
knife shafts of such a machine. M1 M2 denote the two horizontal

1 The logarithmic spiral (Fig. 76) is a curved line for which any radius
vector oc always makes the same angle /S with the tangent T at c, and
therefore, at the same time the condition is fulfilled that the circle described
with oc as radius, which in the present case represents the direction of
motion of a particle of the knife-edge, always makes the same angle a with
the logarithmic spiral, i.e., the knife-edge line.

Its equation r = e'"q?, where r is the length of the radius vector oc for
various points inclined at angle <p to o\, e is the base (2-71828) of the
natural system of logarithms, and m is cot. // the cotangent of the angle
between the radius vector and the tangent. This angle is the same as that
considered in Fig. 74, i.e., 90° — oc.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 177

knife shafts, q1 q2 the separate knives or quarter screws, which
are fastened to them, work in opposite directions, and have front
edges which are straight and radial. Even if the two knives
worked quite close to each other, and even if they were provided
with edges like those of a scissors or a reaping hook, a cutting or
shearing action could never take place by the front edges b and c
moving towards one another, since at the instant when the two
edges meet — which occurs at the point marked 1 in Fig. 77 —
the angle between them is almost a right angle (90°), i.e., so
great that the knife-edges, which form the angle and which, as
the rotation proceeds, open out ever more and more from one
another, can never exert a cutting action on the peat contained
between them, but are merely able to strip this off one another
and push it before them. As the rotation of the knife shaft
proceeds and the knife-edges gradually move into the positions
2, 3, 4, &c, the angle between the edges becomes ever greater,
therefore less favourable for cutting, until the knife-edges as they
pass the position 8 again separate altogether.

Fig. 77. — Screw knives with radial edges.

The knives, moreover, owing to inaccuracies which are
unavoidable in their manufacture, and to reasons connected with
their working, are fastened to the opposite shafts at distances
of several millimetres from one another, so that even for this
reason alone a cutting action cannot take place.

The action of the knives, therefore, in addition to that of
mixing is limited to stripping off fibres adhering to their edges
as the latter glide past one another during the rotation of the
knives through the peat, tearing some of the fibres and preventing
the peat from rotating in the cylinder. This action is, as many
trials showed, sufficient for the working of mould peat and moss
peat in which the fibres are in a semi-humified state, but it
is not sufficient for the working of fibrous peat. Apart from
the fact that a cutting action appears desirable in machines
intended for working fibrous peat from the point of view of
the quality of the machine peat, considerable working troubles
occur, owing to blocking of the machine or fracture of the knives,
when knife shafts and screw shafts constructed according to
Fig. 77 are employed. This is easily deduced from the mode of

178

THE WINNING OF PEAT

action of the separate knives and quarter screws hitherto employed
and may be avoided to a large extent by using knives with
curved front edges.

When the quarter screws are in the position 4, their straight,
radial front edges are in contact over the maximum length and
have freed one another from adhering fibres ; from there on, in
5, 6, 7, they separate more and more until in position 8 they are
completely separated, so that as the rotation of the knife shafts
proceeds they take up most of the fibres contained in the peat
which come in their way, hooking and holding them fast on the
edges, since the fibres are struck and caught perpendicularly, i.e.,
exactly in the direction of the motion. These fibres cannot be cut
by the edges even if these be sharp, since in order that this shall
occur, the fibres must either glide, voluntarily or involuntarily,
along the edge or must be prevented from rotating with the knives
by a stationary knife or by one rotating in the opposite direction.

At each revolution of the knife shaft fibres are collected
•during more than three-quarters of the total path traversed,

Fig. 78. — Screw knives with curved edges.

the edges being cleaned and brushed by one another during
scarcely one-quarter of the revolution. Assuming even the most
favourable case, viz., that the cleaning of the edges is complete,
i.e., that after each rotation the edges when beginning a new
revolution are free from fibres — in reality this is never so — then
when working a peat consisting almost entirely of fibres and roots
we can easily imagine the other case when fibres adhere firmly
and tightly to the straight, radial edges during three-quarters
of their revolution (i.e., while the edge a moves through the peat
in the direction of the arrow from 8 to 1) in such quantities that
the front edges having become converted into thick pads, are
not able to force themselves into one another when they meet
in the position 1, or past one another during the last quarter of
the revolution. Under these circumstances the knives are not
able to offer sufficient resistance to the great lateral pressure
which thus arises and they snap, since a shearing action, by
which the fibres would be cut and the edges released from the
strain, does not take place, even in the case of good raw peat.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 179

Hence, also, in the case of double-shaft machines it is desirable
to replace the straight radial edges of the separate knives, even
when working raw materials less rich in fibres, by the above-
mentioned curved edges indicated in Fig. 78. The mixing
effect of these knives is exactly the same as that of the quarter
spirals shown in Fig. 77, and the cleaning of the edges by one
another, if necessary at all, is equally good, as is evident from the
various positions 1, 2, 3. Also, owing to the peculiar shape of the
front edge, the catching of the peat fibres is avoided as far as
possible from the very start. Moreover, the front edges, when
they are suitably constructed, exert in part a shearing action
on the peat contained between them over half their length from
1 to a and 1 to b owing to the angle /S which forms between them
constantly closing up, and in part a cutting action owing to the
tendency of the fibres to glide along the curved edge during the
rotation of the shaft.1

In these double-shaft machines the edge angle a, i.e., the angle
which every part of the curved edge makes with the direction of
rotation (circular motion) may, with advantage, be chosen at
30° to 35°. The angle of curvature in Fig. 78 will then be
60° to 55°.

(4) The action of the knives necessary for the forward motion
inside the machine, and for the forming of the mass, is attained,
as is well known, by winding the knives in a spiral or screw-
shaped manner round the shaft.

The slope of the external circumference of the spiral when
the output is not too small and the power required is not to be
too great should not be under 80° or over 20° and may, with
advantage, be kept between 10° and 15°. In every machine the
forward motion of the peat in the cylinder is smaller than that
which would be calculated from the slope and the rotation
number of its spiral, and therefore a part of the peat during the
motion of the screw shafts lags behind in the space between their
periphery and the cover of the cylinder, and in this way the
mixing action is increased. The crushing effect of the knife
shafts at the inside surface of the cylindrical cover is also to be
attributed to this circumstance.

In constructing peat-forming machines it is advisable to
arrange the parts which specially affect the output of the machine
independently of those which affect the quality of the peat, that
is, those which have as their main function the cutting and tearing
of the peat. Therefore the cutting and shearing knives should
not be arranged spirally, since by so doing a considerable portion
of their action would be lost and, therefore, if they were to
serve both purposes at the same time they could work only in
an imperfect manner. It is, moreover, necessary to arrange the

1 The examination of the action and the most suitable shape of knives
in mixing machines, which the author was the first to engage in, and
which was first published in the first edition of this work, has attracted much
attention ; since then all the better class machines have been provided with
knives of this type.

180 THE WINNING OF PEAT

special disintegrating contrivance, or the part of the knife shaft
destined for this purpose, so that it can always be inspected and,
if necessary, cleaned, without requiring to open any part of the
machine. This is best achieved by placing it directly in or
under the funnel, as has been already done in the horizontal
machines which have recently come into use. In an industry
everything depends on being able to overcome any machine
troubles as rapidly as possible and without its being necessary
to take the machine to pieces.

2. — On Forming Pieces and Mouthpieces

The forming pieces are no less important for peat-forming
machines than the knives and have a considerable effect, especi-
ally on the external appearance of the machine peat. Vertical
machines have, according to their size, forming pieces either on
one side, as in Figs. 25, 27 and 30, or on two opposite sides, as in
Figs. 26, 29 and 31. Horizontal machines have them on one side
only and, as a rule, at the end of the longitudinal axis of the
machine opposite to that at which the hopper is placed. They
are fixed in a mouthpiece suitably constructed for receiving them.

The contrivance for fixing the forming piece in the mouthpiece,
which usually forms part of the cylinder of the machine, must be
so devised that the forming piece can be loosened with the least
possible expenditure of time and, therefore, can be quickly taken
out and exchanged.

This requirement is necessary owing to frequent stoppages-
in the working, partly due to blocking of the machine, but still
more frequently to blocking of the forming piece itself, and to
remedy that due to the latter cause the forming piece must be
taken off and cleaned or exchanged. For the same reason it is
necessary in the case of every machine to keep a reserve forming
piece always ready for insertion.

If the forming piece were inserted and fastened by means of
screws and nuts, the loosening of these when taking out the
forming piece, and the tightening when putting in the cleaned
or reserve forming piece would cause too prolonged a disturb-
ance of the work. A key, lever, or latch contrivance is,
therefore, employed by means of which the loosening or tightening
can be effected by a handle.

A contrivance of this kind is shown in Figs. 27, 33 and 34.
Round the two hinges c c angle irons Wl IF2, one on each of
the upper and lower walls of the rectangular mouthpiece, can
be rotated, and to their heads flat iron angles are riveted. The
wooden forming piece is provided with a groove in its upper and
lower walls (Figs. 27 and 34) into which the arms of the angle
irons catch when the longer arms of the flat iron angles are
tilted into a vertical position, and the forming piece is thus
clamped tight against the shoulder a of the mouthpiece. In
order that the angle irons may not loosen automatically, owing"
to the pressure of the peat as it comes out during the working,
a peg is inserted in front of the vertical longer arms of the flat

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 181

iron angles where they overlap in the middle at each side of the
mouthpiece. In order to free the forming piece, it is merely-
necessary to withdraw the peg and rotate the arms to the
horizontal position.

A clamping device which is very simple and can be quickly
loosened is shown on the mouthpiece of the machine in Fig. 33.
In this, the forming piece is set by means of its upper, longer side
into a groove / contained in the front plate of the machine and is
prevented from falling out or being pressed out by two keys
k1 k2, screwed on its lower side, a mode of fastening which combines
sufficient certainty in action with great simplicity in construction
and use.

The forming pieces of the horizontal double-shaft machines are
loosened or clamped by means of an edge groove by opening
or shutting the upper part of the mouthpiece which is divided
horizontally and can be rotated round hinges.

All the three contrivances mentioned here answer their
purpose. Quickness and certainty in handling are in every case
the main requirements.

The forming pieces of the older vertical machines were made
of oak and had a length of 150 to 220 mm. measured in the
direction in which the band issued. The opening was divided
by intermediate walls in such a way that for smaller machines 3,
for larger machines 5, and for the Hebert machine even 13 band
openings lay side by side, having whatever cross-section was
required for the sods. In order that the pressure of the spirals
may give smooth side walls to the bands, the forming pieces must
become narrower as they extend outwards. The amount of this
contraction and also the length of the forming pieces depend on
the quality of the peat to be treated, the former varying from
i to iV and the latter from 80 to 300 mm. A mould peat
requires a short forming piece and a fibrous peat a longer one
which, however, contracts less than that necessary for a fat
marsh or bituminous peat.

In order to be certain of getting smooth sides for the formed
peat in the case of certain raw materials, the wooden forming
pieces have in some cases been replaced by cast-iron, and, better
still, by copper forming pieces, of which the side walls are as
smooth as possible. This purpose is also served to a large extent,
and therefore the friction in the forming piece, and with this the
power required to drive the machine, is at the same time diminished
by letting water flow drop by drop between the walls of the
forming piece and the sides of the issuing band. This is done by
means of rubber tubes and several holes bored in the walls of the
forming piece.

Earlier (for the first time indeed at the Bremen Exhibition
in 1874), C. Schlickeysen, of Berlin, had also applied to peat
machines the " watering forming pieces ,; which had been
previously used with success in his brick machines. These were
made of wood which were lined with tin plates arranged over-
lapping one another like the scales of a fish. The longitudinal

182 THE WINNING OF PEAT

section of such a " watering forming piece " may be seen in Fig. 27.
The scaly layer covers water grooves r all over the inside of the
wall of the forming piece. The grooves are connected by channels k
with a trough m which is fed with water through the rubber
tubes g from a tank W fixed on the machine. The flow of the water
can be regulated by the cocks h. A " watering forming piece "
such as this costs 30M. to 45M.

Many machines have only smooth, iron, or single-walled
copper forming pieces, or iron forming pieces with copper scales.

These " watering forming pieces ' must not, however, be
regarded as a never-failing means for neatly moulding every
raw material. Sometimes the forming pieces must be modified
a good deal before a satisfactory result can be attained.

A mud peat, rich in humus, can be generally formed into
neat bands by means of a short, smooth-walled, " watering
forming piece," while a fibrous peat requires a longer, dry forming
piece for the same purpose.

Cast-iron forming pieces must always be lined with copper or
brass plate so as to prevent rusting.

If the peat band frequently tears when coming out of the
mouth-piece and if in general it is not sufficiently smooth and
neat, then, provided the mouthpiece is a good one, the mixing
action of the peat machine is not great enough for the peat which
has been fed into it, i.e., the latter does not work and mix the
peat well enough ; it may also happen that the material fed
into the hopper is not sufficiently uniform. These defects are
sometimes remedied by working the peat in a wetter condition.

It is essential that the various layers of a peat bog should all
be worked simultaneously and mixed with one another if we wish
to obtain a dense machine peat which can be easily "formed,"
remain as uniform as possible in quality, and cake well. This
is best attained, not by gradually cutting out the bog from above
downwards, but by excavating in the side of a suitably wide and
deep trench which is divided into three or four steps, uniformly
from all the layers and in the direction of the axis of the trench
(Figs. 85, 86 and 87).

In the case of all multi-band forming pieces which are divided
by several intermediate walls, a palpable defect is that the more
or less long fibres or roots of impure fibrous peat catch on the
front of the vertical intermediate walls of the forming pieces and
quickly block the openings, which can be freed again only by
taking off and cleaning the forming pieces and thus causing
disturbance in the working, decrease in the output, and increase
in the cost of winning.

To avoid this inconvenience the bog owner and landed pro-
prietor von Kobylinski-Woterkeim made in his time the important
improvement seen in Figs. 30 and 33, the use of which has rapidly
extended. As can be seen, the intermediate wall which divides
the forming piece into separate sections has no rectangular
surface inside but tapers into a triangle d, which starts from the
inside of the upper wall of the forming piece, increases in height

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 183

as it extends outwards and leaves a small opening between it
and the lower wall, as in Fig. 30, or between two such intermediate
walls, as in Fig. 33. In this way the roots and grasses in the peat
which reach the dividing walls are gradually pressed from above
downwards and finally pushed out through the intermediate
opening. The latter is 6 to 12 mm. in height, according to the
amount of the roots and other clogging substances which are
present. Should a more or less large piece of wood, moss, &c,
be pressed into this cleft it can be quite easily taken out or moved
aside into the wider opening with the aid of a hook.

By employing this improved forming piece, into which, more-
over, every other forming piece can be easily converted, a smaller
amount of power is required to drive the machine, since in this
case each band has to overcome the friction at only half the
ordinary number of surfaces, and the division of the various
bands is effected by the intermediate wall, which exerts a gradual
pressure and a greater cutting action than the vertical one to
which all the fibres would necessarily adhere.

Von Kobylinski stated that with a peat machine which con-
stantly clogged and was about to be discarded he easily obtained
with two horses an output of 12,000 large sods per day after
he had inserted the modified forming piece.

These forming pieces have been still further improved by
sharpening the wedge-shaped intermediate walls, which slope
inwards, and by making it possible to remove them from the
forming piece for rapid and thorough cleaning without it being"
necessary to loosen the forming piece itself. This is effected
either by drawing out the wedge through a slit in the upper wall
of the forming piece after freeing a clamping contrivance, or by
fastening all the wedge-shaped plates on a hinged frame which
can be rotated round the front edge of the upper wall of the
forming piece. By rotating this all the intermediate walls can be
brought simultaneously from the inside to the outside of the
forming piece and, when cleaned, allowed to fall back again, and
fastened. This improvement is of great advantage for impure
or fibrous peat on account of the diminution in working troubles
effected by its means.

In the case of " watering forming pieces " it is very difficult
to attach the thin intermediate walls required for the division
of a wide peat band into several separate bands with cross-
sections equal to those of ordinary sods. ' Watering formings
pieces " have, therefore, sometimes been constructed having the
cross-section shown in the accompanying illustration (Fig. 79).
The peat band, which has a width of 250 mm., is notched on
its top and bottom to a depth of 25 mm. by the ridges n n which
are soldered to the inner (scaly) wall and taper towards the inside
of the forming piece. The peat pads which are cut into lengths
of 250 to 300 mm. across their whole width tear asunder at these
grooved places while drying and contracting, and three or four
peat sods are, therefore, formed from each pad.

This tearing takes place, however, somewhat irregularly, and

184 THE WINNING OF PEAT

is accompanied by partial crumbling of peat into small pieces,
thus causing a loss. Consequently the external appearance of
the peat sods is not so good and their sizes are also not as uniform
as would be expected. This is not, however, of much importance
in the case of peat intended either for one's own use or for use
on a large scale. Since the peat pads sometimes remain for days
in the form of a single piece, and since even after splitting the
space intervening between two sods is initially very small, the
surface which is exposed to the air and which renders the evapora-
tion of the water contained in the peat possible is much more
limited and, therefore, the drying itself is slower than when the
peat sods are made separately from the start with a space of at
least 10 mm. between them by a forming piece with intermediate
walls and spread in this condition on the drying ground.

The shape of the cross-section of the sod is of great import-
ance for the winning itself and for the neatness of the peat band,
and is necessarily variable since every variety of peat cannot
be equally well worked by one and the same forming exit.
A circular cross-section would cause the fewest difficulties for all
kinds of peat and it could also be recommended as that which
would give the best results in the combustion of machine peat
were it not that the subsequent handling during drying, piling
and loading of sods of this kind is troublesome, since, owing to
their narrow supporting bases, they have a tendency to slip out
of a piled wall. It is employed, therefore, in rare cases and only
for lean peat.

The " layering power " of peat sods, i.e., the property due to
their shape which allows them to be placed in heaps, can be
increased without giving up the form of the cross-section suited for
obtaining a neat band and also for burning peat, if we select,
instead of the circular cross-section, an oblong one, such as is
obtained when we suppose a circle divided by a vertical diameter
and a rectangle whose height is equal to the diameter of the circle
inserted between the two semicircles, which will give a straight
layering surface.

This cross-section is, however, better suited for forming pieces
with undivided exits because the fixing of intermediate walls, as
in Kobylinski's improvement, causes difficulties. The slit left for
the passage of the fibres and impurities is transferred in this case,
as indicated in Fig. 33, to the middle of the intermediate walls,
and the latter taper both towards the upper and the lower
wall of the forming piece. For divided forming pieces, and
especially for fat marsh and moor peat or bituminous peat the
square shape is selected as the one most suitable for the subsequent
handling. Its corners are much blunted or rounded off, as can
be seen from Figs. 30, 33, 36, and 43.

R. Dolberg, Ltd., of Rostock, and later A. Heinen, of Varel,
amongst others, have recently improved this mouthpiece by
inserting, as described below, a wedge-like and not quite
continuous intermediate wall, which has proved very useful
(Fig. 79a).

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 1S5

The upper portion of the knife-like intermediate wall projects
downwards three-quarters of the height of the sod and the lower
intermediate piece projects upwards over one-quarter at its
highest point. The two portions of these knives which bulge
most do not touch one another. The highest part of the lower
knife lies behind the lowest part of the upper knife and a free
passage out of the forming piece is left between the edges of the
two knives for the woody, fibrous portions of the peat, which have
not been worked up by the screws while, however, the complete
cutting through of the peat bands, which is essential for the pro-
duction of neat sides, is effected. The upper knives are fixed on
a rotating spindle and can be tilted out through slits in the upper
wall of the forming piece, the cutter automatically cleaning itself
at the slit. After tilting out the upper knife the lower one can
be conveniently cleaned by hand. The upper knife frame is
kept in position either by a counterpoising weight g or by a
revolving clip.

It is advisable to round off the corners of the mouthpiece.
The advantages of this are that sharp edges, which break off
easily on drying, are avoided, that the air will have better access

Fig. 79.— Triple-band
mouthpiece.

Section at a — b

Fig. 79a. — Mouthpiece with
intermediate walls.

into the multiple bands thrown from the boards on the drying
ground, that the individual, adjacent bands (from a multiple-
band forming piece) separate more easily, and that rain-water
which may fall on them can flow away more easily. When the
individual peat sods in the dry state still adhere together a higher
rate of wages by piece or by day work must be paid for clamping
during the drying operations, as separation of the sods from one
another will then be necessary.

Just as the shape of the cross-section has a great influence on
the moulding so has its size on the drying and the subsequent
combustion of the peat. The drying of the sods takes place all
the more quickly, and their combustion all the more completely,
the more the entrance of air is facilitated, that is to say, the
greater the ratio of the surface of the sods to their mass, or, other
conditions being the same, the smaller their cross-section. The
more the peat consists of small pieces the better it burns.
We must not, however, exceed a certain limit, as the formation
of very small pieces in large numbers would increase the expenses
of the industry out of all proportion. Moreover, during rapid
and good air-drying, peat sods of very small cross-section easily
develop splits and clefts, where they easily break on subsequent

(^595) o

186 THE WINNING OF FEAT

loading, producing a loss which should be most guarded against
in the machine peat industry, due to the falling off of the smaller
pieces. The most suitable thickness for freshly formed sods, so
far as forming and drying are concerned, is 8 to 12 cm. and the
most suitable length 25 to 30 cm. Sods more than 12 cm. in
thickness should not be made at all, since these require far too
long a time for drying, and access of the oxygen of the air is
so impeded during their combustion that their heating power
cannot be utilized to the full extent.

When drying peat on trestles or under cover, it is advisable
to make the height of the sods greater than their width in order
that the drying area may be more fully utilized. If a width of
30 cm. and a length of 1 m. be selected for the spreading boards,
the forming piece may, with advantage, be a triple one, each hole
being 8 cm. in width and 10 cm. in height and with intervening
spaces of 15 mm. between the sods. If the length of the sods
be made 25 cm. a spreading board will contain 12 sods each of
2,000 c.c. (2 1.) in volume.

These sods are the same size as the standard sods which entered
into the calculation (p. 103) on the comparative estimation of
the outputs of different machines. The sods, 500 of which are
given by 1 cb. m. of formed peat, have proved very suitable both
for the drying operations and for combustion in industrial and
domestic fireplaces.

If the output of the peat machine depends, as it generally does,
on the forming exit (assumed to be undivided) being as large as
possible, then we can, without any special difficulties and without
affecting the output of the peat machine, conform to this condition
and at the same time produce sods of small volume (standard sods)
when working with a suitable raw material (bituminous, marsh,
or ripe, humified peat) or with a machine which has a good
disintegrating action, by employing the "lath knife," or the " roll
bed- with grid cutter," or the "automatic cutter" described in
(b) and (c) of the following subsection. In this case we give the
opening of the forming piece the usual length of peat sods (20 to
25 cm.) as its width and construct it with a rounded or very blunt-
edged cross-section. We allow the peat band to emerge undivided
and insert the knives in the lath, or stretch the wires in the grid
cutter, at so short a distance (10 cm.) from one another that they
cut the peat sods of the thickness required. Every raw material
and every peat machine does not, however, permit of the employ-
ment of the grid cutter, since, if the formed peat, issuing from
the machine, still contains many undivided fibres (of cotton-
grass for instance), these will remain attached to the wires of
the grid cutter, and when the wires are withdrawn they will tear
out pieces from the peat bands, causing a loss of formed peat and
at the same time giving the bands an unsightly appearance.
In the latter case, the only course left is to let several peat bands
of smaller cross-section issue side by side (therefore through a
divided forming piece), and to cut these lengthwise.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 187

3. — On Chopping and Cutting Contrivances

These contrivances, necessary for all machines, depend less
on the particular kind of machine as regards their choice and
use than the other contrivances. Each of the contrivances
described below can therefore be used directly with any of the
above-mentioned machines.

The factors which have greatest weight in the selection of the
most suitable form are the number of workmen required for a given
daily output, the subsequent treatment of the freshly formed peat,
and the degree of external neatness intended, or necessary, for
the sods of peat..

Excluding the semi-cylindrical cutter mentioned under the
Weber-Gysser process, the simplest of these contrivances and that
first employed is : —

(a) The Chopping Board and Chopper, illustrated in Figs. 30
and 31. The board T, which is covered by a tin or glass plate,
is placed in front of the mouthpiece in such a way that the
issuing peat bands flow over it in a slightly inclined direction.
A workman called " the cutter " at the same time keeps it in a
slippery condition by moistening it with water. When the issuing
bands have attained the required length the workman cuts them
with the chopper E, shown in Fig. 30, which is kept moistened
by dipping it into a tub of water, and catching the ends of the cut
sods with his other hand, he puts about 10 to 20 of them side by
side on a spreading board near at hand. Several boards filled in
this way are then taken to the drying ground on a barrow or car,
and there the boards with the sods are either tipped over or, when
tipping is not possible owing to the nature of the peat, the sods are
taken off separately and spread for drying.

It is easily seen that in this procedure, uniformity in the length
of the sods, which is desirable when the sale of the machine peat
takes place by the number of pieces, depends on the workman's
eye and skill ; and by the removal of the freshly formed sods from
the chopping table to the spreading boards, and from the latter to
the drying ground, their good external appearance, to attain which
no pains were spared in the careful selection and construction of
the forming piece, suffers considerably owing to the softness of the
fresh machine peat, and this, in turn, has a bad effect on the
product ultimately sold.

These defects are removed in part by the —

(b) Rolling Table with Running Boards. — As mav be seen from
Figs. 29, 32, 38 to 43, &c, this consists of a long frame, 20 to
40 cm. in width and 2 to 3 m. in length, which rests on feet or
sleepers. Rollers u (Fig. 38) are carried by the side members of
the frame, being either let into notches or into bearings secured to
the members, and over these rollers boards, 1 to 2 m. in length,
can run easily. The rolling table is placed under the mouthpiece
of the machine in such a way that the running board is just freely
movable between the mouthpiece and the rollers, and also that
the long axis of the rolling table is in the same direction as that

188 THE WINNING OF PEAT

in which the peat bands leave the mouthpiece. Before the 'peat
comes out, the first running board is pushed underneath either
from the rear or from the side, according to the construction of
the machine, until the issuing peat bands begin to rest on the
board. Owing to the subsequent forward motion, and also since
the table is set up with a slight slope forwards, the peat bands
draw the board with them, moving it forwards on the rolling bed
by their own velocity. Before the end of one board reaches the
mouthpiece the workman places a second board on the rolling bed
immediately behind the first and pushes it until it also is caught
and dragged forward by the issuing peat bands. While this is
taking place, another workman, with a wide knife similar to that
described above, chops through the peat bands at the line of
contact of two boards. In this way boards covered with peat
bands of equal length are obtained in continuous succession.
These are placed in turn on transport barrows or cars, by which
they are conveyed to the drying ground.

If there is only one thick band on each board, the latter can
be emptied simply by tipping, and in this way. the bands are
spread side by side one after another. If the peat is to be
coked as described in Part II of this work, the sods may retain
their length of 1 m., since the longer the sods are the better they
can be coked, but if the formed peat is to be used as fuel, then the
sods are subdivided by means of a long knife or, better, by means
of a lath, 1 m. in length, to which vertical knives are attached at
suitable distances from one another.

These roller beds may be used with any machine, but in some
cases where the construction of the machine does not allow of the
insertion of the boards from behind, and the forming piece is too
short to insert the boards easily from the side, the modification
shown in Fig. 27 will be necessary. In this case the peat band
emerges on to a slide board R, which is covered with a tin plate
and kept moistened with water. The slide is fastened at the top
to the forming piece, and is sloped downwards to the roller bed.
It is of such a length that a spreading board can be placed under
it from the side before the preceding board has quite passed the
end of the slide. With the same object in view, the mouthpiece
may be inclined towards the side, as shown in Figs. 43 and 47.

(c) The Roller Bed with Grid Cutter, which is an improved form
of the above-mentioned roller table with running boards, makes it
possible to cut the peat bands emerging from the mouthpiece into
pieces, the length of which is equal to that of the spreading board,
and these again into smaller sods of the desired length by means
of a single movement of the so-called " grid cutter."

Grid cutters with several steel wires stretched at a fixed
distance from one another may be seen in the roller bed of
Schlickeysen's machine (Fig. 29) and in that of Clayton's machine
(Fig. 37). The grid cutter consists (Figs. 29, 37 and 50) of a frame
rotating round an axle a. The side rods 5 of the frame are usually
made of iron and bent somewhat like a bow. Between its two long
sides I and a a number of wires separated by distances equal to

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 189

the length of the sods are stretched by means of screw hooks and
wing nuts. The distance from the first to the last wire is equal to
the length of a spreading board.

To the axis a a an elliptical disc, a cam, or a falling latch is
fastened, which in the downward motion of the grid and just
before the wires enter the peat band, stops the motion of the
spreading board until the downward cut is completed and the wires
have been just raised out of the band by the upward motion of the
grid. In this way the peat band receives a clean cut. In order
that the band which emerges from the mouthpiece and moves
forward continuously during the cut may not cause trouble by
banking on the clamped spreading board, the cut must be made
as quickly as possible during the interval from the instant of the
insertion of the wires in the band to that of their emergence.
After some practice this can be attained without difficulty.

The workman has time enough after each cut to clean the
wires to which peat fibres usually adhere. A lad or a girl looks
after the insertion of new boards.

With this contrivance 40,000 to 60,000 neat and uniformly long
peat sods can be conveniently cut and removed in a day by one
man and two lads, one of the latter placing the empty spreading
boards under the mouthpiece and the other removing the filled
boards from the roller bed to the barrows or cars. This contriv-
ance has a great advantage over the two others described above in
respect of the neatness of the operation and the saving of labour.

It can be used, however, with success only when it is a matter
of working a peat which is quite fibre-free, or when the action of
the preparing machine is so perfect that large pieces of wood and
roots and long fibres and sedge stems are not contained in the
formed peat. If these were present they would adhere to the wires
and during their motion through the peat band pieces would be
torn out of this and its shape would become irregular.

For the operation just described, the roller table should be so
long that its length behind the cutting wire should be at least
equal to that of a spreading board.

When the grid cutter is fixed at the end of the roller bed the
cutting of the peat band can be effected more easily and without
any special practice or skill on the part of the workman.

The cutting table in this case requires only one lad, who has
simply to regulate, in the case of " watering forming machines,''
the addition of the water to the forming piece, to cut the peat band
emerging from the forming piece, when it has covered a board,
with a wide knife over the line of separation of two boards, and
to move the filled board to the end of the rolling bed from which
it is removed to the transport cars. Before, however, the person
working the car or barrow removes the board covered by the
peat band he cuts the layer into separate sods by depressing
the cutting bow. The latter operation requires no particular
care or skill, since the cutting takes place while the peat band,
unlike that in the above method, is entirely at rest.

190

THE WINNING OF PEAT

An automatic sod cutter of R. Dolberg and Co., of Hamburg
and Rostock, is shown in Fig. 80.

A similar automatic sod cutter is attached to the large scale
industry machine of Wielandt. The Strenge machine has a knife
wheel or scraper wheel, which is set in motion by the peat band
as it glides forward, while in the Schenck machine intermediate
cross-cutting knives are fixed as sod cutters in the forming-
chamber attached to the mouthpiece.

Smooth, clean peat sods with good edges are not so important
when the winning is on a large scale ; the main point then is to
produce pieces which hold together, do not crumble, and make
rapid air-drying possible. These can be obtained with the machines
described, provided a fair amount of care be shown in the selection,
and even with the automatic sod spreaders described in the follow-
ing subsection their manufacture is satisfactory.

Fig. 80. — Cutting contrivance of R. Dolberg and Co., Rostock.

4. — Automatic Sod Spreaders1

Attempts have been made, especially by large industrial con-
cerns, to win a cheap fuel or moss litter peat with as few workmen
as possible. In addition to the dredgers, already mentioned, for
digging and conveying the raw peat and the contrivances
for cutting the sods, workmen have hitherto been employed
for transporting the cut sods as well as for spreading them on
the drying field. By means of mechanical appliances directly
connected with the peat machine and driven from a common
source of power, an attempt has been made to dispense with these
workmen. At the same time, a saving is also effected by the cars
and the rails for the transport of the sods from the machine to the
drying ground being no longer required.

We shall consider especially : —

(a) The Wielandt Sod Spreader (see Fig. 67). — In the case of
this spreader, the peat band, which leaves the machine almost at
right angles to the direction in which the machine is advancing,

1 Details have been already given, on pp. 147-152, of spreaders, levellers
and cutters for pulp peat.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 191

is cut into separate sods by an up-and-down motion of the knife
produced by the driving gear, and these are pushed by the peat
band behind them to a conveyer formed of plates, flexibly con-
nected and gliding over rollers. This belt carries the sods to the
drying ground beside the working trench. It can be tipped round
its long axis, but when not fully laden it is prevented from tipping
bv a counterpoise. When the part of the belt which is laden with
sods has reached the end of the spreader, and therefore the whole
" run " is covered with sods, the weight of the latter releases the
belt clutch, the belt tips over and spreads the sods on the drying
ground, the machine with the sod spreader driven by a gas or
benzine locomotive moving forwards simultaneously along the
trench. In this way the service of the entire machine, including
the transport and the spreading of the sods, requires only a few
workmen (three to five). (Cf. p. 157).

(b) The Strenge Sod Spreader (see Fig. 68a). — The sods, cut by
a paddle or knife wheel, pass to an endless chain conveyer, which
is up to 75 m. in length (Model 1914-15), and travels backwards
and forwards. When the conveyer is sufficiently filled it is
tipped by means of a lever, and the sods are thus placed flat on
the drying ground. The speed of the spreading belt is regulated
electrically, so as to correspond to that with which the band of
peat issues from the machine. While the empty spreading belt
is returning to the machine it lies in the same plane as the
loaded belt.

(c) The Baumann Spreader of Carl Schenck, of Darmstadt (see
Fig. 69). — The peat sods, formed and cut by the bucket wheel or
cell wheel placed between the mixing machine and the spreader
in the Schenck machines, are placed by the cell wheel on the lower
part of the endless conveyer. ' The latter consists of separate
plates, which can be tilted. The support for the belt and roller,
which in front and rear rests on a slide bar and is moved forward
with the machine, has a lattice-work formation. The lower
loaded part of the conveyer lies near the ground. When the
whole length of the conveyer is filled with sods, the separate
plates tilt across the long axis of the spreader and lay the sods
on the drying ground. The empty plates return to the machine
over the upper roller railway. It is said that the spreader can be
made for a drying ground up to 90 to 120 m. in width.

(d) The Dolberg Spreader (see Fig. 71) consists of an endless
conveyer, formed of separate plates, supported on an iron
lattice work and extending over the width of the drying ground.
The belt catches the peat sods, formed by the sod cutter at the
mouthpiece of the forming machine, and transports them sidewards
to the drying ground. The first of these sod spreaders constructed
was up to 60 m. in length. To avoid bending the bearing frame,
the latter is fixed in rings on cars at its two ends and at three
intermediate points, therefore at every 15 m., in such a way that
the frame and belt can be turned in the rings. The belt is driven
electrically from its end and its motion automatically ceases
when the machine for any reason stops. The rotation of the

192 THE WINNING OF PEAT

band with that of the whole latticed bearing frame is effected,
when the entire length of the band is full of sods, by means of
electrical machines in the bearing rings on the cars. The peat
sods are in this way tipped on the drying ground. The spreading
of the band of sods and the return of the conveyer to its original
position by further rotation in the same direction require altogether
only forty seconds. It has been found that the output of the
spreader is 600 cb. m. in ten hours. The belt is emptied fifteen
times every hour.

(e) The Swedish Sod Spreaders of Ernst A. Persson, Korner,
Eslof, and others, resemble in the main the varieties described
above. The Persson spreader, which is constructed at Abjorn
Anderson's Mek. Verkstad A.B., in Svedala, resembles the
Wielandt spreading belt (an endless belt running in a transportable
frame), and is constructed to deliver to a distance of 150 m.

It is not yet possible to express a final opinion on these
mechanical transporters and sod spreaders, which automatically
transport the peat sods and spread them on the drying ground
over distances of 30 to 150 m. They should all be useful, but
nevertheless capable of improvement. Wielandt's spreaders are
at work in Wielandt's Peat Factory at Elizabethfehn (Oldenburg)
and at the Rosenheim Salt Works ; Strenge's and also Dolberg's
at the Aurich Wiesmoor ; Baumann's at the Raubling Bog of the
Rosenheim Salt Works ; and the Swedish spreaders in several
Swedish peat factories — Persson's, for instance, at the Emmel-
junga Peat Factory.

B. — On Installing and Driving Machines in a Peat Bog

1. — Installation of Driving and Working Machines

Only in rare cases do the transport and the installation of
the machines offer any difficulties, and even then only when it
is not possible to drain the bog sufficiently, before beginning the
work, to give adequate supporting power. In this case the pressure
due to the weight of the machines set up in the bog should be
distributed over greater surfaces than those afforded by the frame
of the peat machine or the four wheels of a locomotive. The
working machine, or driving machine, is placed on a wooden
frame provided with rollers by means of which it is moved over
temporary rails and is allowed to remain on these while the work
is going on where it has been installed, as has already been
indicated in the case of the Hanoverian transportable peat
machine (Fig. 57 and also Fig. 86).

At least two pairs of these supporting rails must be procured
so that one pair can be placed in front of the other when the
machine is to be moved forward.

These wooden frames, which are partly mounted with iron,
must not be too heavy to be lifted and moved forward, length
by length, by the gang usually engaged in working the machine.
In this way an artificial road is made by means of which at least

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 193

the peat machine, the weight of which should rarely exceed
1,000 to 1,500 kilos, can be brought to the working place.

This cannot always be done with the driving machines —
locomotives, steam engines, &c. — which may have a weight of
4,000 to 5,000 kilos for 8 to 12 h.p.

In the latter case, in order to cut down the transport of the
peat as much as possible, the only alternative remaining is to
set up the peat machine at the working place in the bog and the
driving machine on firm ground at the edge of the bog, transmitting
the power to the working machines by means of a wire rope or,
still better, in the form of electricity.

It is worth noting here the arrangement which the machine
manufacturer, J. Miiller, of Prague, devised in his time to enable
the power machine and the working machine to be moved easily
and quickly by means of steam. The peat machine is supported
on two U-shaped carriers and rigidly connected to the front
support of the locomotive so that when the machine is being
moved forward for work at different places it all forms a rigid
piece, and therefore when the forward motion has been completed
it does not again require readjustment. When for any position
of the machine the peat has been so far worked that the transporter
or elevator can no longer be suitably and easily fed, the whole
machine is moved forward. For this purpose a rope drum, driven
by the locomotive when this is coupled to it, is placed under the
frame of the peat machine ; a wire rope is coiled round the drum
and the other end of the rope is fastened to an anchor which is
placed at any point of the bog situated in the desired direction
of working. By driving the rope drum the locomotive, together
with the peat machine, is moved forward on the underlying rails
and when the forward motion ceases the machine can at once
begin work.

The drainage of the bog will, meanwhile, as a rule, have so far
advanced that the peat machine and the locomotive, screwed on
a common frame provided with wheels, can be moved forward on
rails placed under the wheels as the working of the bog progresses.
The track is best made of ordinary (railway) rails supported on
wide sleepers and should consist of separate sections which can
be joined together. The machinery is moved forward either by
hand-levers with ratchet wheels which are fixed as a driving
shaft on one axle of the frame, or by a contrivance for moving
the machine by which the locomotive or electro-motor works the
driving shaft by means of a chain and toothed wheel intermediate
gearing. It may also be moved by means of the above described
anchor and rope.

The commoner plans for installation and working may be seen
from the following figures (Figs. 81 to 87).

Figs. 81 and 82 each show a machine peat works for horse
driving. In the former the raw peat ^s won from the dry peat
trench by hand cutting, and in the latter it is raised from under
water by a cutting machine.

Fig. 83 shows a steam-driven plant in which the peat, which

194

THE WINNING OF PEAT

is to be worked by a machine, is raised by means of several cutting
machines set up at the edge of the bank. The crude peat is
brought in and the formed peat taken away over an endless track.
Fig. 84 shows a steam-driven plant with a cutting machine in
a bog which cannot support the weight of a locomotive owing to

Fig. 81. — -Installation of a horse-driven peat machine with a barrow

track (high bog).

insufficient drainage. The locomotive is therefore mounted on a
flat-bottomed boat from which it drives the cutting machine and
the peat machine, which can be moved over rails. The cutting

Fig. S2. — A peat machine, as in Fig. 81, in conjunction with a cutting

machine (low bog).

machine and the peat machine are fixed on a bridge which is
supported partly by the flat-bottomed boat and partly by two
narrow gauge railway cars.

Figs. 85, 86 and 87 show steam-driven industries with raw peat
elevators. According to Fig. 85, the machine with an elevator

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 195

trailing behind it — a " back elevator " — can be moved along the
peat trench ; in Figs. 86 and 87 the machine frame with its
laterally fixed elevator — a side elevator — can be moved in front
of the top of the cutting trench.

Fig. 83. — A steam-driven peat machine with cutting machines ;
endless transport track.

The labour required for the two arrangements of the elevator
is the same and the peat can be always thrown on to the elevator

Fig. 84. — A peat machine with steam-driven cutting machine of
R. Dolberg and Co. ; endless transport track.

from both sides. In some cases, however, the forward motion of
the machinery in the direction, and in front of the top of the
cutting trench, which is possible with the back elevator arrange-
ment, is more convenient than that along the side of the peat
trench.

196

THE WINNING OF PEAT

2. — Driving Peat Machines by means of Draught Animals

Little need be said about the driving of the working machines
by means of draught animals (horses and oxen!. The peat
machines and the capstans (horse poles) which may be required to

-'t'-- .-■■J:?-

Fig. S5. — A peat machine with an elevator (in back position) ;
endless transport track.

work them (in the case of machines with rapidly running knife
shafts) are usually, for the sake of security, fixed on a platform
of sleepers which is placed under them and prevented from
moving or sliding in the bog b}7 piles driven into the latter.

'".iV-'r." -j^"— v,.---";'

Fig. 86. — A peat machine with an elevator (in "side position ") ; advancing
the machine in front of the top of the trench.

Owing to the constant motion and treading of the draught
animals in a relatively small place in a bog which is only barely
able to support traffic, a disadvantage will soon appear, inasmuch
as the feet of the animals sink into the circular track which has
been worn and softened by the constant treading. This tires
the animals and makes continuous working impossible In order

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 197

to avoid this, treading boards or clogs like those shown in
Figs. 88 to 90, are fastened under the hoofs of the animals ; still,
in many cases this remedy is not sufficient. These clogs should be'
in contact with the shoes and not the hoofs of the animals, and
may be fastened by wedges to the shoes. Sores due to chafing are
avoided by putting rags under the straps. Improved horse clogs,
in which wedges are dispensed with, and adjustment for different

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sizes of hoofs is provided for by an adjustment up to 5 cm., are
sold by the master smith Westphal, of Bremen, at a price of
2-5M. per pair, including the wooden soles. H. Osmers, of
Hinzendorf, near Langwedel (Hanover), sells wooden horse clogs.
Bernhard Vogler, of Erfurt, makes horse clogs, as in Fig. 89,
from Indian fibre. They cost 2-OM. and are said to have proved
successful. If the treading boards are not sufficient for their

198

THE WINNING OF PEAT

purpose the treading track is excavated to a depth of 0 • 5 to 0 • 6 m.
and filled with sand or waste solid, or, if this cannot be obtained
in the neighbourhood, with the roots or shrubs found in every
bog, which are placed close together in as uniform layers as
possible across the track in place on the excavated peat. The
peat raised during the excavation is employed to level the surface
of the track. In this way a safe and a sound track for draught
animals is obtained, on which they do not become fatigued by
the motion as do animals with treading boards buckled on their
feet. The treading track may also be made of planks, which are
for this purpose made ring-shaped and capable of being taken
apart in several sections. In regard to cheapness and suitability
of construction this arrangement is, however, inferior to that
mentioned above.

Fig. 88.-

-Horse clog.

Fig. 89. — An Indian

fibre horse clog, made

for buckling on.

Fig. 90. — An Indian

fibre horse clog, made

for lacing on.

3. — Driving Peat Machines by means of Wire Ropes

A plant of this character offers no particular difficulties,
but when it is employed frequent changing of the position of
the peat machine during the season must be sacrificed. The
length of the ropeway as well as the number of driving and
supporting rollers depend on local conditions — the arrangement
therefore, varying in every case.

Fig. 91 illustrates the arrangement of a wire rope plant for
two peat machines which are to be driven by a locomotive.

At the edge of the bog which is unsuitable to support traffic
the locomotive A is installed, and on its flywheel there is a rope
pulley having a diameter of about 1,600 mm. From this the power
is first transmitted by means of a wire rope, 15 mm. thick, to the
intermediate shaft, which is at a distance of 40 m. and supported
on a wooden trestle. On this shaft there are also the driving
pulley for the first peat machine Tx, and a second rope pulley
having a diameter of 1,200 mm., which transmits the rest of the
power by means of a rope, 12 mm. thick, to the second rope
shaft, which is 60 m. away, and by means of the belt pulley on
this to the second peat machine T2.

The loss of power in the case of such a wire rope plant is
smaller than is usually supposed and when the plant is well

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 199

constructed it amounts at most to 1 per cent, for every 100 m.,
while the cost of erection, rope pulleys, supporting trestles,
wire ropes, &c, amounts to 3M. to 6M. for every metre of the
distance between the rope pulleys.

According to the experience hitherto
gained a wire rope in continuous use lasts on
an average one to two years, so that if it be
used only in the summer season it should last
for two to four years. If the ropes last a
shorter time than this the installation must
be a faulty one.

At present wire ropes are not used to
work several peat machines situated at dis-
tances from each other. They have been
replaced by electrical driving, which is simpler
in working and easier to maintain.

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4. — Selection of Driving Power

If the amount of peat won permits, the
driving of peat machines is best effected
either by means of a steam engine or by elec-
trical power if an electric power installation
exists or can be erected with advantage for
working several machines. Even if the out-
puts for horse driving given in the price lists
of peat machine builders are attainable with
every horse this is usually possible only for
short working periods. In most cases the
animals cannot stand the heavy labour of
continuous work and either the output
decreases or the horses break down and
relays of horses must be provided ; in any
case, the cost of production is considerably
increased and it will generally pay to procure
a steam engine as driving power. For this
purpose a locomotive is usually chosen.
Although a locomotive consumes more fuel
and requires a higher rate (12 to 15 per cent.)
for amortization of its cost price than a
stationary engine, it has, on the other hand,
advantages in so far as it can be readily
installed, easily attended, and readily moved
from one place to another as the work
progresses. In many cases, moreover, the
owners of the peat bogs are at the same time
more or less large agriculturists, and the locomotives can, there-
fore, be used for working threshing machines, distilleries, mills,
&c, during the months when the peat industry is quiescent.

When selecting locomotives for driving peat machines attention
must be paid to the fact that only peat mould and waste peat or
incompletely dried sods, bog wood, &c, are usually employed as

6

200

THE WINNING OF PEAT

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WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 201

fuel in the bog. Not only a greater heating surface in proportion
to the power of the locomotive is, therefore, required for the boiler,
but also the firebox and the area of the grate must be larger than
those generally used in locomotives.

While a boiler-heating surface of 1 -4 to 1 -7 sq. m. per horse-
power is sufficient for a locomotive heated with coal or good dry
machine peat, at least 1 -8 to 2-0 sq. m. heating surface per horse-
power is required in the case of the above-mentioned less valuable
fuel. In the latter case also the firebox must be correspondingly
increased in size. It will be well, therefore, if the locomotives to
be selected from were not originally constructed with the more or
less large firebox and heating necessary for an inferior fuel, to
select a locomotive 20 to 25 per cent, more powerful (in amount of
horse-power) than would be actually required for the driving of
the peat machine.

The consignment weight (for transport) is about one-fifth more
than that given above. Locomotives with fore-grates or step
fore-grates for heating with peat cost 4 to 10 per cent, more and
are about 5 per cent, heavier than the ordinary ones. The Lanz
locomotive boilers with " Colonial fireboxes " are said to have
proved suitable for peat-firing.

The above prices refer to locomotives provided with removable
tubular boilers, reversible distributing valve motion and automatic
regulation. Only the first two sizes have ordinary distributing
valve motion and locomotive boilers.

Nominal outputs as an indication of size for sale do not enable
us to form a reliable estimate of the size and output of machines
or to compare tenders in a satisfactory manner. These nominal
outputs are given too high by some and too low by other machine
builders and traders. The cylinder measurements with a given
working pressure, and the heating surface, serve as guides, and
still better the actual effective output, based on these, guaranteed
by the seller for regularly conducted continuous working, when the
steam pressure, the horse-power, the number of revolutions, and the
maximum steam consumption are all given. No purchaser of a
locomotive should fail to obtain such a guarantee. In the more
recently constructed locomotives the working pressure amounts
to 8 to 10 atmospheres.

If the work is to be conducted economically by avoiding loss of
heat, the steam cylinders and distributing box must lie entirely
within the steam chamber of the boiler. Under these conditions
the consumption of steam for a regular load is 13 to 11-5 kilos per
horse-power hour, and that of fuel is 1 • 50 to 1-70 kilos of coal
(calorific power 7,500 calories), the lower figures applying to the
larger machines (up to 30 h.p.).

Further particulars with regard to locomotives for peat-firing
are contained in Part II of this book.

It should be noted, moreover, that the German steam boiler
industries prescribe two feeders for every locomotive ; a locomotive
which has only one feeding pump is not regarded in Germany as
being in proper working order.

(2595) p

202 THE WINNING OF PEAT

Either the migratory mode of working introduced for peat pulp
machines, described on pp. 139 and 140, or the transmission of
power to a propelling contrivance connected to the machine frame,
such as has recently been generally employed in the case of
horizontal peat machines, appears a suitable method for utilizing
a locomotive.

If such a migratory industry be not practicable owing to
existing local conditions (hilly or broken country), or on account
of the surface being unable to support traffic, the bog is to be
divided into several plots, which should be worked in turn and the
site of the peat machine and the locomotive should be changed
only at fairly long intervals. The transport of the raw and the
formed peat is in this case best effected by means of the movable
rail tracks, described below, and transport cars which together
constitute the so-called field railways.

The direct connexion of the steam engine with a peat machine
in such a way that the fly-wheel of a horizontal steam engine, by
means of a pair of spur wheels, drives the knife shafts of the peat
machine, which is fixed on the same frame as the steam engine — ■
the steam (locomotive) boiler being at the same time set up
separately from these — cannot be regarded as either a well-devised
mode of working or as an improvement on the plan hitherto
adopted.

Naturally, the parts of a peat machine which are in motion
outside the mixing cylinder become soiled by particles of raw peat,
waste matter, &c, scattered during the work. The earthy
constituents — sand, stones, &c- — contained in these cause greater
wear and tear of the machines than the latter would otherwise
experience. This may be seen actually occurring in all peat bogs
in spite of every precaution. All machines and parts of machines
which are not absolutely and directly essential for the working of
the peat machine should therefore be set up as far as possible
from the latter. In this way they can be protected from evils
which cannot be avoided in the case of the peat machine itself.

The electrical driving of several peat machines in a large
peat factory may be carried out with great advantage from
a central power station, like that, for instance, of the North
German Peat Company at Triangel, near Gifhorn (Hanover),
where ten peat machines are driven in this way. By this method
it is possible to dispense with two men (a stoker and a water
carrier for the locomotive) in the case of each peat machine.
Moreover, the raising of steam at a single boiler installation, that
of the electric power station, as well as the moving forward of the
peat machines during their work, are more conveniently carried
out, and are therefore less costly. No difficulties are experienced
with regard to the transmission of the power to the peat machines,
which are distributed in the bog, at any desired distances from the
power station. Nor are any difficulties encountered either in
driving the machines by electro-motors fixed on the frames of the
machines or in shifting the cable when the machines move forward.
Even ordinary agricultural labourers quickly learn how to deal

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 203

with the current conductors. Further particulars with regard to
this may be seen in the description of the factory of the North
German Peat Company contained in Subsection G of this Section.
When substituting electrical driving for steam power it must not be
forgotten that the power required for a peat machine is generally given
as lower than it really is, and that locomotives are always able to
give a few horse-power more than that corresponding to their
nominal horse-power, while the nominal power of an electro-motor
as a rule corresponds exactly to its actual power. If for working
a peat machine a so-called 10 h.p. or a 15 h.p. locomotive, for
instance, were sufficient, then for electrical driving instead of
the latter a 13 h.p. or a 20 h.p. motor should be taken.

C. — Transport of Raw Peat to the Machine and of Machine
Peat to the Drying Ground or Sheds

Although the devising of a cheap and rapid mode of trans-
porting the raw and the manufactured peat in a peat works may
at first sight appear a simple matter, it is in reality a difficult one,
especially that of removing the freshly formed peat sods from the
machine to the drying place. Cases are known to the author in
which a peat machine could not be kept going fully, because in
spite of every effort the formed peat could not be removed from
the machine as fast as it came from the mouthpiece, and also, with
the means of transporting at hand, neither the loaded barrows
could be taken away nor the empty barrows brought back quickly
enough to keep the work going smoothly. The output of the
machine had to be cut down in order that the work should be
continuous.

The difficulties are due chiefly to the fact that relatively large
quantities (40,000 to 80,000 peat sods per day) must be transported
from a single working place to discharging stations, the positions
and distances of which change quickly, especially when drying in
the open is practised. They are also due to the surface of the
bog being only in rare cases so smooth and firm that the loaded
cars or barrows can be easily moved over it without a field railway.
Owing to the nature of the bogs, field railways cannot in most
cases be dispensed with. In order to increase as much as possible,
with the expenditure of little labour, the quantity to be transported
on them, it is essential that the positions of the field railways
should be capable of being altered as those of the drying ground
and the working place undergo change.

The following means are employed for this purpose : —

1. — Barrows and Barrow Tracks

In the transport of large quantities such as are dealt with in
the machine peat industry, the use of barrows for this purpose is
admissible only when these quantities are not moved over a track
through the long distances required in the case of a big factory
with a large output, or, in an industry where the peat machine

204

THE WINNING OF PEAT

is moved forward only at long intervals. On the other hand,
transport by means of barrows can be employed with advantage
when the output is small, or when the peat has to be moved only
a short distance, as, for instance, when a migratory machine or
a pulped peat machine is employed, and even then in most cases
an artificial track, the so-called barrow track, must be employed.
The track may with advantage be made of planks, 25 cm. wide
and 5 cm. thick, and its position in the peat bog can be altered
as required. Boards less than 5 cm. thick should not be used as
planks for the barrows, otherwise the wear and tear and the loss
due to their replacement, which very soon becomes necessary,
would be abnormally high.

When pinewood costs 45M. per cubic metre, a linear metre of
barrow track costs 0-25 x 0-05 x 1-0 x 45 = 0-60M. ; at least
25 per cent, should be allowed for wear and tear and loss
per annum.

The barrows, wheel-barrows or box barrows are constructed
according to various types which depend on local usage, but with
regard to them we must rigidly adhere to the principle that the

Fig.^92. — Peat barrow.

best are always the cheapest in the long run. On account of the
ease with which barrows with sloping sides can be emptied, they
are to be recommended for the transport of the raw peat to the
machine. Such a barrow made of wood costs, according to price
of materials and rate of wages, from 25M. to 30M. when its
capacity is f hi.

Barrows made entirely of wrought iron are the most, satisfac-
tory. That shown in Fig. 92, having a capacity of § to 1 hi., costs
30M. to 40M.

Although their cost is considerably greater than that of wooden
barrows, they can, with only a very slight expenditure for repairs,
be used for at least ten years, whereas all wooden barrows have
high running expenses, and after two years' use only bits of them
remain. The position of the centre of gravity of a loaded barrow
constructed according to Fig. 92 is also more favourable for the
wheeler, and the barrow itself can be handled more conveniently
than is usually the case with wooden barrows. The workmen
therefore prefer these barrows, and, as they also load them
better, this has a double advantage so far as the daily output is
concerned.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 205

Wheel-barrows are not so well suited for the removal of peat
sods from the machine, since they afford only a relatively small
loading space. For this purpose the barrows are made with more
or less long, straight trees, on which the boards, covered with four
or five sods each, are placed crosswise in two rows over one another.
To prevent tilting and upsetting of the barrows two wheels, at a
distance of 300 mm. from one another, are sometimes attached to
the axle instead of the single wheel usually employed, but this,
however, necessitates the widening of the barrow track, and at the
same time makes it more difficult to turn corners with the barrow.

2. — Cars on Railways (Field Railways and Transport Wagon

Railways)

In the case of a large industry or in that of a process which
necessitates transport to long distances, it is advisable to install
tracks and railway cars (field railways) both for the raw peat
which is to be brought to the machine and for the peat sods to be

Fig. 93. — Wagon with a field railway bogie under it.

taken away from it. The gauge of the track most suitable is
600 mm. These field railways can also be used for the removal
of ordinary agricultural or transport wagons, so that loads can
be brought without unloading the wagons from the original or
collecting station to the end of the field railway and from there
to the place where the peat is utilized, or difficulties due to
unavoidable interruptions in the field railway can be surmounted.

The wagons are brought over a pit through which the field
railway passes, and bogies running on the field railway are placed
under the wagons (transport wagon tracks), see Figs. 93 and 94.

As the sites of the working centres in a peat factory (peat bank,
position of machine, drying ground and drying sheds) are liable to
alter, the rails must be so constructed that they can be moved from
one place to another without much expenditure of time and labour.
The rails employed are generally either the so-called pit rails or
flanged rails. Ease of removing the rails and their accessories —
turntables, switches, traversers, &c. — is attained in various ways.

206

THE WINNING OF PEAT

For the construction of such field railways and transport
wagon railways it is best to apply to factories which make their
manufacture and supply a speciality. Amongst these are Oren-
stein and Koppel and Arthur Koppel and Co., of Berlin, Bochum
and Vienna, Ferrovia Railway Works, Vienna, Bochum Steel
Foundry, R. Dolberg's Machine and Railway Works, Rostock,
Berlin, and Hamburg, and others. For particulars as to the
construction of tracks we must refer to the detailed illustrated
price lists or instructions issued by the above-mentioned firms.
Generally speaking the following must be considered : —
(a) Tracks, Crossings, Switches, Turntables, and Turning
Plates. — As in ordinary railways, it is also often necessary in the
case of field railways that two tracks should intersect, or that
a single track should branch into two tracks, or that two separate
tracks should be connected together by means of a third, or,
finally, that from a single track another should branch at a given
point and at a given angle.

A

Fig. 94. — Wagon on bogies.

For the first three the so-called switches with crossings (cross-
frogs) are necessary, and for the last we require turning plates and
turntables. The switches and turntables are made either for
letting into or for placing on the ground, forming the so-called
by-passes or turntables.

The arrangement of the rails for these cases may be seen in
Fig. 95, in which one track is split up into others by means of a
switch at a, one track cuts another at b, and also each of the middle
tracks connects the two outside tracks with one another. The
turntable c and the turning plate d allow of passing from one
track to another at a right angle or at any oblique angle desired.

As may be seen, it is not possible to arrange the switches and
crossings without employing curved rails. The making of these,
however, offers no difficulty as the pit rails which are employed for
the purpose can be bent even when cold.

In narrow gauge tracks, such as these, on which the cars
never attain any great velocity, the radius of curvature of the

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 207

bends in the switches may be as small as 1 m. To prevent the car
wheels from becoming fixed in the bends it is necessary when the
rails are much curved to increase the gauge by 10 to 15 mm.

Fig. 95 shows also the arrangement of two tracks at the working
station of a peat machine the position of which is never altered.
The peat machine M is between, or beside, two tracks on which the
empty and the loaded sod cars are taken away and brought back

Fig. 95. — Scheme for changing from one track to another.

alternately. The loaded cars always pass over the straight side
tracks to the turntables or switches and from there travel,
according as required, to the right, left, or straight on to the drying
ground. The returning empty cars pass from the turntables
(which can also be replaced by turning plates) to the middle cross
rails, and, when the loaded cars have been removed, are pushed
from there to the cutting table of the peat machine, where they

208

THE WINNING OF PEAT

can again be loaded with formed peat. The raw peat is trans-
ported to the machine over the track r, which is either connected
by means of the turntable c with the track lying beside the peat
bank or else lies beside the bank.

In places where, on account of want of room, the various
tracks cannot meet at the small angle which is necessary when
switches are employed, or where one track intersects several others
at almost a right angle and it is necessary to be able to pass from
it to the others, turntables c or turning plates d must be laid
(Figs 96 and 97).

Fig. 96. — Turning plate.

The turning plates consist of wrought-iron or cast-iron plates,
1 to 1 -5 m. square and lie fixed between the rails in contact with
them. In reference to the upper edges of the rails the plates are
so high that the flanged wheels run on them as they leave the
rails. On these firmly fixed plates the cars are rotated round their
vertical axes until their longitudinal axes coincide with the middle
lines of the railways to be traversed. The turning of a car, during
which operation the wheels must slip sideways on the fixed plate,
can be accomplished when the car-load is about 1,000 kilos (every-
thing included) only when the car attendant exerts all his
strength ; this is, therefore, a matter of considerable difficulty.

Fig. 97.— Turntable.

Owing to the unavoidable lateral pressure on the axles and
bearings of the cars and the slipping of the wheels, this method of
turning is in the long run injurious to the plant and occasions
frequent extra work and rapid wear and tear. As, moreover, the
time required for the turning is greater than that required when
turntables are employed the latter are generally preferred in
spite of their greater cost.

Wrought-iron turning plates consist mostly of smooth, square
plates, 8 to 10 mm. thick, on the sides of which the somewhat

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 209

curved ends of the rails rest, supported transversely on sleepers.
As shown in Fig. 96, a cast-iron turning plate has a turning ring c in
its centre and short rail pieces to connect it with the rails of the
track so that the cars can be accurately turned and pushed into the
rail track to be traversed. Fig. 97 shows a turntable which is often
constructed even for broader gauges and heavier loads than are
met with in bogs. In the cast-iron case G, which acts both as
a cover and a support, the disc S, strengthened by the ribs and
supported by the steel pivot s, rotates by means of a hollow
spindle round the upturned central column of the case. The pivot
and the turntable can be easily lubricated from the outside by
means of an oil-hole in the centre of the table.

This mode of construction has the advantage that the turn-
table, when buried and tamped in the ground or the bog, can be
traversed by loaded cars as soon as it is connected to the railway
track. This is of great importance when it is a question of
changing the position of the railway.

The plates of these turntables can be made without rails and
therefore quite smooth. It is thus possible, without being obliged
to adjust the table for the axis of the rails and then fix it by a
latch contrivance, to move a car from any track on to the turn-
table and after rotating the latter until the car is in the axis of the
outgoing track to move it into the latter, after which the turn-
table is again ready to take any other car. This construction is
to be recommended when many crossings at different angles occur
in an extensive network of railways and when the traffic over one
rail is to be made to pass in the desired direction over another rail
by means of turntables all of which are made according to the
same model. In this case the rail terminals only require to be
screwed to the border round the turntables. When the turn-
table is constructed according to this type the advantage hitherto
claimed for the smooth turning plates, viz., that they are capable
of being used for any desired direction, is shared by the turn-
table, which is at the same time free from the defects of the
turning plate already mentioned. These turntables have all the
advantages of the turning plates and answer every demand
made upon them.

When at all possible it is advisable, in the case of a large rail-
way system, to lay separate tracks for the loaded and the empty
cars, the so-called parallel tracks or auxiliary tracks. In this
way disturbance in the working is most easily avoided and shorter
transport distances are required. If this is not practicable,
endless tracks (as in Figs. 83 to 85) or, in the case of only a single
track, sidings are to be made. The points of the track, in the
latter case, at which sidings are to be made will be determined by
the number of cars to be moved and the length of the track. The
connexion between the sidings and the main track is usually made
by a hand-controlled switch. Special attention must be paid to
these sidings when laying rails, as they give rise to frequent
derailment of the cars, and, therefore, to working troubles if their
construction is faulty. With the ordinary arrangement of switches

210

THE WINNING OF PEAT

this may occur, especially when the cars enter the siding. The
shock of running on to the siding rails and any faulty construction
of the latter, together with the tendency of the car to remain on
the straight track owing to its inertia, usually give rise either to
derailment or to running ahead on the straight track and, therefore,
to collision with any cars which it may meet on this.

In order to avoid this defect as far as possible, it is advisable
to arrange the switches so that each car, no matter in what direc-
tion it is moving, should run straight into the siding. Only the

exit from the siding should be curved.
This can be effected by arranging the
siding as shown in Fig. 99. The tendency
of the cars to run off the rails or to run
on to the wrong track is so diminished
by this arrangement that these sidings
can be constructed without any movable
rails, without endangering the safety of
the traffic, and without the car attendants
requiring to diminish the speed at these
points or devote special attention to the
guiding of the car. The cars automatically
run into and out of the siding in the right
track provided that the crossing places in
the tracks for the flanges be left open, as
shown in Fig. 99. The saving of the
movable siding rails is important for the
industry in so far as we can dispense with
the pointsmen who would be required at
these places in the event of much traffic ;
also, when there are no pointsmen the men
pushing the cars, who are entrusted with
the care of this contrivance, need waste no
time with it and can run through the
sidings at full speed, which is of great
importance for the maintenance of a
regular and undisturbed traffic.

A single track railway, 5,000 m. in
length, was constructed in this way to carry
wood. It had five loading stations and also
sidings for cars passing one another without
any movable switches, the changing of
which with so long a track and with the con-
stant daily use of the railway would have required at least five
workmen. The wood cars, connected together in threes, passed
automatically through the sidings without any disorganization,
due to derailment, being experienced. The whole track lay
downhill, so that once the cars were in motion they continued
running of their own accord to the terminus. As an indication
of the suitability of the siding arrangement we have the fact
that the cars, which were let go by themselves from the hill
and which on account of the steep incline traversed the

Fig. 98.

Fig. 99.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 211

track with a speed of, say, 3 m. per second, passed through all
the sidings (none of which had movable switches) in a regular
manner (always running correctly) and arrived at their halting
place without running off the rails. As a consequence of this
the working was arranged, at first in an experimental manner
for the first two stretches of the line, so that the loaded cars
as they ran down the hill drew the empty cars up the hill by
means of an endless rope passing round two drums and the
trains could then be left without any attendants whatever. The
cars passed through the sidings so safely that this method of
working could be set up for the whole line, and in this way the
working expenses were very considerably diminished. The
ropeways ran on the ground on small wooden rollers right and
left at the sides of the track.

The following method for conveying raw peat to the machine,
which has already come into use in many peat works, may
be indicated as a suitable one. It consists in driving from the
locomotive both the peat machine and a capstan or windlass
contrivance which, by putting into or throwing out of gear a
coupling, can be set into or thrown out of action. A chain fastened
at one end to the drum of the windlass is coupled at the other end
by means of a hook and eye to the car loaded with raw peat in the
bog. As soon as the capstan contrivance is set in motion the car
is drawn on the track laid between the peat bank and the peat
machine until it is close to the working place, where it is emptied
and again pushed back. If the rail track from the peat bank to
the machine runs up an incline of at least 1 in 100, the cars, when
emptied and set in motion by a push, will run back of their own
accord.1

(b) Transport Cars for the Raw Peat and the Machine-formed
Peat. — The cars in use for transport are of the most diverse makes.
Generally, cars of the same type serve for raw and for dry peat.
These are usually made in the form of tipping cars on account

1 The use of wire ropeways as a means of transporting raw peat or
formed peat sods in a peat works is not to be recommended under ordinary-
conditions. .Such an installation deserves consideration only when very
undulating or very much intersected ground makes the construction of
a firm railway track either impossible or too costly, or where waterways,
roads, and valuable ground, which cannot be acquired, must be passed over
without interfering with the traffic on the former and the utilization of the
latter. In peat works, when we are dealing only with level ground, and
when the length of railway connecting the peat bank, the machine, and the
drying ground is relatively short, the laying of a firm railway track will
always be preferred to a wire ropewav from the point of view of cheapness of
the installation and security of the industry.

The matter assumes a different complexion when it becomes a, question
of sending peat from the bog to good roads, re-loading stations, places of
consumption or distant centres where the peat is further worked. In
these cases the great distances and land difficulties must be taken into
consideration and the use of a wire ropeway may very well be substituted
for that of a solid railway track, as, for instance, at the Dyckerhoff Peat
Moss Litter Factory, at Neustadt, in Riibenberg, which has a wire ropeway
4 km. in length.

212

THE WINNING OF PEAT

of the ease and the rapidity with which they can be emptied
(see Fig. 100). Recently these cars have also been constructed
in the form of " ring tumblers " or " ring tippers."

For removing the fresh sods from the machine to the drying
ground or sheds the transport car, the construction of which is
illustrated in Fig. 101, can be recommended.

The most important point is that such a car should be able to
take so many spreading boards, 1 to 2 m. in length and covered

Fig. 100. — Feat car, tipper.

with " formed peat," that the car will have its full load, i.e., the
pushing force of the workman will be fully utilized. To ensure
regularity of working at the drying ground it is essential that all
the boards may be put on and taken off easily from either side of
the car.

The type of construction mentioned above fulfils these condi-
tions, since such a car, according as it contains 3 or 4 tiers, is.

Fig. 101. — Transport cars for peat sods.

Fig. 102.

capable of taking 12 to 16 boards, each of which is 1 m. in length,
300 mm. in width, and can be loaded with 12 standard sods
(2,000 ex. volume).

This corresponds to a load of 144 to 192 sods of 3 to 4 kilos each
and, therefore, to an effective weight of 500 to 790 kilos, which one
man is able to move over an iron railway track. As the boards
are laid across the longitudinal axis of the car they can be taken off
and put on without difficulty at either side, which is not the case

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 213

with cars in which the boards lie in the direction of the longitudinal
axis on both sides of central supports.

Fig. 102 shows another arrangement with boards lying in the
direction of the length of the car, which can be recommended when
the boards are more than 1 m. in length.

Cars like these, made altogether of iron, with roller bearings
and lubricating caps for the wheels, weigh 180 to 200 kilos and
cost 80M. to 100M.

The diameters of the wheels are chosen as large as possible,
so that the cars may be the more easily moved ; they may with
advantage be from 300 mm. to 400 mm.

The axle distance, i.e., the distance apart of the centres of the
axles, is to be arranged so as to leave a space of 30 to 50 mm.
between the circumferences of the wheels. It must not, however,
be made less than 350 mm., and it is generally 400 mm. The
shorter the distance between the axles the more easily the cars
traverse bends and the more conveniently they can be pushed
on to turntables and turning plates.

In order to make the moving of the cars on the rails as easy
as possible and to spare the transport gear it is necessary to keep
the running surface of the rails free from waste matter, sand, or
peat. This can be conveniently done by means of a scraper with
which a workman cleans the rails at least once a day.

(c) Prices of the Component Parts of a Field Railway. —
According to the price of iron, the greater or smaller demand,,
the place where required, and according as the rails for a 600 mm.
gauge are chosen at 45 mm. or 50 mm. in height, the prices of
the parts necessary for a field railway are approximately as
follows : —

linear m. removable rail consisting
of steel rails 5 m. in length with
cast-steel sleepers, made from
rails 65 mm. or (in the case of
locomotive power) 70 mm. in
height

m. fixed track for wooden sleepers
or as in the preceding with fish-
plates and fish-bolts
removable rail crossing, right-
angled . .

removable rail crossing, acute-
angled

movable switch 5 m. long
complete set of points with
switches 2-5 m. in length and
adjusting block
movable by-pass
movable by-pass 5 m. long
turntable, 95 cm. diameter
cast-iron turning table, 1 m.
diameter for 1,500 kilos weight . .

Light tracks

for hand or

horse power.

Marks.

Heavy tracks
for locomo-
tive power.
Marks.

3-50-4-50

2 • 30-2 • 80*

35-40

60-75
45-55

100-110
30-35
50-55
60-80

25-35

4 • 50-5 • 00

3-50-3-80

60-65

120-130
70-75

130-140
35-40
70-80

* Waterproof sleepers for these cost 0-80M. or P20M. per metre for thicknesses
of 10 x 12 cm. or 12 x 14 cm.

214 THE WINNING OF PEAT

Light tracks
for hand or

Heavy tracks
for locomo-

horse power.
Marks.

tive power,
Marks.

90-95

— ■

110-130

.

90-115

—

85-125

—

150-170

_

1 by-pass turntable with two pairs
of sliding tongues

1 single track traverser, 100 cm.
gauge width

1 cast-steel tipping car for raw peat,
J to J cb. m. capacity

1 sod transport car with lubricating
caps

1 box car with side flaps for trans-
port of dry peat

One Montania benzine locomotive of 10 or 14 h.p. to draw
42 or 52 tons costs 7,500M. or 8,500M.

One Deutz benzine locomotive of 10, 14, or 20 h.p. mav be
obtained for about 7,000M., 7,900M., or 8,900M.

3. — Belt Elevators, Conveyers, Automatic Spreaders, and

Distributors

To economize labour, the well-known belt elevators and
chain conveyers (see Fig. 86) have in recent times also been
used to transport horizontally to the peat machines the raw
peat from the peat bank or the peat raised by cutting machines
or dredgers in bogs which are difficult to drain. For this purpose
almost horizontal conveyers, belts, chains, &c, supported by
wooden pulleys or rolling latticed girders, up to 100 m. or more in
length, are employed. The peat is thrown by them directly into
the hopper of the peat machine, and in this way there is a saving
of four or five workmen for each machine. These transporters or
chain conveyers (for mud peat, tubes or channels with a screw
conveyer) are also constructed as peat spreaders, i.e., they take
the worked material from the mixing or forming machines to the
drying grounds and deposit it there, as has been already stated
in Subsection A, 4.

4. — Comparison of the Powers required to move Loads over various

Roads and Railway Tracks

The power required to move a car over horizontal rails in
good condition is generally 1 per cent, of the total weight of
the car and its load. When working on a slight incline making
an angle a with the horizontal, the pushing or pulling power P
required to move a total weight Q can be calculated from the
formula :

P = Q ^ -j- sin a)
where the + sign holds for motion uphill and the — sign for
motion downhill, and n is the co-efficient of frictional resistance
on the track in question, which, as above indicated, can be
assumed to have an average value of 0 ■ 01 .

When a = 0°, i.e., when the track is horizontal, P = Q v or p,

P

— — so that the co-efficient of frictional resistance on a track

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE FEAT 215

is equal to the ratio of the (minimum) moving force to the weight
moved.

The following particulars may serve to compare the frictional
resistance on a track with those occurring in other modes of
locomotion. The co-efficient of frictional resistance is : — ■

For sleighs on snow .. .. .. 0-02

For cars on good roads . . . . . . 0 • 02-0 • 04

For cars on worn, muddy roads . . . . 0-04-0-06

For cars on very bad roads with ruts 0-06-0-08

70 mm. to 80 mm. in depth

For cars on a wooden track . . . . 0-02-0 • 03

For barrows on a wooden track . . . . 0-02

For ordinary iron railings .. .. 0-003-0-005

For flat-bottomed boats on water . . 0-003

For auxiliary tracks, narrow gauge tracks 0-008-0-015

with small wheels, field railways, &c.

In the case of the latter, when the down gradient is 1 in 100 the
cars run of their own accord.

The average pulling or pushing force of a man may be assumed
to be that required to give a velocity of 1 m. per second to a weight
of 10 to 12 kilos, and that of a horse as that required to give
a velocity of 1 -3 m. to a weight of 50 to 55 kilos. According to the
figures given above, one horse or one man for the same expenditure
of power can move by means of a car on an iron railway track
a load four times as big as they can respectively move on ordinary
roads, and also at least twice as big as they can move with barrows
or cars over wooden tracks.

D. — Drying Machine Peat

The drying of machine-formed peat or machine-pulped peat
(divided into sods by hand or stroked in moulds) generally takes
place like that of hand-cut peat in the open air and rarely on
boards or trestles or in drying sheds. The latter method, as well
as artificial drying and the manufacture of anhydrous peat, is
also too expensive in the case of machine peat.

Drying peat by means of artificial heat is discussed in detail
in the article on the resumption of dry pressing by Stauber
and others, as well as in the subsection on the "Manufacture
of Kiln-dried Peat," in Part II of this book.

Of methods for artificially drying peat two only need be
mentioned. Some time ago these were called, like all such
schemes, the " Solution of the Peat Problem." They were to be
introduced into large peat factories.

(a) Gehrcke's Tubular Steam Boiler for drying peat. This is
filled with wet peat. " The water of the peat is evaporated by
heating, the peat contracts, passes through the tubes of the boiler,,
loses its water in the lower part and gradually falls into the fire,
and then the automatic working of the boiler begins. The dry
peat burns under the boiler, evaporating the water from a new
charge of peat. The steam developed is to be used for driving
machines." However, the fuel contained in raw peat which

216 THE WINNING OF PEAT

usually has 90 per cent, of water, is not even capable of drying
itself, and there is therefore no need to discuss excess steam
pressure or an excess of dry fuel.1

(b) Hannemann's Peat-drying Process is similar to that just
described. The peat, which has been passed through purifying
and disintegrating machines, is to be moved by screws through an
upper boiler, where it is dried. " After the substance passes the
two upper spirals with a velocity of 1 m. per minute, it passes
through a connecting tube into the large lower spiral, and from
there to the dry press. The drying is to be effected by the heat
of the water which surrounds the tubes. Only half of the dried
peat should be required for drying purposes for an output of
1,500 kilos of dry peat from peat containing 75 per cent, of water
with a boiler plant which has 100 sq. m. heating surface, so that
the other half should be available for the manufacture of press
peat. Moreover, 60 per cent, of the heat necessary for drying
should be available for power purposes in the form of steam."

It is wrongly assumed here that ordinary raw peat contains
only 75 per cent, of water ; in the case of peat containing 85 per
cent, of water 667 kilos more water must be evaporated in order
to produce 100 kilos of peat containing 75 per cent, of water, and
the dry fuel finally obtained is now not even sufficient for the
whole drying operation.

In what follows, therefore, only the most important of the
drying processes in which ordinary air and the heat of the sun
are employed will be mentioned, in so far as the devices to be
considered for ensuring the drying of machine peat are not
identical with those more fully described in Section III.

1. — Drying in the Open Air

The raw peat about to be worked in forming machines,
which are at the same time good mixing machines, should be so
far freed from exce-ss of water that only a few drops of this can
be pressed out of it by squeezing with the hand. This corresponds
to a water percentage of 75 to 85, and peat freshly raised from
the bog, having a higher percentage of water than this should
lie for several days in the air and sun in order to lose as much as
possible of the excess water by evaporation. The peat sods which
then come from the machine are generally so firm that they can
be laid on the drying ground in pairs over one another. This is
best done by laying two sods on the ground at a distance of 50 mm.
from one another and placing two others at the same distance
apart, but crosswise, on the first pair. Similar heaps of four sods,

1 In spite of the warning given in the second edition of this handbook,
several more or less large experimental plants have been fitted with these
Gehrcke peat steam boilers and have met with complete failure, as might
have been predicted. The manufacture of these boilers has therefore been
given up by the Niirnberg factory, which had taken them over. Compare
also the reference to this in the remarks on furnaces in Subsection C, 3, of
Part II.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 217

sometimes also six sods, in layers over one another are placed
20 to 30 mm. apart in rows on the drying ground. It has been found
by experience that the sods thus prepared and placed in small
heaps resist the action of wet weather, provided they are not
exposed to heavy rain during the first twelve hours.

As a result of the initial drying, their surfaces soon become as
hard as leather so that in three to four days in good weather, and
in six to eight days in bad weather, the sods can be turned and
put into rings or walls eight to ten layers in height, thus to some
extent clearing the drying ground, on which more sods may be
again spread. Usually after fourteen days the sods are collected
from the rings and walls into larger heaps in which, however, there
are still small spaces left between the sods. The sods are allowed
to remain in these clamps until they are fully air-dried, which
as a rule will require from five to eight weeks, according to the
weather and the locality.

If at all possible, as, for instance, by employing the temporary
trestles described in the following subsection, the exposure of
the peat sods which have just come from the machine to the
influence of strong wind or the burning rays of the sun should
be avoided. Usually in the heat of the sun, and especially in the
case of certain dense and fatty (bituminous) peats, a hard crust
forms on the surfaces of the sods owing to their rapid drying, and
this, tending to contract, soon splits in many places, as the
inner core, being still moist, does not contract to the same
extent. The consequence of this is that these peat sods, on drying
out, split still more, lose their good appearance, and fall into pieces,
producing loss of material when being further handled or loaded.
On the other hand, peat acquires greater firmness and density if it
is not exposed during the first few days to the action of the sun,
and for this reason peat dried slowly in the shade looks better
and is firmer than that dried in the sun.

Under the name ' split-free quick drying " a process was
proposed by C. Schlickeysen, of Berlin, with a view to avoiding
this defect. Small quantities of finely ground or sifted peat, coal
or coke powder, or saw-dust are added to the raw peat when it is
being thrown into the mixing and forming machine, and these,
although not decreasing in any way the calorific power of the peat,
prevent the splitting of the formed sods during the drying in the
air and sun, just as a thinning medium does in the conversion of
fat clay into bricks. This process is said to have frequently worked
well. The time required for drying is shortened by this method,
and the winning season is lengthened by some weeks. It can
scarcely give rise to special costs, as the dry peat mould required
for it will be found ready at hand in every peat works. The
addition of chopped straw as a cementing substance was proposed
earlier for the same object. Machine peat inclined to crumble
might perhaps be prevented from doing so by the addition of this
substance.1

1 Cf. Mitteil. d. Ver. z. Ford. d. Moork., 1900, p. 112.
(2595) Q

218

THE WINNING OF PEAT

Machine peat on drying contracts the more, and splits and
crumbles the less, the greater the mixing and kneading action of
the machine.

The rapid drying of machine peat is connected (1) with the
amount of air to which the mass to be dried is exposed ; (2) with
the time of the year and the average daily temperature ; (3) with
local circumstances.

How these vary in different countries, and how that which
has proved of use in winning peat in one place cannot be directly
applied in another, may be seen from the fact that, for instance,
peat fuel winning can take place without drying appliances and
without sheds during eleven months of the year at Helenaveen
in Holland, while at Sebastiansberg in the Erzgebirge, which is
480 m. above sea-level and has a high rainfall, it is possible for
scarcely two months ; in the Enns valley, Carinthia, Styria, &c,
for not much more than two and a half months ; and in the
majority of the peat factories of West and North Germany for
scarcely more than three and a half months (on an average,
100 working days).

When drying in the open air or in an open shed where the
motion of the air and therefore the amount of air which takes
up moisture cannot be increased, the drying on a given drying
ground, which should be chosen in as open and windy a place
as possible, takes place all the more rapidly the greater the
ratio of the surface of the wet peat sods to their mass. For this
reason, long, thin pieces dry better than short, thick ones, and
therefore it is not desirable to manufacture sods having a cross-
section more than 100 mm. square, although for other reasons
this is generally done.

Influence of the Size of Peat Sods on the Time required

for Drying.

No.

Volume
(c.c.)

Surface
(sq. cm.)

Weight
(g.)

of the fresh peat sods.

Surface
correspond-
ing to
everylOOc.c.
of volume.

Percentage decrease in weight during
the progress of the drying, after

2 | 4 I 6 I 8 | 10 I 12 I 14
days. I clays. | days. | days. | days. [ days. | days.

1
2

1,280
448

744
344

1352-0
471-0

58

80

12-1

17-0

25-3
37-4

35-4

50-7

47-0
62-7

59-9
69-0

65-6
71-0

68-7

72-4

The effect of different sizes of peat sods on the time required
for drying may be seen from the accompanying figures, which
are based on observations made with sods having cross-sections
with different areas : The larger peat sods had 58 sq. cm. and
the smaller 80 sq. cm. of surface for every 100 c.c. of volume. The
various sods were taken successively from the same peat band, and
therefore had the same density, texture, and percentage of water,
and consisted of the same raw material. The figures given, there-
fore, may be regarded as establishing the advantage which the
smaller sods with smaller cross-sections have while drying,
especially as in the earlier stages they are several days ahead of

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 219

the others, and therefore can be footed and ringed sooner, so that
for the same output by weight they require a smaller drying ground.

Moreover, in the case of a raw peat which is sensitive towards
the sun and wind, the smaller sods, since they dry more uniformly,
split less than the thicker (anything over 100 mm. square) ones.

Drying in the open air depends, however, a good deal on the
time of the year and on the average daily temperature, because air
at a given temperature is only able to take up a certain maximum
amount of water vapour (moisture), and when this has been taken
up the air is then said to be " saturated with water vapour."
A part of this maximum quantity is always already taken up by
the air, and the amount of this varies from month to month.
This " degree of saturation " of the air, by which its capacity to
absorb more water vapour is determined, is at a maximum in
Mid-Germany in December and at a minimum in August,
amounting in the former case to 86 per cent, and in the latter to
61 per cent., while from April to the end of September the average
value is 68 per cent. In the summer months the air is still able
to take up at most 32 per cent., or approximately one-third of
the total quantity of water required to saturate it at that time
of the year.

This quantity, however, depends on the mean temperature of
the air for the months in question, and at low temperatures it is
very small, as may be seen from the accompanying table : —

Water contained in One Cubic Metre of Saturated Air at

various Temperatures.*

Air

temperature

in degrees

Cent.

Amount of
water in
grammes.

Ah-
temperature
in degrees
Cent.

Amount of
water in
grammes.

Ah-
temperature
in degrees
Cent.

Amount of
water in
grammes.

- 15

- 10

- 5
0
5

10
15

1-4
2-3
3-4
4-9
6-8
9-4
12-8

20
25
30
35
40
50
60

17-2
23-0
30-2
39-5
51-0
82-7
129-8

70
80
90
100
120
140
150

197-4

290-9

420-5

591-9

1,120-0

1,870-0

2,400-0

♦Calculated from the results of Regnault's observations on the tension of water
vapour at various temperatures.

In our north temperate zone the mean daily temperature is
lowest in the middle of January. It rises at first very slowly, but
in April and May it rises fairly quickly, and after these months
again more slowly until the end of July, when it reaches its highest
point. It then falls at first slowly, and about autumn more rapidly.
From the above table it follows that the months of May, June and
July are the best times for drying peat, and that peat winning
must cease all the sooner the wetter the peat is (corresponding to
the mode of winning), when first exposed for drying, i.e., the longer
the time required for drying it will be. This is also the reason
why pulp peat winning must cease much earlier (as a matter

220 THE WINNING OF PEAT

of fact, at the end of July) than the machine peat industry, which
can be carried on until the middle of September.

The view hitherto generally taken and the statement often
made, that condensed machine peat dries more rapidly and more
completely than ordinary cut or stroked peat is erroneous, and has
not been supported by any of the many investigations carried out
by the author. On the contrary, hand or cut peat in good weather
or under cover (covered trestles) dries not only more quickly than
machine peat from the same raw material, but the hand peat, when
fully air-dry, contains 1 to 3 per cent, less moisture than machine
peat under the same conditions. (Cf . Subsection F of this Section.)

A difference in favour of machine peat is met only when the
drying takes place in the open during unfavourable rainy weather
or heavy fogs. Cut or stroked peat, on account of its loose,
cellular texture, easily absorbs any rain falling on it or fog
condensing on it, and during prolonged rain can again saturate
itself like a sponge, until it contains its original percentage of
water, so that in reference to its degree of dryness it thus retreats
again and again by days or weeks. Even protracted and heavy
rain cannot exert a similar action on machine peat, as the drops of
water run off it on account of its smoother and more intimately
kneaded surface and also are prevented from penetrating into
the interior by its uniformly dense structure. When the rain or
the damp weather ceases the moisture remaining on the surface
of the machine peat again evaporates very quickly, and the
progress of the drying from within outwards can continue its
course without interruption. Under these circumstances, especially
when they repeat themselves during the drying of one and the
same " spreading," machine peat acquires a definite degree of
dryness in a shorter time than hand peat from the same raw
material.

Consideration cannot be withheld from the " split-free
quick drying " mentioned above, in so far as it ensures the drying
process for large scale winning, and especially when the winning
aims at obtaining sods as smooth and free from cracks as possible.

Owing to the relatively large volume which hand peat occupies
when compared with its weight, storing sheds for all the fully
air-dried peat won in the middle of summer would cost too much.
The cut or stroked peat is put into large clamps and is therefore
always exposed to the action of adverse weather conditions. In
consequence of the spongy, very porous, or fissured character it
generally has after drying, it again readily absorbs moisture and,
when actually used, it mostly contains a much higher percentage of
water than corresponds to its really air-dried state. Machine peat,
which can be kept under cover at a smaller expense, retains, either
for this reason or, if clamped in the open air, owing to its denser
and firmer texture in the dried condition causing all the raindrops
to run off it as they do from coal, the degree of dryness attained
by careful drying in the air or allows it to be altered within only
such narrow limits that the peat contains on the average 18 to
25 per cent, of moisture.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 221

The number and the size of the drying grounds for machine
formed peat are calculated with reference to a drying period
which is at most fourteen days, since even in unfavourable weather
the peat is so dry and firm after this time that it can be brought
into clamps.

The drying grounds are best laid out with lengths of 150 to
200 m., widths of 10 m., and with intervals of If to 2 m. between
every two. The intervening strips are levelled, and barrow tracks
or portable rails are laid on them as required. These lead to the
forming machine, where they are divided by means of switches
into several tracks for the empty and loaded cars. The forming
machine is placed between these tracks.

With the method given above for spreading the peat sods

on the drying grounds, every four standard sods (8 x 10 x 25 cm.),

having a volume of 2,000 c.c. each, piled in two tiers, require a

surface of (0-25 m.+ 0-02m.)2 or 0-72 sq. m. Every 1,000 sods

, t 0-072 x 1,000 lo , _ ,

therefore require -— - = 18 sq. m. of drying ground,

so that for every cubic metre of freshly formed peat 9 sq. m. of
drying ground are required.

If the consistency of the freshly formed peat sods makes it
possible to place them in three tiers, that is, in small heaps of
6 sods each, then for 1 cb. m. of formed peat only 6 sq. m. of
drying ground will be necessary.

This degree of firmness is attained all the more readily the
drier the peat machine is allowed to work the raw peat, and this
happens all the more frequently the greater the mixing action of
the machine.

The area of the drying grounds required for winning machine-
pulp peat is larger owing to the addition of water which usually
occurs in the manufacture, and for every cubic metre of raw peat
it amounts approximately to 15 sq. m. In this case, even in the
middle of summer, not less than fourteen days can be reckoned
upon for each " spreading."

The total cost of the drying operations on the drying ground
itself and of collecting the sods into clamps amounts for every
1,000 sods of air-dried machine peat toO-60M. toO-90M. when the
average daily wages are 1-75M. for women or girls and 3-00M.
for men, so that when the thousand sods of machine peat, dried
in the open, weigh 600 kilos, then 10 to 15 Pfg. will be the
cost corresponding to every 100 kilos of air-dried machine peat,
In unfavourable weather this may increase to 18 Pfg.

2. — Drying on Boards and Trestles

The inconvenience (and the losses associated therewith) which
became manifest when peat was won on a large scale by air-
drying in unfavourable weather was to a great extent met by
having recourse to the machine peat industry.

Nevertheless, after the introduction of the machine peat
industry attention was again directed to freeing the peat from the

222

THE WINNING OF PEAT

prejudicial effect of wet weather and the sun's rays and, in order
to obtain a higher price for it, to giving the peat a neater external
appearance by avoiding frequent turning and piling on the drying
ground and the ruin to its regular shape associated with these
operations.

In some machine peat industries attempts have been made to
avoid removing the wet peat sods from the spreading boards, or
tipping them on the drying ground, and, therefore, to dry the sods
on the boards themselves, which are laid close to one another on
the ground. The peat dries in this way far more rapidly than
than when it is placed directly on the ground itself.

In order to economize in drying ground, and at the same time
to protect most of the peat won from the action of the weather,
four to five boards can, as indicated in Fig. 103, be piled over one
another by employing simple wooden trestles with cross-trees, the
so-called " temporary trestles." The movable drying stands

Fig. 103. — Movable trestles for drying boards.

obtained in this way can be moved forward with the machine in
the bog, and the amount of transport for the formed sods made
as small as possible.

It is advisable for this purpose to make the spreading boards
(which are at the same time drying boards) in such a way that the
air can also have access to the peat sods from underneath. This
is attained by providing the boards, as in Fig. 104, with several
wide air-holes 30 mm. in diameter, or still better by making the
boards from a frame on which lathes, 30 to 40 mm. wide, are
nailed in a slanting direction, with spaces of 15 to 20 mm. between
them. The peat sods in this case do not require to be turned or
even touched until they are quite dry, or until they are being
collected into clamps. This method of drying is therefore not
much dearer than that of drying in the open and on the bare
ground, and is, moreover, much safer. There is no loss of peat
or time, and in this respect it is indeed cheaper than the other
method, but it requires a fairly large capital outlay for trestles
and drying boards, and can only be worked on a small scale.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 223

When 40,000 sods or 20,000 kilos of dry peat are won per day
the drying plant costs approximately 18.000M. ; assuming 6 per
cent, interest and 14 per cent, amortization, therefore altogether
20 per cent., and 150 working days, the cost for 100 kilos amounts

18000x0-20 rt -„,, 10™ ^ .,

to — — = 0-12M. = 12 Pfg. For transporting the peat

150x200
boards to the trestles six men are required, and for placing the
boards on the trestle two more men, who, at 3M. each, are paid
in all 24M., and this distributed over the daily output of 20,000
kilos gives 12 Pfg. for 100 kilos, so that the total cost of drying
amounts to 24 Pfg. or, including collection into clamps, to
approximately 30 Pfg. for 100 kilos. When the daily output is
30,000 kilos the latter cost becomes 20 Pfg.

Pr:Q:iO,0
pvOLOjLp

Q Q O C

Fig. 104. Fig. 104a.

Drying Boards.

3. — Drying under Cover

This method of drying has hitherto been seldom employed for
peat on account of its cost. By correctly constructing and
arranging the buildings and their internal equipment required for
this method it ought to be possible to make the machine peat
winning into a great industry as characteristically and as re-
muneratively independent of the weather as the winning of formed
brown coal (not to be confused with press coal or briquettes), the
calorific value of which is no higher than that of machine peat of
average quality.

The brown coal sods made from coal dust or " smalls " with
the aid of brick machines were originally also dried entirely in
the open because it was believed that fuel which was of little value
could not support the increase in price due to the expense of
erecting drying sheds. The mine-owners, however, during rainy
summers suffered a considerable decrease in their profits, partly
owing to the action of rain on the coal sods spread for drying and
partly owing to the increase in the length of time required for
drying due to the constantly wet ground and the humid atmosphere.
They therefore began to erect drying sheds, and since then these

224

THE WINNING OF PEAT

have become more and more common wherever such brown coal
sods are still manufactured, the owners finding their balance sheet
better than it formerly was.

The drying sheds already described in Section III, " Winning
and Properties of Hand Peat," may be regarded as forming a
transition stage to these drying sheds.

To the latter also belong the movable drying houses, which
Gysser erected at Willaringen for a small factory in which Weber's
machines were employed and which can be used with advantage
whenever, in the case of spreading and drying in the open, the
injurious action of heavy rain is to be kept off the freshest and
softest portion of the winning.

These houses consist of five hurdles, placed over one another,
the uppermost of which is covered with a shingle roof. Each
hurdle (Fig. 105) is formed of a frame of four roofing laths, nailed

Fig. 105. — Drying hurdles.

at the four corners to short posts. These small posts have wedge-
shaped upper ends and have corresponding portions cut out of
their lower ends. The positions of these ends and cut-out portions
are similar for all the posts over one another at any one corner,
but those of the one corner are at right angles to those of the
other in order that when several hurdles are placed on one another
they may keep their positions firmly and without toppling over.

E. — Cost of Plant, and Working Expenses of Machine

Peat Factories

The outputs given in the description of the various peat
machines in Section IV are taken from the statements of their
inventors or sellers and in actual work are rarely reached as
average outputs. The reasons for this smaller output are partly
due to the circumstance that the figures given in the price lists
usually hold good only "for suitable raw material." This suitable

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 225

raw material, under which expression generally root-free, ripe,
well-drained, and uniform mould peat is understood, is, however,
usually not present in the peat bogs to be worked. The reasons
for the lower output are also partly to be sought in the incorrect
use of this or that method of winning, and in the incorrect selection
of the working machines, and in part also in faulty transport
contrivances, bad management, &c.

Hence the actual costs of production are generally higher than
those made out in the preliminary estimates in Section IV
(without, however, questioning the utility of machine peat winning
in itself). In every new installation there must be determined, in
respect to local circumstances but especially in regard to the raw
peat to be worked and the labour available, what method of
winning and therefore what working machine will be most suitable
for that case, and how closely we may expect to be able to reach the
possible costs of winning calculated in Section IV.

Since in winning machine peat human labour is required for
digging and transporting the raw peat as well as for layering the
formed peat and the operations of drying (with a daily output of
40,000 to 60,000 sods 20 to 25 labourers are necessary), it follows,
therefore, that the wages corresponding to this form the main
portion of the costs of production, and the latter therefore increase
or fall with the local rates of wages per day. With these costs
must be combined the contributions for amortization of the cost
of installation for machines and implements as well as the ground
rent and, when calculating the net profit, the interest on the
installation capital and the working capital.

The cost of the installation, when known for an already
existing peat factory, can be easily calculated in the case of a
new factory to be erected from the output intended with the aid
of the statements made in the preceding sections. The error is
usually made, however, of estimating the portion corresponding
to interest and amortization (together about 10 per cent.) too low.
This leads, we grant, to smaller costs of production, but at the same
time to self-deception on the part of the owners of the factories.

In describing the means and the machinery for transport in
Subsection C, only the amortization, which will depend on the
types of machines selected for the various objects and which
amounts to from 7 to 25 per cent., has been specially considered,
locomotives being written off at 10 to 12 percent, and peat machines
at 15 per cent., including the annual cost of maintenance. If the
small amount of attention and care given to a locomotive, and the
rapid wear and tear of the working machines in a peat bog be
taken into consideration, these rates ought not to be assumed lower
in any estimate by an expert, since in the first case, while taking
into account the annual contributions for running repairs, amor-
tization is assumed in a period of ten to fifteen years, and general
experience shows that this is not too long.

The ground rent corresponding to the amount won per annum
varies a good deal with local circumstances, but necessitates,
however, only a slight increase in price for every 100 kilos won.

226 THE WINNING OF PEAT

It amounts to from 300M. to 1,000M. for 1 ha. of bog, according
to its depth of 1 to 4 m., or in some cases to 1| Pfg. to 2 Pfg. for
every 100 kilos of dry peat won.

Under average circumstances, with an expertly planned
installation, organized management, and ordinary high or low bogs
having the usual admixtures of wood, the plant cost and working
expenses are approximately as given below, where it is assumed
that the bog is so far drained or so capable of supporting traffic
that the peat machines and locomotive can be set up at once at the
excavating edge (bank), and the peat, dug by hand in the bog,
brought to the machine by a chain elevator connected with the
latter. The average daily (10 hours) output of the peat machine
is assumed to correspond to an output of at least 60,000 standard
sods of 2 1. each (therefore sods with sizes, let us say, of
25 x 8 x 10 cm. or 20 x 10 x 10 cm.). These correspond to
120 cb. m. of formed peat, to which 168 cb.m. of excavated bog (raw
peat) are required. This average output requires a peat machine
with a greater nominal output, and as a rule it will be obtained
only with a peat machine for which an output about one-fourth
higher (therefore 75,000 to 80,000 sods, or 150 to 160 cb. m. of
formed peat) is given by the machine factories, and which has also,
indeed, been subjected to a working trial for some hours or days.
In addition a 10 to 15 h.p. locomotive is required. The sods of
formed peat contract on drying to one-third to one-sixth of their
original volumes, and have in the air-dry state, according to the
ripeness of the raw peat and the mixing and condensing action of
the machine, a density of 0-7 to 1-2, and weigh 0-3 to 0-5 kilo
each.1 From 120 to 200 kilos of dry peat correspond to 1 cb. m.
of fresh formed peat, or 300 to 500 kilos correspond to 1,000
standard sods. In the following estimate a raw peat is considered,
the standard sods (2,000 c.c.) of fresh machine-formed peat from
which weigh 0-3 kilo when air-dry, or 1 cb. m. of the formed peat
gives 150 kilos of dry peat, so that the daily output of the machine
is 18,000 kilos or 18 m. tons.

(1) Cost of Plant. Marks.

1 Peat machine, with a daily output of 70,000 to 80,000 2,000-3,500

standard sods or 150 to 160 cb. m. of formed peat

1 Wrought-iron elevator, 10 m. in length .. .. .. 1,100-1,500

1 Locomotive, 10 to 15 h.p 5,000-7,000

1 Pump for draining the bog trench . . . . . . . . 450- 500

1 Iron transporting frame, with contrivance for moving it 600- 800

forward, for taking the machine

50 m. of rail track for this transporting frame . . . . 1,000-1,000

6 Transport cars for sods, at 80-1 20M. each . . . . 480- 720

6 Turntables or turning plates, at 15-35M. each . . . . 90- 200

600 m. field railwav track, at 1-8-2-5M. each . . . . 1,200-1,600

3 Box tipping cars'for dry peat at 120-150M. each . . 360- 450

260 Spreading boards at 0-50M. each 125- 125

Driving belts 80- 120

Implements 200- 300

Freightage of machines, bringing into and setting up in bog 1,200-2,000

(not including taxes) and other miscellaneous charges

Total . . 13,885-19,815

1 This weight is that of standard sods ; the weight of the larger sods
usually made is correspondingly greater.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 227

(2) Working Expenses (per Day).

10.
11.

12.
13.
14.

1.

4.

5.
6.
7.
8.

Women
Men. or Girls.

1. Stripping the bog, grubbing out roots and included

wood, carrying water to the locomotive, &c.

2. Digging the peat and throwing it on to the elevator . .

3. Fetching the peat boards and placing them under the

machine

4. Cutting the peat bands into sods. .

5. Placing the boards on the cars

6. Moving the sod cars

7. Removing the boards from the cars and tipping them

on to the drying ground

8. Spreading, ringing, &c, on the drying ground. .

9. Clamping

4-6

2
4-6

9

4
2

Total

..14-18

Marks.

14 men at 4-00M. each and 9 women at 2-50M. each
amounts per day (working period being 10 hours) to

1 Engine driver and overseer

Fuel for the engine — 750 kilos of waste peat at 0-40M.
for 100 kilos

Lubricating and cleaning materials

Insurance of workers and medical benefits contributions

Repairs and contingencies

78-50
•00
•00

3-

3'

2-

o,

00
00
50

Total

(3) General Expenses.

94-00

Marks.
750-1,000

225- 225

Interest on plant capital — 5 per cent, on 15,000-

20.000M.
Interest on working capital (the amounts paid out per

day for 100 working days must be extended over at

least half a year, 5 per cent, for 9,000M. for half a year)
Amortization of the cost of machinery, 10, 000-14, 000M.,

at 10 per cent.

Rails, 2,290-2,800M., at 5 per cent

Means of transport, 840-1, 170M., at 7 per cent.
Peat boards, 125M., at 20 per cent.
Driving belts at 20 per cent.
Implements at 10 per cent.

Total . . 2,209-2,926
Or approximately 22M. to 30M. per day for 100 working days.

1,000-

1,400

115-

140

58-

82

25-

25

16-

24

20-

30

Therefore-

(4) Costs of Production are : —

1 . Daily working expenses

2. General expenses . .

Marks.

94

22- 30

Total .. 116-124

Or the cost of every 100 kilos of dry peat at the bog, when the
daily output is 18,000 kilos, is 0-64M. to 0-70M., including interest
and amortization, but excluding ground rent. To arrive at the net
cost, free at place of sale, we must add the loading and freight
charges or the charges due to auxiliary or field railways, as well as
those for the preliminary preparation of the bog.

From the above estimate it is easy to see in how far the costs
of production of the unit weight, and therefore of the ordinary

228 THE WINNING OF PEAT

unit of sale, are affected, when on account of the nature of the
raw peat or the faulty mixing and condensing action of the peat
machine, the weight of the air-dry peat sod corresponding to a
standard sod (2 1.) does not reach the weight of 0-3 kilo assumed
above in the calculation of the net cost, or the weight of 1 cb. m.
of the air-dry formed peat does not reach 150 kilos, or when the
average daily output is less than the assumed output owing to
difficulties in working the bog, or poor yield from, or smaller size
of, the machine.

As a matter of fact, the machine peat bands are not always
divided into sods with a volume of 2 1. each (standard sods). The
size of the sods in the various peat factories is controlled by the
kind of mouthpiece employed. The latter may be made either
as single- or as multiple-band mouthpieces, according to the nature
of the peat, or according as sods of greater or smaller cross-sections
are required for the drying operations, or to meet the wishes of
those who finally receive the peat. The work is usually given by
contract for 1,000 peat boards (boards covered with sods), tipped
and spread (on the drying ground). The contract price varies
with the number and the size of the sods in the layer covering the
board. The boards are 1 to 2 m. in length, and the layer on each
of them is usually divided into 4 to 6 sods, according to the length,
so that the length of a sod is from 25 to 40 cm. The following
figures (see table, p. 229) from three different machine peat works
for the industrial year 1914, as well as the particulars in Sub-
sections F and G, give a good insight into the cost of production
of machine-formed peat.

Particulars have already been given in the subsections on the
manufacture of press peat and the manufacture of machine pulp
or dough peat with regard to the costs of production of press peat
and machine pulp peat by the Hanover-Oldenburg or Jutland
method, and some installations of this kind have been described
there in detail. As mentioned above, the working results, and,
therefore, the net cost of the peat won in the case of factories
with peat-forming machines, vary a good deal with the kind and
the number of the machines, with the quality of the raw peat, and
with the suitability of the installation. Before setting up a new in-
stallation it is advisable either to seek the advice of an experienced,,
disinterested expert or to examine thoroughly good machine peat
factories. The names of several peat factories in which the
various machines are at work are always appended to the descrip-
tion of the various machines. The owners of these factories are
generally only too pleased to allow of a thorough inspection being
made. Many machine peat factories now exist in all peat coun-
tries ; some details with regard to three large North German and
two South German peat works follow under Subsection G.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 229

Cost of Production of Machine-formed Peat.

Contract price for 1,000 peat

boards for the operations set

forth above under 1, 7 and 10

in the working expenses

In a North German

peat factory (Gifhorn),

6AM.

In a Bavarian peat

factory.

17M.

In a Wiirtemberg peat

factory.

15.5M.

Gang, including engine

13 men

13 men and 2

21 men and 2

driver

women

women or boys

Character of bog

High bog, 4-5 m.

High bog, 3-6 m.

High bog, 3 m. in

in depth, not

in depth, not

depth, contain-

contain ing

contain ing

ing much wood

much wood

much wood

and roots

Length of each board

l-20m.

l-30m.

2 m.

Contents of each board

1 band with

2 bands, each

1 cylindrical band

cross - section

with cross-

with diameter

10 x 13 cm.

section 10 X

12-7 cm., there-

= 130 sq. cm.

12 cm. = 120

fore cross-sec-

sq. cm.

tion is 126 sq.
cm.

Each board full is

4 sods, each

2x3 = 6 sods,

6 sods, each 33 cm.

divided into

30 cm. long

each 43 cm.
long

long

Amount of formed

15,600 ex.

31,200 c.c.

25,200 c.c.

peat on each board

Output of machine in

10,000 boards or

6,600 boards or

5,000 boards or

10 hours with 10-12

156 cb. m.

206 cb. m.

140 cb. m.

h.p. locomotive

Fresh formed

15-6 cb. m.

31-20 cb. m.

25-20 cb. m.

1,000
boards -

peat
Standard
sods of 2 1.

7,800

15,600

12,600

give of

each

^ Air-dry peat

1,750 kilos

4,800 kilos

3,200 kilos

Therefore 1 cb. m. of

112 kilos

154 kilos

127 kilos

formed peat gives in

dry peat

Weight corresponding

230 kilos*

308 kilos*

254 kilos*

to 1,000 dry stand-

ard sods*

Wages alone per 100

At 6pi. for

At 17M. for

At 15-5M. for

kilos of dry peat for

1,000 boards,

1,000 boards,

1,000 boards,

digging, forming and

spreadin

cr

->

0-37M.

0-36M.

0-48M.

Drying

r Breaking

labour

and ring-

for 1,000*

ing

0-50M."|

1-20M.")

0-40M.1

full

Heaping

0-50M. 1-2-25M.

0-60M. ^2-95M.

0-95M. 12-35M.

boards

Clamping

1-25M.J

1-15M.J

1-00M.J

Drying labour there-

fore for 100 kilos

0-13M.

0-07M.

0-07M.

Total for digging,

0-37+ 0-13

0-36+ 0-07

0-48+ 0-07

forming, drying and

= 0-50M.

= 0-43M.

= 0-55M.

clamping

The sods actually manufactured' are larger and heavier.

230 THE WINNING OF PEAT

F. — Comparison of Costs in the Cases of Fully Automatic
or Large Scale Industry Machines and Ordinary Peat
Machines

In estimating the saving which can be attained in one and the
same peat works by using a fully automatic machine, with dredger
and sod spreader, instead of an ordinary peat machine with which
workmen are required for digging the peat, and for transporting
and spreading the sods on the drying field, the following compari-
son is worth attention.

During the summer of 1915 several simple peat machines of the
ordinary type, having each a daily output of 50,000 sods,
33 x 10 x 10 cm. or 3-3 1. each, that is, 165 cb. m. of machine-
formed peat (or 220 cb. m. of raw peat), weighing 24,000 kilos when
air-dried, and therefore an output of 240 double wagons of dry peat
for each machine during the season, worked in a Frisian high bog
beside a " fully automatic machine," which for a ten-hour day
had an output of 100,000 sods, 40 x 12 x 11 cm. or 5-3 1. each,
that is, 530 cb. m. of machine-formed peat (or approximately
700 cb. m. of raw peat), weighing when air-dried about 76,000 kilos
(corresponding to 145 kilos for 1 cb. m. of the formed mass), and
therefore a calculated output of 760 double wagons of dry peat
in 100 working days.

For approximately the same daily output three of the older
peat machines, with a total output, however, of only 720 double
wagons of dry peat, but requiring 15 men each, therefore 45 men
in all, and an overseer, corresponded to one " fully automatic
machine " (yielding 760 double wagons of dry peat and requiring
5 workmen and an overseer).

The cost of the large scale industry machine, including electrical
power and other accessories, was about 38,000M., and that of the
three ordinary -peat machines, including rails, cars, electrical power,
&c, was 21,000-24,000M., that is 7,00Q-8,000M. for each machine.
In both cases interest may be charged at 5 per cent., and redemp-
tion of capital outlay at 10 per cent.

The expenses for rent of bog, draining and stripping the
working field are the same in the two cases.

In the following comparison of the costs of winning, and
general expenses, which differ from one another on account of
differences in the machines employed, a double wagon load
(10,000 kilos or 10 m. tons) of dry peat is taken as the unit. For
this amount in the case of the large scale industry machine we
require to win and dry 13,000 sods of 5-3 1. each, i.e., 68-9 cb. m.
of dry machine-formed peat, and for the ordinary peat machines
about 20,000 sods of 3-3 1. each, i.e., 66 cb. m. of dry peat.

The wages and other current expenses paid for these purposes
in the summer of 1915 were : —

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 231

(a) With the large scale industry
machine.

(b) With the three
peat machines

ordinary

1.

Levelling dry-
ing field

1 ha. 40-50M., at
300 wagons to
1 ha., for each
wagon, therefore

0

17M.

2.

Peat winning

13,000
0 ■ 40M.

sods at
per 1,000

5

20M.

20,000 sods at
1-5M. per 1,000

30

00M.

3.

Piling

13,000
0-25M.

sods at
per 1,000

3

25M.

20,000 sods at
0-30M. per 1,000

6

00M.

4.

Re-piling

13,000
0-20M.

sods at
per 1,000

2

60M.

20,000 sods at
0-15M. per 1.000

3

■00M.

5.

Piling the
bottom sods
about 1 in 10

Collecting into
clamps and
loading ; the
same in the
two cases

13,000
0-02M.

sods at
per 1,000

0

26M.

20,000 sods at
0-015M. per 1,000

0

30M.

6.

11

•48M.

39

30M.

7.

Interest and
amortization

15 per cent, of
38,000M. =
5.700M. for 760
wagons, there-
fore 1 wagon . .

7

50M.

15 per cent, oi
24.000M.
3.600M. for 720
wagons, there-
fore 1 wagon . .

5

00M.

8.

Workmen's in-
surance for 17
weeks

5 persons at
0-48M. each =
40-80M. for 760
wagons, there-
fore 1 wagon . .

0

04M.

45 persons at
0-48M. each =
367M. for 720
wagons, there-
fore 1 wagon . .

0

51M.

9.

One overseer,
800M.

For 1 wagon

1

10M.

For 1 wagon

1

10M.

10.

Work men's
houses and
equipment

For 5 persons
500M., 15 per
cent, of which =
7-50M., or for 1
wagon

Total . .

0

10M.

For 45 persons
3,600M., 15 per
cent, of which =
540M., or for 1
wagon

Total

0

80M.

20

22M.

46

71m.

Foi

1 double
wagon of 1 0
m. tons or for
1 m. ton

2-02M.

4-67M.

We must also observe that in the case of fully automalic
machines the danger of a strike is less on account of the much
smaller number of workmen employed, and that the carrying on of
the work both by day and night, with increase in the output (1|- to
If times the ordinary), is easier than in the case of machines
requiring many workmen.

These numbers, calculated on the basis of a day's output, do
not as a rule correspond to those actually met with in practice,
since here, as in all such preliminary estimates, the actual output

232 THE WINNING OF PEAT

of the machines during a full working season of 100 days is not
100 times that of a single day. For instance, in the case of a fully
automatic machine with dredger and sod spreader, on account of
various interruptions in the work owing to roots and trees in the
peat, the output becomes smaller, and when these are taken into
consideration for the above-mentioned bog we have : — -

The actual summer output of a " fully automatic machine "
is about 5,000 m. tons.

The actual summer output of an " ordinary peat machine,"
with elevator, is about 2,000 to 2,500 m. tons.

The average costs per metric ton for the actual output
during a season of 100 days in the case of a " fully automatic
machine," with dredger and sod spreader, are : —
760x2-0 24 x 46

-(|() = 3-1M and for an ordinary peat machine on.z = 5M.

When all the expenses are taken into consideration the actual
cost of production of 1 m. ton (1,000 kilos) of air-dried peat in
recent years was about 8-9M., which can, it is expected, be
reduced to 6-7M.

G. — Description of some Large Machine Peat Factories

1. — The Peat Works of the North German Peat Moor Company
of Triangel in the Gifhorn District

This undertaking, which was begun in 1873, was under the
direction of Agricultural Councillor Rothbarth (who died recently)
until 1906. Since the latter year it has been managed by Roth-
barth's son in conjunction with the son of the owner. The moor
comprises an area of 5,000 acres (Prussian) or 1,250 ha. The
company is a joint-stock one, all the shares of which are held
by one man (Arnold Rimpau, of Brunswick).

The portion of the bog which is not likely to be used for the
manufacture of fuel or moss litter within the next twenty years,
and, therefore, the whole uncut part of the high bog, is employed
for agricultural purposes, especially those connected with the
rearing of cattle. In a similar way the cut-out bog is utilized by
the Dutch Veen Reclamation Method by mixing on its surface
a layer of the waste upper strippings from the bog, about 20 to
30 cm. in height with an equally high layer of the sand which lies
immediately under the bog. Turnips, potatoes, rye, oats, clover
and grass are cultivated in the soil thus prepared. Most of these
give satisfactory crops, especially the potatoes, the yield of
good quality specimens being rarely less than 5,000 kilos per
Prussian acre.

The peat industry, which has been conducted here on a large
scale with commercial success for over forty years, comprises the
winning of peat fuel and peat charcoal, and since 1879-1880 the
manufacture of peat moss litter, peat dust and peat meal, the
latter substance having, indeed, been first introduced into com-
merce from this factory. The bog is all high bog containing

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 233

usually 4 to 5 m. of brown to good black mould peat, on which
there is a layer of light yellow moss peat 1 to 1-25 m. in depth.
Wood inclusions are met in veins. The part of the bog in use
is well drained by a main canal, several secondary canals and
trenches, so that the winning of the peat is carried on, even to
the bottom of the bog, entirely over water.

Fuel peat is almost entirely won in the form of machine peat.
Cut peat is dug only in the cases of small areas of less valuable peat
or of shallow layers. Ten machines are employed for the prepara-
tion of machine peat and most of them are in operation from
April until the end of July in each season.

The majority of these are uni-spiral machines from the Imperial
Ironworks at Lauterberg, in the Harz. In addition to these, there
are some bi-spiral machines from Oldenburg.

Each of the peat machines has a mouthpiece with only one
opening, 10 x 13 cm., or 140 sq. cm., so that the mixed peat leaves
the machine in only one band. This band, which runs on to
boards, l-20m. in length, placed under the mouthpiece and
moving forward automatically with the peat column, is cut on
each board by a workman with the aid of a chopper into 4 parts
of 30 cm. each in length. The boards with the sods are placed on
cars, each of which will accommodate 30 boards, and transported
to the drying ground, where the sods are spread in layers by
tipping the boards.

Each machine requires the service of thirteen men distributed
as follows : Four men for digging and throwing the peat on to the
elevator, one man for placing the boards under the mouthpiece,
one man for cutting and dividing the peat band, one man for taking
away the boards and loading them on to the cars, three men for
moving the cars to the drying ground, two men ior emptying the
boards on to the drying ground, and one man as a helper.

Each machine, attended by a gang such as this, yields on an
average 1,000 boards every hour, i.e., 15-6 cb. m. of freshly formed
peat or 4,000 sods, which weigh, when air-dry, 1,700 to 1,800 kilos.
As the duration of the season is short the labourers always work
twelve hours a day. The output of a machine is 187 cb. m. of
formed peat, corresponding to 20,000 to 22,000 kilos of dry peat
per day. With 10 machines, therefore, 200,000 to 220,000 kilos,
or approximately 200 m. tons, of air-dried machine peat are won
every day.

In the earlier years each of the machines had its own motive
power, furnished by a locomotive which, together with the peat
machine, was screwed to a strong transportable frame.

Since 1896, electrical power is supplied to most of the machines
from a common power station. Here, indeed, the idea of convert-
ing the peat into electrical power and utilizing the latter at
more or less great distances from the bog was first attempted
practically. Instead of the automobile a small electric motor
was placed on the carriage, and the power was transmitted to
this over wires carried on poles placed in the various working
fields. With this source of power, the daily and, in the case

(2595) R

234 THE WINNING OF PEAT

of locomotive driving, the difficult forward motion of the
machine with its driving agent was much facilitated, the weight
being decreased by that of the locomotive (about 10,000 kilos).
There is, moreover, a saving in fuel, and also in the case of each
machine two men (one fireman and one water carrier) can be
dispensed with.

The current is brought from the conductors to the machine by
means of a cable, which must be re-hung about every three days.
This can be easily done by the workmen ordinarily in attendance
on the machine.

The electrical power station contains three tubular boilers
fixed in stonework, provided with plain grates (step grates have
not proved successful), and heated by the combustion of waste
peat which could not be sold, and two steam engines (150 h.p.
in all), which by means of a dynamo generate a current with
a tension of 3,000 volts. The current is transmitted at this high
tension to a transforming station 6 km. distant where the tension
is lowered to 500 volts. From the transformer house the current
at 500 volts passes through branch circuits to the various working
fields and also, by means of a conductor 1 km. in length, to the
manor house for use in driving agricultural machinery.

All the peat-winning operations are conducted by piece-work
The machine gang is paid in the case of locomotive driving 6 • 75M.,
and in the case of electrical driving 6- 25M., for every 1,000 boards,
of peat.

The further payments for drying operations are : —

Marks.
Unloading and ringing 1,000 boards .. .. 0-5

Collecting into small clamps . . . . . . 0-5

Transporting to large clamps . . . . . . 1-25

The wages alone, therefore, for every 100 kilos of good, air-dry
machine peat in large clamps or sheds in the high bog amount to
0-5M. to 0-55M. To this must be added the contributions for
insurance of workmen, the salaries of the officials, interest, amorti-
zation and upkeep of machinery as well as of the junction line
(8 km.) to Triangel railway station and the narrow gauge line
(60 cm. gauge and 20 km. in length) which is laid in the bog as
required. If we estimate 1 m. of the main line at 20M. and of
the field line at 3M., this installation alone costs 220,000M. To
this again must be added interest, amortization and maintenance
of the main and secondary' canals for the drainage of the bog.

About 2,500 double wagons of machine peat are won every
year. Approximately one-fourth of this amount is coked in
heaps, and the remainder is sold as fuel for industrial and household
purposes in the neighbouring villages and towns of Brunswick and
Hanover.

The price of one double wagon (10 m. tons) is now (1915) 120M.
to 130M. This price is not quite reached in the case of the peat
for coking. The latter is retained for the sake of a bigger trade
by which the general expenses for the individual double wagons
become smaller. The price of 10 in. tons of peat charcoal is 550M.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 235

Each of the two peat-moss litter factories has four presses
which are also driven electrically. The daily output is 10 to 15
double wagons (100 to 150 m. tons). The majority of these presses
are horizontal spindle presses (Fig. 117) and the remainder
angle-lever presses (Fig. 115). Some of the willows are provided
with steel brushes and others with circular saws.

For cutting or digging the moss peat which is intended for the
manufacture of peat litter, the rate of payment is, at present,
1 • 10M. for 1,000 sods, 30 x 15 x 8 cm. each, left in heaps of ten
sods. In Oldenburg, 0-75M. is paid for the same amount of work.
For drying and collecting the sods into large clamps another 0-5M.
is added. One thousand sods of air-dried peat of this kind
weigh about 300 kilos and give three bales of litter.

The pressed peat litter or peat mull bales are 1 m. long, 0 • 80 m.
wide and 0-65 m. high. They weigh 100 kilos or more, according
to the quality and the dryness of the peat. The lighter the
material is the better it is, so that with an equal amount of pressings
one double wagon, i.e., 10 m. tons, will contain 90 to 100 bales of
litter or mull of the first quality, 80 to 90 bales of the second, and
70 to 80 bales of the third. Peat litter of the first quality at present
sells at 180M., and of the third quality at 130M. for 10 m. tons.
In years poor in straw, i.e., about, every five or six years, the prices
may rise, according to the demand, even to 400M. Peat mull
bales are in general somewhat heavier than those of peat litter.
For peat meal, i.e., a fine sifted dust, a somewhat higher price is
obtained.

The peat litter bales for home use are usually bound with six
laths and three wires (cf. Fig. 113).

This method of packing costs 0- 15M. to 0- 18M. for each bale.
The workmen who manufacture the bales by piecework receive
0-25M. a bale for bringing the peat litter from the bog to and
manufacturing it in the factory.

2. — Feilenhach Peat Factory

The Feilenbach Peat Factory at Aibling, in Upper Bavaria,
belongs to a joint-stock company, which has been in existence
since 1887 but which has worked with a profit only during the
past nine years. For several years before the joint-stock company
was established the peat factory belonged to a single proprietor.
The bog has an area of 350 ha., of which about 17 ha. are grass and
transition bog, the remainder being high bog of 3 to 6 m. in depth.
It is situated in what was formerly a lake bed in the district
bordering on the Alps at the foot of Wendelstein. About 10 ha.
of cut-away bog, which is now cultivated ground, have been given
over to agriculture since 1902, and on it potatoes (Snowflake,
Walkersdorf, Early Roses, White Edelstein), oats, winter rye,
winter wheat, Jerusalem artichokes, vetches, common beetroot,
&c, are cultivated. The potato crop on the cultivated cut-away
bog was said to have been very good in 1914.

The peat winning is carried out with ten peat machines, each of

236 THE WINNING OF PEAT

which is driven by a locomotive. Nine of the peat machines were
made by Krauss and Co., or Sugg and Co., Machine Factory,
Munich, and one by R. Dolberg and Co., of Rostock. Some of the
locomotives were delivered by Krauss and Co., some by R. Wolf, of
Buckau-Magdeburg, and some by English factories. Each peat
machine is provided with an elevator, 12 m. in length, which is fed
by five or six peat diggers. To each machine four or five cars for
transporting the sods are attached. The machines have double-
band mouthpieces made of brass with double wedge-shaped
partitions constructed like the four-band one shown in Fig. 30, and
which give simultaneously two peat bands each 10 cm. wide and
12 cm. high. The spreading boards are 1 • 30 m. in length and 28 cm.
in width. Each band on the board is divided into three lengths,
and the whole contents of the board are, therefore, divided into
six sods, each of which is 43 cm. long, 10 cm. wide and 12 cm.
high. The gang for each machine consists, in addition to the
machinist, of 13 males and 3 females. It comprises one engine-
driver, five diggers, who cut the peat from the various layers lying
one over another and throw it as regularly as possible on to the
elevator, one female for placing in the boards, one female for
cutting the sods, two men for loading the cars, four men for
transporting the cars, two men for emptying the boards on to
the drying ground and replacing the boards on the cars, and one
female for bringing water and fuel peat, to the locomotive. The
total number of labourers at the works is, approximately, 220 in
summer and 45 in winter. The engine-driver, who is selected and
appointed bv the labourers themselves, is captain and contractor
for the gang ; 17M. are paid him for every 1,000 boards (i.e.,
6,000 sods), and of this each of the men, according to the difficulty
of his work, gets 0-90M. to 1-25M., and each of the women
0-45M. to 0-50M. for every 1,000 boards. The average daily
output for a nine-hour working period amounts to 6,000 boards,
i.e., 36,000 sods or 186 cb. m. of machine-formed peat, in ten hours,
therefore, 206 cb. m. The so-called " castling " (two upper sods
crosswise on two lower ones) and ' re-castling '' (putting the
lower sods over the upper ones) are done by women only. For
the first 1-20M. and for the second 0-60M. are paid for every
1,000 boards. The approximate weight of 1,000 sods of air-dried
machine peat is 800 kilos.

The finished peat is transported over a narrow-gauge railway
to the station at Au, on the Bad-Aibling-Feilenbach electric
railway line. For this purpose two Krauss locomotives, 8 km.
of rails, and 30 wagons are employed.

Approximately 1,500 double wagon loads (15,000 m. tons) of
machine peat, 200 double wagon loads of cut peat, and further
about 80 double wagon loads of peat moss litter and peat dust
are won annually. In 1910 the erection of a wet carbonizing
factory according to the process of Dr. Ekenberg was projected,
but was abandoned after more or less extensive experiments
had been conducted. As is well known, there was formerly in
Feilenbach an Eichhorn ball peat factorv, which was not

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 23/

a commercial success and which was closed down about thirty
years ago. A thorough and expert drainage of the whole
surface of the bog was carried out in 1906 and 1907.

Drying is effected in the open on drying fields, 9 m.wide and
200 m. long, which are separated by drains 80 cm. in depth. The
cost of drying machine peat amounts to 6 to 7 Pfg. for 100 kilos
of the dry peat. The average remuneration of a labourer for
a ten-hour working period amounts at Feilenbach to 3M. ; by
piecework he earns, however, 5M. to 6M.

For clamping, including covering and binding with poles and
wires, the men receive 35 Pfg. per cubic metre for clamps 2 m.
wide and 3 m. high.

The locomotives, which are of an old type, are of 10 to 12 h.p.,
and require 600 to 700 kilos of machine peat every day. The
Wolf locomotive, which was procured in 1903, on the other hand,
is said to require scarcely 150 to 175 kilos. The machines are
moved on sleepers provided with rails, by means of a toothed
gear with latch levers, wheel catches, and traversing hand spikes.

According to the statement of the manager the wages paid to
the workmen for one double wagon load of machine peat are 80M.
Including fuel, drainage and general expenses the cost is 110M.,
the comparative cost of cut peat being 65M. to 80M. The selling
price for 10,000 kilos of machine peat is 160M. to 180M., for cut
peat 105M. to 125M., while at Munich it was 1-20M. to 1-45M. for
50 kilos. The region supplied includes Munich, Augsburg, Land-
shut, Freising, Xurnberg, Aibling, Traunstein, and Reichenbach.
There are several Gienanth's stoves for heating with peat in
use at Munich.

Coal costs, according to quality, 2-50M. to 5-00M. for 100 kilos
in the district.

Similar peat industries exist at the Hochfilz and Panzerfilz, at
Rosenheim, at Kolbermoor, at the City Peat Works, Ismanning,
near Munich, and at other places.

3. — Schussenried Peat Factory of the Royal Wurbemberg Peat

Department

The part of the high bog, known as Steinhauser Ried,
which is here utilized has an area of 300 ha. and an average
depth of 3 m. The upper four-tenths consist of yellow, light moss
peat (from Sphagnum and Hypnum varieties), the centre four-
tenths of tough fibrous peat (Erica, Yaccinium, &c.) rich in roots,
and the lower two-tenths of good black mould peat. From the
middle of April to the end of Julv, i.e., in about 90 working days
of twelve hours each, 2,000,000 kilos of machine peat are won, in
addition to large quantities of cut peat (10,000,000 sods), which are
partly utilized as fuel, but for the most part (95 per cent.) are
worked to peat litter and peat dust. The machine peat industry
was begun in 1879, as an experiment, with a single machine.
As the results were satisfactory two similar machines with the
necessary accessories were afterwards Drocured. All three are

238 THE WINNING OF PEAT

Pieau double-spiral machines (Fig. 42). Only two of them are in
use, in turn, at any time. Each of the machines is driven bv a
10 to 12 h.p. locomotive, fired with peat, and is mounted together
with the locomotive on a transportable frame on which it moves
along the trench as the work progresses. The drying fields along
each working trench are 600 m. to 800 m. long and 200 m. wide.
In spite of all attempts to utilize the drying fields twice in the
year this could not be done. It is regarded as sufficient if the
first layer spread can be brought in quite dry.

A field track with double rails has been laid for the peat cars ;
shunting from one to the other track is now effected by traversers
and turntables, many attempts having been made at first to effect
this by a closed circular track.

The raw peat as it reaches the machine contains about 85 per
cent, of water. Each of the machines is fitted with a chain
elevator, 11| m. long and 435 mm. wide, the lower end of which
rests in the working trench on a trestle fitted with two iron rollers.
In addition to screws several extra fittings are kept ready to
replace the parts of the chain elevator- most liable to wear and
tear, as well as the wings of the left and right-handed rotating
spirals, in order to avoid interruptions of the work as much as
possible.

The peat machines, which tear, mix and knead the peat in
a very satisfactory manner, even when it contains many roots and
fibres, afford a continuous band of peat of circular cross-section
and 127 mm. in diameter. The peat band is caught on boards,
each 2 m. in length, on which it is brought to the drying ground,
where it is spread by tipping the boards. During the run the
peat band on each board is divided by means of a chopper into
six pieces, which, however, separate completely from one another
only during the subsequent drying. This facilitates the turning
and footing of the bands on the drying ground.

With a gang of 23 labourers, each machine in a twelve-hour
day gives 7,000 bands, 2 m. in length and 126 sq. cm. in cross-
section, equivalent to 170 cb. m. of machine-formed peat, i.e.,
14 cb. m. per hour. When air-dried 100 of these bands or rows
of blocks weigh 320 kilos.

For a total yield of 2,000,000 kilos of dry machine peat in
90 working days the average daily output of each of the two
machines is 22,000 kilos of dry peat or, with a cross-section
of 126 sq. cm. for each of the 7,000 bands, 176 cb. m. of freshly
formed peat in twelve hours, which is a very good average daily
output for a whole season.
The gang consists of : —
1 Engine-driver.
8 Men for digging and throwing on the elevator peat which

often contains wood and roots.
1 Woman for inserting the boards.

1 Boy for dividing the sods with the aid of a chopper.

2 Men for removing and loading the boards on the cars.
6 Attendants for the peat cars.

3 Men for spreading the bands on the drying ground.
1 Supernumerary.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 239

The work of winning and drying is let at piece rates. For
1,000 bands (2 m. in length) the wages paid are : —

Marks.

For digging, working in the machine, transport, in-
cluding spreading on drying field (for the whole
gang of 23), 14M. to 16M., therefore, on the
average . . . . . . . . . . . . 15-50

For drying —

(a) Turning 0-40

(b) Footing 0-90 to 1-00, on the average . . 0-95

(c) Clamping and transporting to the sheds,

1 • 00 to 3 • 00, on the average . . . . 2-00

Total (average) . . 18-85

In this way the labourers earn for a ten-hour day : —

Marks by
Marks bv dav. piece-work.

Women .. .. 2-00 to 2-20 .. .. 2-50

Men 3-00 to 3-50 .. .. 5-00

The general expenses for oil, cotton-waste, fuel for engine,
repairs, replacing parts, boards, stoppages, turning the machine,
&c, amount to about 8 Pfg. for 100 kilos of dry peat.

The Royal Peat Department has entrusted the peat-winning

to a contractor at a fixed price for 100 kilos of dry peat, which

in the year 1915 was : —

For machine peat in sheds .. .. .. 0-80-0-85M.

For peat litter and peat dust, packed in bales 1 • 00M.

the contractor being supplied free with the whole apparatus —
machines, rails, sheds, &c. The plant costs for these amounted to
36,000M. to 40,000M., i.e., 12.000M. to 13,000M. for each of the
three machines. The contractor is responsible for the main-
tenance of the machines only.

At the peat works machine peat was sold at the rate of 1 -60M.
for 100 kilos. The same amount loaded on railway trucks cost
1-80M. For 100 kilos of peat litter 200M. were paid, while the
best coal (gas coal) at the same place cost 2-55M. for 100 kilos,
Brown coal is not used in the district.

The peat litter factory has one willow, one mull mill and
two presses, which are used for baling mull and fibre. The
machinery was supplied by Francis Haas, Machine Factory,
Ravensburg.

4. — The Elisabethfehn Peat Works of the Peat Coke Co., Ltd.,

Oldenburg

This undertaking was founded by Dr. Wielandt in 1905,
and passed into his sole possession in 1908.

With a view to improving the process for winning peat, the
first Wielandt peat-dredging machine was installed there in 1909,
and this was followed in 1910 by other machines of the same type.
The amount of bog owned by him has been increased to 200 ha.
The bog serves to provide the peat which is required by the Peat
Coke Co., Ltd. In 1914, with a view to further decreasing the
expenses, an electrical power station was .erected to replace the

240 THE WINNING OF PEAT

older locomotives. Electricity is generated at the power station, at
almost no expense, by means of the waste gases from the coking
furnaces, and is transmitted to the peat works at a tension of
3.(HX) volts, which is transformed to a tension of 500 volts for
the machines.

The two Wielandt machines which are now working there
together produce yearly 14,000 m. tons of air-dried peat with
a power consumption, measured on the switch-board, of 20 h.p.
for each machine.

The peat is light in colour and of low density, and the upper
laver, to a depth of over 1 m., is almost white. This layer is cut
in the form of sods, and worked to Utter or mull in the peat litter
factory belonging to the works, the output of which is at present
about 600 railway wagons per annum.

The drainage of the bog is effected by an electrical pumping
installation which has been set up for this purpose.

The peat dries rapidly, since the dredger digs the driest slope
of the bank and the sods are spread flat with small spaces between
them. Generallv after eight days the sods may be placed in heaps,
five sods in height, and after two to four weeks more they can
be removed and put into small clamps for further drying — the
operations being performed by piece-work. In the hot summer
months the peat in good weather is already so far dried while
in the first footing that it may be delivered direct to the coking
works, with a considerable saving of expense.

The first peat dredged in the beginning of April is, as a rule,
so drv in the footed state bv the middle of May that it can be
delivered to, and coked in, the coking works, the percentage of
water in the peat being 25 to 35. Since in this way the peat can
be utilized about two months earlier in the season, the winter
supply is cut down by a two months' amount.

During the War in 1915, when able-bodied labourers were
difficult to obtain, the service of one of these machines was so well
maintained bv one able-bodied engine-driver and three or four
young people of from 16 to 18 vears of age that the peat machines
did not miss a single dav's work from lack of labour. The total
cost, including everything, for 100 kilos of air-dried peat, delivered
free at the coking plant, was said to be 0-40M. Further
particulars are given on p. 155, under the heading " Wielandt 's
Peat-dredging and Forming Machine," and also in Part II,
S ;tion II, 2, under " Wielandt's Peat-carbonizing Process."

•5. — The Wiesmoor Peat Works at Aurich

Particulars with regard to the origin, equipment and
utilization of this f acton* (the largest of all peat works), which
was erected in 1908, are to be found under the heading, " The
Wiesmoor Electric Power Station." in Part II, Section IV, 7.
From 40,000 to 50,000 m. tons of peat fuel are won yearly, and
for this purpose about 30 peat machines, amongst which are
several Strenge fully automatic machines with dredgers and sod

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 241

spreaders, electrically driven, have been installed and give
employment to 500 labourers.

In this factory various forms of machines, and therefore
different methods, are employed to win the peat. The necessity
of providing, without artificial drying, sufficient dry peat fuel to
keep the electric power station working at its full capacity, and,
moreover, the efforts of the board of control to utilize any new
discoveries for winning and utilizing peat, especially on a large
industrial scale, have made this factory of great importance for
the peat world. This is true more especially with reference to
the question of utilizing the immense, and hitherto neglected,
peat bogs of Germany, and also with regard to rendering the
bogs available for agricultural operations at practically no expense.

H. — Comparison of the Properties of Machine Peat and Gut
Peat from the same Raw Material, and Influence of
the various Modes of Winning on these Properties

Condensed machine peat has considerable advantages over cut
peat from the same raw material, as has been already indicated
in Section IV. Air-dry machine peat has such a density and
firmness that a piece of it can scarcely be broken by the hands,
and in order to break it up a more or less heavy implement —
a hammer, an axe, or the like — is required.- It is even difficult to
cut small pieces off it by means of a knife.

Especially when machine-formed peat is won, the surface of the
peat sods, even when these are not fully air-dry, has so dense and
firm a crust that the peat, when taken in the hands, neither stains
them nor crumbles easily. Machine-formed peat, in this respect
far excelling coke, brown coal and coal, may be regarded as one
of the cleanest of fuels for household purposes.

In conformity with the method of winning machine peat, the
interior, like the surface, of the sods has such a uniformly dense
consistency that a cut with a saw or a knife gives a smooth section
with a waxy lustre, in which, apart from splits formed during the
progress of the drying when the disintegration and mixing of the
raw material has not been carried out with sufficient care, more or
less large pores can scarcely be noticed.

By means of the great firmness and density produced in machine
peat in consequence of the mixing action of the machine, almost all
the defects of hand peat mentioned on pp. 64 and 65 are simul-
taneously removed, and in the successful attempt to increase its
density, its water-absorbing properties decrease as the firmness
and density of the machine peat increase.

The effect of different methods of winning, or of different
machines for the same method of winning, on the contraction,
the drying, the percentage of water in and the density of the
machine peat when working the same raw material, depends mainly
on the more or less great destruction of the fibrous character
of the raw peat, on the disintegration of the peat fibres, and

242 THE WINNING OF PEAT

on the thorough working of the whole mass. Generally it depends
on the mixing and tearing action of the machines employed for
carrying out the method of winning, and the amount of this effect
can be expressed numerically by means of the " dry-volume
ratio " y, the contraction effect — , and the condensing effect - as
in the winning of hand peat. (Cf , pp. 59 and 62.)

With this object the author instituted a series of experiments,
the results of which are given in the following tables, and from
which important conclusions may be drawn as to the method of
winning machine peat which is economically the best.

According to the statements made under A, 1, of this section,
the mixing action of a machine depends on the number of
revolutions of its knife shaft corresponding to a definite amount
of the raw material. Attempts were made to determine this
effect by making the rotation of the knife shaft and the arrangement
of the knives capable of being so altered that for the same output
the comparative rotation number, i.e., the number of rotations of
the knife shaft corresponding to 100 l.,was at first 15 and later 75.
Various raw peats were worked into formed peat in this machine
while employing different speeds for the rotation of the knife
shaft and noting exactly the volume and the weight relations in
each case.

These experiments have confirmed the observations already
made in peat factories, which showed that, owing to a greater
mixing action, not only is the air-dry machine peat denser (due
to greater contraction of the sods) than a machine peat made with
a smaller mixing action of the knife shaft, but the fresh formed
peat coming from the machine is also denser and more compact
in the first case.

The peat sods made in the machine when it had a greater
mixing action looked smoother and neater than those made from
the same raw material and with the same mouthpiece when the
machine had the smaller mixing action. In consequence of their
greater uniformity, they also held together better in their later
treatment — repeated weighing, spreading, turning, &c. — and
kept their uniformly smooth surfaces even on drying. The sods of
the less well-mixed peat, on the other hand, broke easily when
being spread, lost shape on drying, and developed irregularities
and fissure on their surfaces owing to undivided and more or less
hard lumps or roots — disadvantages which may frequently be
observed in many bogs as a consequence of too small a mixing
action of the machines.

From numerous measurements and weighings a difference of
8 to 15 per cent, in weight — on an average, 10 per cent. — has been
found in favour of the machine with the greater velocity (the higher
comparative rotation number of the knife shaft was, as stated
above, five times the lower), the fresh peat sods having the same
size and being made from the same raw material in each case.
It was also possible, with the machine having the greater mixing
action, to work the raw peat with 15 to 20 per cent, less water,
getting an equally dense and firm final product, which in many

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 243

cases is of great advantage so far as the time of drying and the
area of the drying ground are concerned.

Examples of the average results obtained in the experiments
with several peats from Konigs-Wusterhausen district are given
in the following table.

Effect of the Greater Mixing Action of Peat Machines on

the Product.

Character of

the raw peat

worked.

Mode of
winning.

Rotations of
knife shaft for
100 1. of peat.

Size Weight

of the

freshly

formed sods.

Increase
of weight
compared

with cut
peat.

Difference

between

the machine

peats.

Den-
sity

Con-
dens-
ing
effect

in the air-
dry
condition

Brown grass
peat with
much inter-
mixed semi-
humified
wood, sedge,
and wood
fibres

cm.

g-

Cut peat

25 x
7x4

508-0

Machine-

15

Do.

759-0

formed

75

Do.

810-0

peat

50 p.c.
60 p. c.

10 p.c

0-70

1-12
1-30

1-6
1-71

Black humi-
fied peat
with inter-
mixed sedge
remains and
some not yet
humified
root fibres

Cut peat

—

15 x
4x4

237 • 60

—

Machine-

15

Do.

298-70

26 p.c.

formed

75

Do.

334-40

40 p.c.

peat

}"

p.c. I

0-88

1-00
1-24

1-14
1-41

(Cf. also the following table, pp. 246-247, in which the figures given
under 10 and 12 relate to the same raw peat, and the dry- volume ratios
and dry weights of the sods here mentioned are indicated.)

It may be seen in the table that the machine peat made from
one and the same raw material by a machine with a more or less
high rotation number for the knife shaft contains in the one case
10 per cent, and in the other 14 per cent, more solid matter for
sods of the same volume than those obtained from the same
machine with a smaller rotation number.

Attention to this fact is of great importance for the success of
a peat factory, since the labour required for forming and drying in
machine peat winning is usually paid for by the thousand of the
formed sods of a definite size, although the sale of the machine
peat takes place only, and more correctly, by weight. For the
same wages, on an average 10 per cent., in some cases even 15 per
cent., more fuel is produced when a machine with the higher mixing
action is employed, and therefore without further trouble 10 per
cent, more is gained than in the other case where apparently
(according to the number of sods) only the same output is obtained.

244 THE WINNING OF PEAT

In selecting a peat machine attention must therefore be paid,
not only to the nature of the raw material to be worked and the
number of the total volume of sods the machine can produce per day,
but especially to the amount of the mixing and condensing action of
the machine.

It follows from numerous experiments and observations that
the greater the mixing and condensing action of a peat machine ,
the denser the dry peat won from a given volume of formed peat,
the greater its output of air-dry peat, and the drier the raw peat
can be worked for the same ease of "forming" ; and therefore for
the same raw peat a greater weight of [and hence a cheaper) dry
peat can be obtained from the partially dried material. Also, the
less sensitive {because the firmer) the freshly formed peat is towards
any rain which may fall on it during the early days of the drying
period, the more securely it dries, the better the sods retain their
regular shape, and the less they (on account of their more uniform
texture) split and crumble during the process of drying.

The direct effect of the machines on the condensation of the
formed peat, i.e., the condensation of the fresh formed peat in
reference to the raw peat, which is directly due to the mixing action
in the machine, varies with the percentage of water and the nature
of the raw peat, from 25 to 60 per cent., and with average peats it
may be assumed as 30 to 40 per cent., so that for 1 cb. m. of freshly
formed peat 1 -30 to T40 cb. m. of raw peat are required. From
1 cb. m. of raw peat, therefore, 0-7 to 0-8 cb. m. of fresh machine
peat is obtained, and this during air-drying contracts to one-fifth,
that is, to 0- 14 to 0- 16 cb. m., which, when clamped in sods, has
a volume of 0-20 to 0-30 cb. m.

In the case of machine pulp peat winning less raw material is
required for 1 cb. m. of fresh pulp peat owing to the large amount
of water which is added, but since, on the other hand, the fresh
pulp peat does not give as much air-dry machine peat, the amount
required for 1 cb. m. of air-dry pulp peat is in general the same as
in the machine-formed peat winning.

A number of machine peats, some of which were made by
different methods, and the corresponding cut peats from various
peat bogs, have been subjected by the author to a thorough
examination with a view to comparing other properties of machine
peat with those of cut peat from the same raw material. The
results are shown in the table on pp. 246-247.

The special objects of this examination were : —

(1) The condensation, the dry-volume ratio, and the contrac-
tion effect of the machine peat as well as the condensing actions
of the different machines and methods of winning.

(2) The percentage of water in air-dry machine peat and in
air-dry cut peat from the same raw material.

(3) The absorption of water by anhydrous machine peat and
by anhydrous cut peat.

(4) The absorption of water by air-dry machine peat and
air-dry cut peat when they are exposed under the same conditions
to a moist atmosphere (rain).

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 245

The peat sods examined were all first air-dried in a covered
place until two successive weighings at intervals of four days gave
no appreciable difference in weight. The percentages of ash and
the densities (vertical columns 2, 8 and 9) were then determined
with one lot of the fully air-dried pieces of peat. A second lot
of the pieces of peat was weighed exactly and heated in a drying
oven with careful regulation of the temperature to 110° C. until,
in two successive weighings at intervals of six hours, it showed
no change in weight and was therefore to be regarded as anhy-
drous. From the weights of the anhydrous peat and the air-dried
peats the percentages of water given in columns 13 to 16 were
calculated in reference both to the weight of the air-dry peat and
that of the anhydrous peat.

. The pieces employed were chosen so as to have the different
surfaces and nature of the cut peat on the one hand and of the
machine peat on the other hand well maintained. These anhy-
drous pieces of peat were then all exposed to the effect of the air,
and the new amounts of water absorbed by the anhydrous peats
were determined (see columns 17 to 22) by making weighings at
definite intervals. Finally, a third batch of the pieces of air-dry
peat was exposed for twenty-four hours to the action of heavy
rain to enable us to form an idea of the water absorption due to
rainfall, of cut peat and machine peat when exposed to the action
of the weather, as, for instance, when stored in the open. The
increases in weight, found by means of weighings made an hour
after the rain stopped, and also twenty-four hours later, are given
in columns 23 to 26.

It follows from the table that : —

(a) The dry-volume ratio in the case of the winning of machine
peat, i.e., the ratio of the size of an air-dry peat sod to the size of
the same sod in its freshly made formed peat or pulped peat state
varies from 14 to 30 per cent., and that its average value may be
assumed to be 20 per cent. ; the contraction therefore amounts to
approximately 80 per cent.

(b) The shrinkage effect varies from 7-28 to 3-40 and has an
average value of 5, i.e., the volume of a piece of freshly made
machine peat is five times as great as that which the same piece
has when it is air-dry.

(c) The condensing effect varies with the different machines
and processes from 1 • 14 to 4- 90. The figures in the table cannot,
however, be used for direct comparison of different modes of
winning and of different machines with one another in respect
to their condensing effects, since the action of one and the same
machine varies for different raw materials. Only figures giving
the condensing effects of different machines when working the
same raw peat can be employed for the purposes of comparison.

The condensing effect of one and the same method of winning or
of one and the same machine for different raw peats is all the greater
the less dense, the more felty, and the poorer in asJi the raw peat is
and the wetter it is worked.

In the case of naturally dense, humified peats, even a machine

246

THE WINNING OF PEAT

Comparison of Dry-volume Ratios, Shrinkage and Condensing Effects, as well

a
Ej

"o

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

o

Raw substance.

Mode of winning.

Size of sods in cm.

Dry-
vol-
ume
ratio

tic

No.

Ash
p.c.

Wet.

Air-drv

•J}

Kind and quality.

V

V

V

V

V

D

8

and

9

10

and

11

12

Oldenburg, light, dark brown and
sedge peat, intermixed with
much plant matter

Hanoverian brown heather peat,
mixed with much cotton-grass
and wood roots

Holstein, dense, brown, humified
. peat with few plant remains

Gravenstein, brown, light peat
having a bast-like texture

Light, brown, felty, moss peat .

Dense, brown, humified peat with
much cotton-grass sedge re-
mains, &c.

Brunswick dark brown, humified
peat, short and clean

Brandenburg black, humified peat
mixed with sedge remains and
some not yet humified root
fibres and containing 85 per
cent, of water when worked

Brown grass peat mixed with
much semi-humified fibres of
wood, sedge and roots, and con-
taining 85 per cent, of water
when worked

The same peat as under 1 0 and 1 1 ,
but it had been exposed as half-
dried machine peat to theaction
of frost and, after thawing, had
been dried in the air

1-8

2-0

10-3

2-5

1-3

2-7

16-5

121

11-1

Machine pulp
peat

Machine pulp
peat

Machine-
formed peat

Machine pulp
peat made
with forming
barrow

Eichhorn's
ball peat

Do.

Machine-
formed peat

Machine-
formed peat
at 10 to 15
V(*)

Do. at 75 V (*)

Machine-
formed peat
at 10 to 15
V(*)
Do. at75V(*)

28x9-3x13

30x15x12

28-8x7-2
X9-8

29x13x10

10 to 12 in.

diameter

10 to 12 in.
diameter

23-5x9x
6-5

15x4x4

15x4x4

Oval
25 x 7 X 4

25x7x4

25 x 7 X 4

19x6-5x
7-6

20x7-5x6

19-6x5-2
X5-9

17x8x5

5-5 to 6-0

5 • 5 to 6 ■ 0

16x6x5

9-9x2-2

X2

9xl-8x
2-5

14-8x4x
2-3

14-2x3-8

Xl-8

19x5-5x
2x5

0-28

3-60

0-176-0C

0-30
0-18

0-17

0-17

0-33
0-18

0-17
0-19

014
0-37

3-4C
5-56

6-OC

6-OC

3-OC
5-5C

6-05
5-32

7-28
•027

* Number of revolutions of the knife shaft

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT

247

s Percentages of Water and Absorption of Water for Machine and Cut Peats.

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

23

24

25

26

ensity of
air-dry

ut

•at.

Ma-
chine
peat.

Density of
anhydrous

Cut

peat.

Ma-
chine
peat.

Con-
dens-
ing
effect

Water percentage in
air -dry peat referred to

Air-dry

state.

Cut
peat.

Ma-
chine
peat.

Anhydrous
state.

Cut
peat.

Ma-
chine
peat.

Percentage absorption of water
by the anhydrous peat after

days. 4 days. 10 days.

Cut

peat.

Ma

chine
peat.

Cut
peat.

Ma-
chine
peat.

Cut
peat.

Ma-
chine
peat.

Percentage
absorption of
water by the
air-dry peat in
rainy weather

1 hour

after the

rain.

Cut

peat

Ma

chine
peat.

After

24
hours.

•a ex

•20

to

•29

•37

64

•31

to
•44

•15

to
•38

•48

74

88

88

70

70

70

0-98

1-03

1-20

0-67

0-74

1-00

1-10

1-00

1-24

1-12

1-30

0-56

0-18

to
0-26

0-32

0-53

0-27

to
0-38

0-13

to
0-33

0-41

0-76

0-76

0-60

0-60

0-61

0-84

0-89

0-98

0-57

0-63

0-88

0-93

0-86

1-07

0-95

1-09

0-48

3-27

to
4-9

2-80

1-90

1-52

to

2-16

2-85

2-10

1-50

1-14

1-41

1-60

1-71

0-80

10-45

12-80

17-70

13-70

13-90

13-26

14-0

14-0

14-40

14-40

13-00

14-40

13-73

18-20

14-70

14-30

11-98

15-80

13-80

13-70

15-30

16-40

14-79

11-68

14-68

21-50

15-93

16-01

15-29

16-36

16-36

16-85

16-85

14-94

16-81

16-00

22-41

17-27

16-68

13-59

18-88

15-92

15-74

18-01

19-59

17-35

6-8

7-7

10-3

8-3

9-5

8-8

6-5

6-5

7-5

7-5

7-5

2-1

2-6

2-9

7-0

5-9

1-05

3-80

7-3

9-5

14-2

9-5

11-3

10-9

31

2-6

1-5

9-0

9-1

9-1

10-5

10-5

10-5

2-9

3-6

5-7

9-0

8-1

1-6

5-90

51

4-3

2-5

11-2

8-7

12-8

20-1

12-3

12-8

13-4

14-3

14-3

15-7

15-7

15-7

6-3

6-1

13-3

12-3

12-2

4-1

11-9

141

7-2

9-5

7-2

12-78

29-0

9-5

9-8

17-2

29-0

11-3

6-3

6-3

10-4

10-4

10-4

1-5

2-0

5-2

6-1

5-5

3-9

3-9

3-9

1-7

4-7

3-8

10-6

5-9

4-3

5-4

4-3

8-0

5-2

4-0

4-0

5-8

5-8

5-8

1-1

1-0

3-0

:-6

3-2

1-7

1-7

2-8

1-5

3-0

2-5

4-7

Dr every 100 1. of peat (in an experimental machine).

248 THE WINNING OF PEAT

with a good mixing action rarely attains a greater condensing
effect than 1-5. In this respect the advantage of winning peat by
machines increases with the lightness of the raw peat, and it is
therefore of great importance for poor raw peat.

(d) The percentage of moisture in air-dry machine peat (the
average value is 15 to 18 per cent.) is generally slightly greater for
the same length of drying (under cover) than that of cut peat from
the same bog.

(e) On the other hand, the tendency of machine peat to
re-absorb moisture is considerably less than that of cut peat, so
that the water absorbed by air-dry machine peat in the case of
rain or heavy mists is to be regarded as zero, while the percentage
of water in cut peat increases considerably.

The somewhat higher percentage of water in machine peat in
the air-dry state, which state is, however, seldom attained by cut
peat which is not dried under cover, can be explained by its dense
and solid consistency, and especially when " watering forming
pieces " are employed by the fully macerated, dense surface of
the sods. Both of these increase the difficulty of evaporating the
water from the interior of the machine peat, and to them is due
the fact that the moisture of the core disappears only after storing
for some months.

This solidity and density of machine peat, and the satisfactory
maceration of its surface are the reasons why machine peat, no
matter whether pulped or formed peat, does not dry more rapidly
than cut peat with the same initial percentage of water, although
the contrary is almost generally assumed or at least asserted in
favour of machine peat by those engaged in the manufacture of
the latter product.1

The numerous experiments carried out with great exactness
by the author have in every case established the above fact, which
is also evident from the nature of the change and the course taken
by well-known natural processes. A body such as peat cannot
in the dry state have a smaller absorptive power for moisture
owing to its denser consistency, and at the same time this body

1 To facilitate the drying of formed peat and increase its resistance
towards the injurious action of an unfavourable atmosphere (formation of
crust, splitting, bursting, crumbling), Schlickeysen proposed either to add
finely divided bodies (coal dust, peat mould, saw-dust) to the raw peat, or
to add bodies such as these to the surface layers of the sods. The peat
bands were also to be heated a short time — i.e., until their surface water
had been evaporated. The crusts thus formed round the still cold cores
of the sods were supposed to make direct piling of the sods possible
(cf. Patents 156025, 164225, and 166597). These processes have not,
however, come into use on a large scale.

With a similar object, but with the intention rather of increasing the
calorific power of the peat, Zailer (Vienna) has proposed to work the raw
peat in the mixing and forming machine with the addition of crude
petroleum in countries rich in oil. This oil peat is said not to take longer
to dry, to become denser, and, according to the amount of oil added, to
have its calorific power nearly doubled (up to 6,000 calories). The oil
peat process is to be acquired by the German Naphtha Company, and to
be carried out on a large scale in Galicia.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 249

with the same dense consistency in the wet state gives off moisture
by evaporation more rapidly than fibrous, loose, raw material with
the same percentage of water, in which access of air, and therefore
evaporation of water, is in every way favoured by the open and
cleft structure of its loose, cellular and rough surface. As has
been already indicated, no peat has closed cells and capillaries
containing water so large that they can be torn up and opened by
the thick knives of peat machines, which would thus set free in
the machine peat the water which would remain enclosed in the cut
peat. The same dense, dried crust, however, which within two days
after the preparation of the machine peat is able to prevent the
penetration into the peat of any rain which may fall on it, and
which allows the rain to run off the surface, protecting especially
the surface of the still moist sods from being washed out and carried
away, that same crust, together with the great compactness of
the core, impedes the free evaporation from the interior of the
water contained in the sod, and therefore makes machine peat dry
less readily than cut peat.

The table on p. 250 contains some data as to the course of the
drying of cut peat and machine peat from the same raw material.
The peat sods were taken with care from the same layer of peat
and were chosen so that the specimens of machine peat and cut
peat from the same raw material had as nearly as possible the
same percentages of water, as shown by the calculations made
when the specimens were completely dry. The sample of cut
peat, No. II, in the third experiment, was taken from a very
compact and heavy layer, which would probably allow its water
to evaporate with great difficulty, but even in the case of this
specimen the drying took place more rapidly than in that of the
corresponding machine peat.

In a covered place the machine peats under 1 and 2 became
air-dry about ten days, and that under 3 about twelve days,
later than the corresponding cut peats.

Although machine peat in general dries more or less slowly,
atmospheric conditions, as already pointed out on p. 216 in the
section on the drying of peat, in protracted rainy weather,
favour machine peat. The latter, owing to its more or less low
absorptive power, retains in rainy weather that degree of dryness
which it has previously attained, while cut peat, lacking this
property, re-absorbs water and retreats in the drving. Hence it
happens that a peat which is to be dried and stored in the open will
attain and keep its air-dry state with 15 to 20 per cent, of moisture
more certainly than cut peat from the same mass.

If cut peat is not stored in covered sheds in which it is exposed
to the air, it will attain its proper air-dry condition, containing
12 to 15 per cent, of moisture, only in very rare cases, and never
in winter.

The effect of frost on machine peat which is not air-dry is
just as disadvantageous for the firmness of the peat as it is in
the case of cut peat. If the machine peat contains more than
30 per cent, of water, and in this condition is exposed on the

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250

THE WINNING OF PEAT

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WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 251

drying ground, in clamps or in open sheds, to a temperature
below 0° C, the well-known expansion of the water as it becomes
converted into ice increases the volume, and destroys the intimate
connexion between the various small particles of the peat. After
thawing, the small splits and clefts which form between the
particles prevent mutual attraction, shrinkage and condensation
during the early stages of the drying. In the case of very wet
peats the sods, after thawing, fall to pieces, while those which
are more advanced in the drying process, although they remain
whole, do not contract any further, and when completely dry
they give a very light, and therefore less valuable, peat which
has more or less the properties of spongy cut peat.

The horizontal column 12 of the table on p. 246 contains the
results of the experiments made with frozen peat sods. For this
purpose some of the sods made for the experiments under 10 and 11
were kept at 6° C. for several days (the experiments took place
at the end of October during a heavy frost which lasted for days)
until they were frozen throughout their mass. The stage of drying
at which the sods were frozen was such that their original length
of 25 cm. had contracted to 19 cm. After thawing the surfaces of
the sods they showed the well-known scaly appearance character-
istic of such sods ; some of them fell to pieces, but most of them
held together ; as the drying, however, proceeded in a covered
place all further contraction ceased, so that the sods even when
air-dry still had a length of 19 cm., while those which had not
been exposed to frost, and which were also originally 25 cm. in
length, had, when air-dry, decreased to 14-2 to 14 -8 cm. in length.
Hence, in the case of the frozen peat the shrinkage effect (cf. the
vertical column 7) was 2-70, while that of equally large sods
which had not been frozen, and which had been made from the
same raw material and in the same machine was 7-28 and 5-32.
The frozen machine peat gave very light sods, having a density
of 0 • 56, which was therefore even lower than that (0 • 70) of its
raw peat (air-dry), so that in this case the condensing effect was
under 1, and, indeed, had the value 0-8. For the same reason
the figures giving the behaviour of the peat towards moisture
contained in the columns 13 to 26 show considerable alterations
which are not in favour of the frozen machine peat.

It is therefore inadvisable to continue the winning of machine
peat so far into the autumn that the last sods manufactured
cannot be dried so as to contain not more than 30 per cent, of
moisture before the time at which frosty weather is to be expected.

Frozen peat sods, containing 40 per cent, of moisture, when
worked again and treated in the ordinary way in the machine,
give a machine peat which hardens and shrinks as well as ordinary
peat worked in the same machine. This has been the general
experience when working frozen raw peat (which owing to
insufficient watering has been " frozen out " over winter) which,
in contrast to the failures in the cut peat winning, gives a fuel
differing little or not at all from that made from unfrozen peat.
In order that the winning may be, however, quite safe, the frozen

252 THE WINNING OF PEAT

peat is always mixed with good (unfrozen) raw material when
being worked in the machine.

Schreiber has made the following experiments1 at Sebastians-
berg with peat from the high bogs of that locality. The object
of these experiments was to determine the effect of different
methods of winning and drying on the quality (density, volume,
dryness) of the peat and on the size of the drying ground required.
The results of the experiments, however, especially with regard
to the drying ground, are to be appraised and utilized with caution
on account of the extraordinarily bad climate at the locality where
the experiments were conducted.

Thirty-eight samples, each | cb. m., were taken from the
Sebastiansberg bog. The samples weighed in each case from
136 to 140 kilos, without any difference in weight being per-
ceptible between fuel peat (black, well-humified peat) and litter
peat (young, light yellow moss peat). One cubic metre of raw
peat had therefore, a weight of 1,088 to 1,120 kilos.

The experiments with this (Sebastiansberg) high bog peat gave :

(1) Percentage of water and as h in the peat : —

Fuel peat. Litter peat.

Percentage of Raw. Air-drv. Anhydrous. Raw. Air-dry. Anhydrous.
Water . . 87 . . 22 " . . — . . 92 . . 18 . . —
Ash .. — .. — .. 2-2 .. — .. — .. 3-1

(2) Density of the air-dry peat : —

Mode of winning.
Cut peat

Cut peat, after wintering
Pulp peat (moulded and stroked peat)
Machine-formed peat

(3) Shrinkage : —

100 1. of raw peat shrink during air-drying to : —

Fuel peat. Litter peat.

Cut peat . . . . . . 33 litres . . . . 45 litres.

Cut peat, after wintering . . — . . . . 80 ,,

Machine peat 20 ,, . . . . 31

(4) Contraction of the lengths of the sod edges in percentages
of their original lengths : — Fuel peat. Litter peat.

.iel peat.

Litter peat.

0-55 ..

.. 0-22

— . .

.. 0-14

0-70

—

0-95 ..

.. 0-35

Cut peat
Pulp peat
Machine-formed peat . .

(5) Yields of air-dry peat

74 . . . . 77
69 . . . . —

61 . . . . 70

Fuel peat. Litter peat.

1 cb. m. of raw peat gives . . 182 kilos . . 107 kilos

1 ha. of bog, 1 m. in depth, gives . . 1,820 m. tons . . 1,070 m. tons.

(6) Weight in kilos of 1 hi . of the air-dry peat : —

Fuel peat-
Cut Pulp Machine-
peat, peat, formed peat.

Loosely filled 22 . . 33 . . 36

Filled without intervening spaces 55 . . 70 . . 95

1 Fourth " Jahresbericht der Moorkulturstation in Sebastiansberg,"'
by Hans Schreiber, published by the Bog Utilization Station.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 253

single
give

(7) Minimum area of drying ground required for a

spreading of the 55-5 cb. m. of raw peat required to

10,000 kilos of air-dry fuel peat : —

Are.
Pulp peat, spread . . . . . . . . . . . . ..11

Formed peat, spread . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Cut peat, according to locality and size of sods . . . .4-10

Cut peat, " poled " . . . . . . .... . . 6

Cut peat, " spiked " . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Cut peat, on " horses " . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Cut peat, on trestles or hurdles. . . . . . . . . . 3

(8) Maximum yield of 1 ha. of drying ground for a single

spreading of air-dry fuel peat : —

M. tons.
Pulp peat, spread . . . . . . . . . . 94

Formed peat, spread

Cut peat, spread

" Poled " peat . .

" Spiked " peat

Peat on " horses "

Peat on trestles, hurdles,

&c.

100

178
-270
185
148
310
477

The yield from a bog of air-dry peat, which is marketable and
can be utilized, varies a good deal with the nature of the peat
and the mode of winning, as may be seen from the dry-volume
ratios, the shrinkage effects, and the densities for the various peats
given in the tables on pp. 63 and 246. Excluding abnormal kinds
of peat, the figures with respect to yield vary within the following
limits : — ■

From 1 cb. m. of raw peat, with a density from 1 to 1 • 1 and
a percentage of water from 85 to 95, the following may be
obtained, according as it consists mainly of light moss peat or of
black humified peat : — ■

When won as

Cut peat.

Litter peat.

Fuel peat.

Stroked,

pulped, or

kneaded peat.

Machine-
formed
peat.

peat
hav-

no intervening

Of air-dry

(regarded as

ing

spaces)
With a density of . .
Weighing (air-dry

with 20 per cent.

of moisture)

0-40-0-50

0-15-0-30
75-120

0-25-0-35

0-30-0-80
100-150

0-18-0-25

0-60-1-00
150-180

0-17-0-30
cb. m.

0-65-1-30

170-200

kilos

More reliable average figures for preliminary estimates with
regard to the valuation of peat bogs or for projected peat factories
cannot be given owing to great variation in the bogs. In order to
guard against being misled it is emphatically to-be recommended
that in every case estimates should be based on well-conducted
experiments made with the peat of the locality itself.

Vogel has made experiments in a rolling barrel, which had

254 THE WINNING OF PEAT

a volume of three Bavarian buckets, with regard to the trans-
portability of various kinds of peat, which is closely connected
with the density of the peat. The results of these experiments
were that the weight of light cut peat decreased 3-5 per cent., of
dense Staltach machine peat 0-31 per cent., and of Schleissheim
(roller) press peat 2-4 per cent., owing to waste, for the same
amount of motion.

J. — On the Selection of New Peat Machines and on Peat

Machine Competitions

1. — General Observations on the Selection of New Peat Machines

In choosing machines for the manufacture of machine peat
it will be necessary to take into account the amount of the
projected annual output and the driving power, available or
intended, as well as the nature of the peat to be worked and that
of the bog. By referring, then, to what has been said in the
preceding sections about the advantages and the defects of the
various machines, that best suited for the given case can be
selected.

Although rules applicable to all cases cannot be given, it will
be easy, by paying attention to the general points of view
described below, to decide in the special circumstances of each
case as to the mode of winning to be adopted and the kind of
machine to be acquired for carrying it out.

In choosing machines we must also consider what is the best
degree of dryness or wetness in a bog for winning a raw peat
which is to split and crumble as little as possible during the drying,
and if necessary we must find this by experiment. Raw peat
which is too dry gives a fuel which splits very easily if the mixing
action of the machine is not satisfactory.

If the industry be a small one, i.e., with a daily output of
15,000 peat sods or 30 cb. m. of freshly formed peat, equivalent
to 7,500 to 10,000 kilos of machine peat, the peat machines can,
as a rule, be worked by horses, since a horse of average strength
can, according to the type of the machine, turn out 7,000 to
10,000 sods, or 4,000 to 6,000 kilos, per day. If the industry is to
be continuous and as great as possible, horses, if kept constantly
at work, will break down, unless relays of them be maintained.
In these cases, and also where horses cannot be bought cheaply,
it is preferable to use steam (locomotive or wire-rope) or
electrical power for driving the working machines, even for an
output of 15,000 sods.

Vertical machines for direct driving by horses, with the aid
of a capstan fastened to the knife shaft, have only a small mixing
action. These machines can, therefore, be employed without
disadvantage only when the material to be worked is a very
uniform, humified peat without appreciable admixture of semi-
humified roots, sedges, grasses, &c, and which even in its natural
(air-dry) state has a high density (over 0-6) and in the winning

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 255

of which it is not so much a matter of obtaining a machine peat
as dense as possible for transport or perhaps for coking as of
converting the available peat into handy sods for one's own use
either when it cannot be won at all as cut peat, or for want of
skilled workmen, or when it is desired to become independent
of them. In this case and when the capital required is small,
the vertical machines with slowly rotating knife shafts described
in Section IV meet the requirements.

The raw peat may, however, consist wholly or partly of
fibrous, moss, or sedge peat, or the otherwise ripe, humified peat
may be mixed more or less with wood, sedge, or grasses. It may
also, when working pure bituminous peat, be a matter of obtaining
a product as good and as dense as possible. In these cases weight
must be mainly attached to the possibility of intimately mixing
the raw peat, and machines are to be selected which do this
either by means of thin knives passing by counter-knives or
fixed to a rapidly rotating shaft, i.e., machines which give the
greatest condensing action are to be chosen. When this is so
direct driving with horses no longer gives a sufficiently large
number of shaft rotations and an attempt must be made, by
means of an intermediate gearing or a capstan with gear changing
from slow to fast, to bring the rotation number of the knife shafts
up to 20 to 30 revolutions per minute. (Cf. Figs. 31 and 32.)

When, however, horses are not available for driving and when
it has been decided to adopt steam or electric power to keep the
industry going properly, or when the output is to be so great that
resource must be had to steam or electricity, one should in every
case try to obtain the best fuel, and importance should be attached
not only to the best output from the machine in volume and
external appearance but also in weight. Real tearing and good
mixing machines are indicated for use not only when working
fibrous peat, light moss peat and peat mixed with semi-humified
plant remains in order to avoid frequent stoppages through the
knives becoming wrapped with fibres, stopping of the spirals, &c,
but also for obtaining as heavy a product as possible from good
humified peat or bituminous peat which is in itself naturally
dense.

It cannot be denied that satisfactory results, at least by volume,
have now and then been obtained with machines with slowly
running shafts or with smooth spiral double-shaft machines, when
working ripe, humified peat. There is, however, scarcely any raw
peat which is free from impurities of the most varied kinds,
especially from semi-humified wood and roots, and as the above-
mentioned machines with their slowly running broad knives,
which only push the peat forward, cannot exert a tearing, cutting
and good mixing action without frequent stoppages, and the
working troubles associated therewith, an insufficiently kneaded
peat and, therefore, one which will split and crumble when drying,
will inevitably be formed. These troubles increase the more
closely the quality of the peat approaches that of light moss and
grass peat, and the output of the machine becomes much smaller

256 THE WINNING OF PEAT

when fibrous peat preponderates in the material worked. It has,
moreover, been pointed out in the preceding section that in a
properly organized peat industry the shrinkage effect for a given
peat due to the mode of winning or to the working machine has
had a good deal of influence on the prosperity of the industry.
Here, as in all other cases, the " best " should always displace the
" good enough." The horizontal, rapidly running machines require
no greater driving power than the vertical. When properly
chosen they work all kinds of peat, give a denser, heavier product,
are easier to attend, and, owing to their smaller weight, are more
easily moved in the bog itself than are vertical machines. It only
requires some skill from the workmen, supervision from the
manager, correct choice of means of transport and acquaintance
with their special advantages in each case to prepare by means
of these machines from any given raw material a product which
is the cheapest for sale and the most valuable for use. How far
the various modifications of the horizontal machine adapt
themselves to special cases has been sufficiently indicated in the
descriptions of them given in Section IV. According to the
experience hitherto gained the pulp peat machines, which are also
described in the section referred to, appear to be in general well
able to compete with the rapidly running forming machines. The
decisive factors in the selection of the one or the other mode of
working are generally local circumstances and the customs of the
owners or their workmen. There is no doubt, however, that the
winning of formed peat requires a greater amount of knowledge
from the manager, a more careful choice of the working machine,
and better trained workmen than does that of pulp peat. On
the other hand, the pulp peat winning requires a longer drying
period, and therefore has a shorter working season each summer.
This method gives a fuel which does not look so well and depends
more on the weather, &c.

The question has often been asked how the different machines
behave and wear when stones are contained in the raw material
worked. The answer to this ought to be in favour of the vertical
machines in so far as, owing to the small number of their knives,
the width of their cylinders, and the slow rotation of their knife
shafts any stones or pieces of wood in the peat have time to escape
from the action of the knives and, not producing any resistance,
cannot therefore exert any injurious back pressure on individual
parts of the machines, especially the (cast-iron) knives.

It is more difficult to keep the stones out of the way, and this
is also less likely to happen in the case of double-spiral machines
with many intermeshing knives, as in the first portion of Lucht's
machine and in the tearing and gripping parts of the new hori-
zontal machines. The same stone, however, which breaks the
knives or screws of these machines also breaks the heavier and,
therefore, more expensive knives of the vertical machines when it
becomes caught between the knife and the wall of the vat during
the working. In the case of the horizontal machines, replacement
of broken knives or screws is, as a rule, more easily effected since

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 257

all the knives and parts of screws are generally made according to
the same type, and reserves may, therefore, be kept without much
expense, and also as there are no bearings inside the machine the
parts can, without difficulty, be taken off or placed on at the free
end of the shaft and fixed in position by thumb-screws. Knives
in the vertical machines can only be replaced when the crank-pin,
by means of which the capstan is fixed, has been knocked out of
the shaft and the upper shaft bearing has been removed.

If we remember, for a moment, that machines should be good
peat-working machines not stone-working machines, the point
made that one kind of machine does not resist the action of stones
as well as another will have less significance. A peat machine
with a good mixing and condensing action must be endangered
by stones thrown in with the peat. If stones and pieces of wood
pass through the machine easily, the tearing and mixing action
certainly leave much to be desired. Hence, when stones are
present in the peat to be worked it is better to take care to keep
a sharp watch on the feeding of the raw peat, so as to avoid this
working trouble, which, indeed, rarely occurs, than to try to pre-
vent it altogether by means of a defective machine and, therefore,
to content oneself indefinitely with a defective product.

2. — Peat Machine Competitions

The larger peat machine competitions hitherto organized have
never led to a useful result, and under the conditions adopted
could not do so. The author has already fully discussed in another
place1 the mistakes made in organizing these machine exhibitions
and competitions.

Competitions such as these are only of value, and a correct
judgment on the machines engaged can only be given, when the
following conditions are fulfilled : —

The peat machines must be exhibited in a large peat bog and
especially in such a one as can give large quantities of light,
fibrous peat in one place and of pure humified peat (bituminous
peat) at another, since it is desirable to examine the behaviour
of every machine first in working separately the different kinds of
peat and afterwards in working material consisting of mixtures of
peats of various ages. It is also required to extend this observa-
tion for every kind of peat over a more or less long period with
a view to determining how the various machines, in the continuous
working of impure or light fibrous peat, behave with regard to
stoppages and average outputs. The transport to the machine of
the large quantities of raw peat then required and the removal
from it of the finished product would, if the machines were set up
outside the bog, waste at least as much money as would be required
for setting up the various machines in the bog itself. It is only

1 Cf. the first edition of this work and the " Bericht fiber die Gifhorner
Torfmaschinen-Konkurrenz," by A. Hausding, 1877, published by Paul
Parey, Berlin.

258 THE WINNING OF PEAT

observation of machines set up and working in a bog itself which
enables us to draw conclusions generally applicable to peat winning.

It is desirable that a bog be selected which lies near a railway.
If this cannot be found it should be recommended that the funds
for money prizes and any contribution by the State, agricul-
tural societies, &c, should be divided amongst all the competitors,
in part payment of their expenses, and that the best machines
should be designated only by the verdict of the judges.

The following points should be exactly observed in the trial
itself :—

(1) Early publication of all the conditions to be observed by
those taking part in the competition as well as of the rules govern-
ing the procedure of the judges.

(2) Examination of the behaviour of every machine : {a) While
working ripe humified peat ; (b) while working light, mossy
and fibrous peat ; (c) while working a peat consisting of a mixture
of the most commonly occurring kinds of raw peat.

(It is very easy to imagine a case where some machine proves
the best for a peat consisting almost entirely of humified and marsh
peat, while it is much behind others in its output for working
fibrous peat, and conversely).

(3) The working of any one kind of peat must be extended to at
least five hours with each machine in order to be able to determine
the average output and any more or less frequent occurrence of
disturbance in the working due to stoppages of the knife shafts or
to faulty construction of the machine, forming pieces, &c.

(It is assumed here that a disturbance in the working is not
caused by cleaning the machines twice a day (mid-day and evening)
when working is not going on, but that all cleaning or repairing
of the machines which occurs oftener than is essential is to be
regarded as a disturbance in the working and a defect in the
machine).

(4) Observation of the power required in each case to drive the
machines during these five hours.

(5) Determination of the output by volume and by weight both
in the freshly formed and in the air-dry state and, therefore, deter-
mination of the condensing action of each process and of each
machine.

(6) Determination of the most suitable method of raising and of
transporting the raw peat and of the best method of removing the
formed peat and of spreading it for drying.

(7) The working expenses, in which the workmen required for
attending the machine as well as the cost (amortization expenses)
of the working and driving machines and of any implements and
buildings, required for the carrying out of the mode of winning in
question, are to be taken into account.

(8) Determination of the most suitable mode of dividing large
peat bands, in the case of formed peat, and of cutting the spread
peat, in the case of pulp peat winning.

(9) The most suitable mode of drying, the area required for it,
and its cost are to be taken into account.

WINNING AND PROPERTIES OF CONDENSED MACHINE PEAT 259

(10) Examination of ease of moving, installing and starting the
machines in the peat bog.

(The average amounts paid for bringing the raw material and
for taking away the product are lower the more easily the machine
follows the progressive advance of the peat cutting and of the
drying ground, and the more rapidly it can be restarted when
for any reason it has been thrown out of gear) .

(11) Examination of the machine (a) with respect to the quality
and strength of its parts and the neatness of its work ; (b) with
respect to the simplicity of its construction as a whole and of its
working parts individually as well as with regard to their probable
costs of repair.

(12) That access be allowed to the bog a considerable time
before the competition is held so that the competitors may be able
to spend the time and care necessary for the installation of the
machines, making trial runs and adapting the machines to the
raw material.

(13) Publication of a well-founded decision of the judges in the
papers named at the time of the invitation and making this report
accessible by reprinting it.

If we suppose that 12 to 15 machines take part in such a contest
and that they, working in threes, are all watched and examined by
the judges, and that, further, each machine is to work three different
kinds of peat (which in reality will not occur in the case of all the
machines), the contest would require two to three weeks in all
(each machine being in working order for at least two days).
It would, however, probably enable us to form an opinion which
might govern, and be of great importance for, further peat winning
in which for want of general knowledge as to its nature and the
correct way of carrying it out much money has been lost and is
still being lost every year.

Section VI

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT

MULL

1. — Preparatory Work, Preliminary Conditions, and Raw

Material

" Peat litter " (i.e., disintegrated, long-fibred, pure fibrous peat
or moss peat) is an excellent litter for stables, and " peat mull,"
the powdery or dusty "peat mould " obtained when peat litter is
sifted, is used for addition to closets, for purifying and deodorizing
sewage, as an insulator for heat, for addition to molassine meal,
&C.1 The operations which precede the winning of these sub-
stances are the same as those which precede the winning of hand
peat, or cut peat, intended for fuel purposes.

In the present case, unlike that of fuel peat, the product is all
the better the lighter and the more fibrous the raw peat. Hence,
the peat best suited for the winning of peat litter is light, incom-
pletely humified, mossy or fibrous peat, consisting mainly of
sphagnum moss (Sphagnum), cotton-grass (Eriophorum) and other
vegetable fibres, such as is found, frequently several metres in
thickness, in the upper, white, yellow to yellowish-brown layers of
high bogs. It also sometimes occurs in thinner layers in the black
or brown heather peat of low bogs and moss fens, and sometimes,
indeed, only under or between these peats. The chief sources of
moss peat suitable for peat litter are the high bogs and moss fens
of North-eastern and North-western Germany, Holland, Sweden,
and Russia, and occasionally the moss peat bogs of South Germany
and Austria.

We distinguish the following six main varieties of peat litter,
which are named after the plants from which the peat used for
making the litter is mainly derived : —

Sphagnum peat litter (Sphagnum moss peat litter) ,

1 The properties of peat litter and peat mull are described in Part II,
" The Utilization of Peat," in the section on the " Utilization of Peat
Litter, &c." Details with regard to peat litter are contained in the
following publications : —

Fiirst, " Die Torfstreu und ihre Bedeutung fur Stadt und Land," Berlin,
1892.

Jiinger, " Die Torfstreu in ihrer Bedeutung fur die Landwirtschaft und
Stadtereinigung," Berlin, 1890.

Von Mendel, " Die Torfstreu, ihre Herstellung und Verwendung,"
2nd edition, by Professor M. Fleischer, Bremen, 1890.

Schreiber, " Moostorf, seine Gewinnung und Bedeutung," Prague, 1898,
and Osterreich. Moorzeitschrift, 1906.

Viktor Zailer, " Torfstreu und Torf streuwerke, " Hanover, 1915.

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL 261

Cotton-grass peat litter (Eriophorum peat litter),

Rush peat litter (Scheuchzeria peat litter),

Reed peat litter (Phragmites peat litter) ,

Sedge peat litter (Reed-grass, or Carex, peat litter),

Ramified moss peat litter (Brown moss, or Hypnum, peat
litter).

Occasionally we also meet with starry feather moss peat litter
(from Meesea, Paludella, Aulacomnium, Webera varieties, &c.)
and brush moss litter derived from Polytrichum varieties.

Layers of moss peat in large or small amounts are also found
in almost all the larger peat bogs. The heavier, the browner or
blacker and the more compact a raw peat is the less is it suited
for the winning of peat litter, on account of its smaller absorptive
power. Other conditions being the same, then of various raw
materials that moss peat is the best for this purpose in which the
unit of volume, 1 1. or 1,000 c.c, has the smallest amount of solid
matter in its natural state and which is, therefore, lightest when
dried, or the unit of weight of which occupies the greatest volume.
Peat litter is in great demand for many purposes on account of
its excellent properties and has become quite indispensable for
stables. Also, since the freezing of raw peat or of peat sods which
have been already cut is rather an advantage than a disadvantage
for the disintegration necessary in the manufacture of peat litter,
the winning of the latter, when combined with that of peat fuel,
allows not only of the utilization of the whole contents of the bog,
especially of the moss peat layers which are too light for fuel and
which were formerly thrown on one side, being regarded rather as
an obstacle in the way of the development of the bog, but also
of a better utilization of the working season and of the available
power both of machines and men. Thus the winning of moss peat
suitable for the manufacture of peat litter can be begun some weeks
earlier in the spring and can be continued at the end of summer
beyond the ordinary peat-winning season (this is generally confined
to the period intervening between the beginning of May and the
end of June until frosty weather sets in. Peat excavated for peat
litter which has not by that time become dry and which is kept
over winter dries, and can be worked all the more easily for this
in the following spring.

In order that the winning of peat litter should be as profitable
as possible from the commercial standpoint, good draining of the
layers of peat is here even more important than in the case of the
winning of fuel peat, owing to the high percentage of water and the
low percentage of dry peat fibres in the light moss peat. Moss peat
from swampy, undrained bogs may be regarded as almost saturated
with water. Peat litter and peat mull as commercial substances
should contain only 30 to 35 per cent., and in no case more than
40 per cent, of moisture, while the amount of moisture in them
when they are well air-dried is only 20 per cent.

A comparison of the amount of dry material in 1 cb. m. of
undrained raw peat with the amount of water contained in the peat
and a consideration of the fact that as the drying or draining of

262

THE WINNING OF PEAT

a bog proceeds its volume diminishes and that, therefore, 1 cb. m.
of half-drained bog contains a considerably greater amount of
utilizable peat fibres than 1 cb. m. of peat from the same bog in an
undrained state, show us that for 1 cb. m. of excavated (cut) raw
peat the weight of useless material to be raised and transported is
not only much greater in the case of an undrained, or an insuffi-
ciently drained, bog, but that the yield of dry substance is at the
same time smaller than in the case of an equally large volume of
peat raised at the same expense from a properly drained bog.
In this way the cost of production is increased without any
corresponding benefit by not draining the bogs to a sufficient
extent.

According to the investigations made at the Experimental Bog
Station at Bremen, the weights of a given volume of various moss
peats and their absorptive powers were as follows : —

1 cb. m. of Moss Peat Undrained or Saturated with Water.

Moss peat from

Weight.

Kilos.

Peat content.

An-
hydrous.

Kilos.

Air-dry.
Kilos.

Water

absorbed

by 100

parts of

the

dry moss

peat

Parts.

Bourtang Bog, at 15-47 cm. depth,

with little heather remains
Bourtang Bog, at 112-147 cm. depth,

with little heather remains
Hellweg Bog, at 31-57 cm. depth,

with little heather remains
Hellweg Bog, at 58-86 cm. depth,

with little heather remains
Great Moss Fen in East Prussia at

0-20 cm. depth, moss peat with some

heather mould
The same at 20-100 cm. depth, almost

pure moss peat
Karolinenhorst Bog (Stettin), at

15-30 cm. depth, moss peat fairly-
well decomposed
The same, at 60-80 cm. depth, almost

pure moss peat

903
805
853
885
526

504
854

969

83

104

47

59

58

73

82

78

93

116

70

88

138*

173

106*

133

990
1,601
1,375
1,335

1,140

1,610
1,775

2,300

* The substance was not quite saturated with water and had already shrunken

somewhat.

Moss peats which have an absorptive power smaller than eight
times their dry weight ought not be worked into marketable peat
litter in districts where more absorptive moss peats occur. For
various economic reasons fibrous peats with a smaller absorptive
power than this are still, worked for private use, especially in bog
districts where the only available fibrous peat is that of low bogs
consisting of grass, reed or sedge peat.

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL 263

According to Professor Fleischer, there was found in one and
the same bog (Osterholz high bog) : —

Grammes of water
absorbed by
At a depth of :- 100 g. of peat.

0-27 cm. . . Well-decomposed heather humus and 890
well-decomposed moss peat
27-43 cm. . . Moss peat with little cotton-grass 1,390

remains
43-61 cm. . . Pure, undecomposed moss peat. . . . 1,560

61-76 cm. . . One-half consisting of well-decomposed 820
heather peat and the other of slightly
decomposed moss peat
76-91 cm. . . A mixture of heather humus, moss peat 720

and cotton-grass remains
91-117 cm. .. Much decomposed heather peat, with 580
some undecomposed moss peat and
cotton-grass remains
117-131 cm. . . Almost ripe, mouldy heather peat, with 510

some undecomposed heather stems
131-157 cm. . . The same 400

In the manufacture of peat litter the amount of fine peat
mould, the so-called peat mull, formed during the disintegration of
the peat and separated by the sieves from the fibrous peat litter
itself, depends on the degree of decomposition, or the amount of
liumification, of the moss peat and on the quantity of other plant
residues, heather humus, or fuel peat mixed with it. According
to the demand for peat mull, the one or the other raw material
from the various layers of a peat bog will be worked unless the
plant is so arranged that by putting certain contrivances (sieves,
mull mills, &c.) into or out of gear, according as required, one
and the same fibrous peat (or also suitable peat from selected
layers) can be worked mainly to peat litter or to peat mull, as will
be described more fully further on.

The absorptive power of sifted peat mull is not always the
same as that of peat litter from the same raw peat. The earthy,
mouldy admixtures, which are richer in peat and in which the
decay and humification have already reached an advanced stage
fall into mould and dust more easily than the fibres of the moss
peat during the disintegration of the air-dry raw peat, and enrich
the peat mull with substances of small absorptive power. If,
however, the peat mull consists only of particles of fibres formed
during the disintegration of the pure moss peat, its absorptive
power may even be greater than that of peat fibres in large pieces
(therefore less available for absorption). Investigations at the
Experimental Bog Station have established the following : — -

One hundred parts of dry moss peat from three different
portions of Teufelsmoor, in the Osterholz district, absorbed water
as follows : —

(a) In rather coarse pieces : 717 parts ; crushed : 909 parts.

(b) „ „ „ 511 „ „ 794 „

(c) „ „ „ 781 „ „ 1,019 „

One hundred parts of moss peat in the form of mull absorbed,

264

THE WINNING OF PEAT

therefore, 182, 283, or 238 parts of water more than the same
moss peat in pieces.1

Experiments with various sphagnum peats conducted by Carl
von Feilitzen, Director of the Swedish Peat Utilization Society,
have given the following results : —

Sphagnum peat from

Vapno,

disintegrated

into

Peat
litter.

Mull.

Norrkoping,

disintegrated

into

Peat
litter.

Mull.

Skyllberg,

disintegrated

into

Peat

litter.

Mull.

Water absorption

Anhydrous
Air-dry (with

inn t J Air-drv (with

per 100 parts of < nr, x

^ , r ] 20 per cent, of

water)

1,080

850

1,280
1,000

1,490
1,170

1,660
1,310

2,060
1.630

2,390
1,890

Artificial drying of peat litter at such temperatures as are on
the whole suitable for artificial drying (up to 80° C.) does not
affect its absorptive power, but complete drying at higher
temperatures, say, 100° C. or higher, does affect it. Thus, for
instance, von Feilitzen found : —

Absorption of
water by sample.
Per cent.
A peat litter dried in the air (20 per cent, moisture) . . 2,060-2,080
The same peat litter dried for 3 hours at 70° C. . . 2,090

The same peat litter dried for 16 hours at 100° C. . . 1,460*

* Probably a misprint for 2,460. Anhydrous peat litter has a higher absorptive power
than the same peat litter has when air-dry. — Translator.

Artificial drying of peat even with the best possible drying
plant must, however, always prove unremunerative so long as
the present market prices for peat litter remain unchanged.

The chemical compositions of peat litter and of peat mull may
also differ somewhat ; they agree less with one another the more
the moss peat is permeated with heather humus and grass peat.
Thus, for instance, the following results were found in the analysis
of a specimen of moss peat which had been separated by machinery
into litter and mull : —

Anhydrous peat.

Litter.

Mull.

Nitrogen

Soluble ash

Insoluble ash (silica, sand)

" Potash "

" Soda "

Lime

Magnesia

" Phosphoric acid "

" Sulphuric acid "

1-40
4-77
2-32
0-07
0-04
0-84
0-27
0-13
0-25

1-62
8-60
6-06
0-12
0-09
0-78
0-27
0-17
0-34

1 Professor M. Fleischer, " Die Torfstreu."

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL

265

The effect of frost on peat in destroying its power of contracting,
condensing, or shrinking can be appreciated from the statements
of Dr. Fleischer. Of two sods, equally large and heavy, containing
the same percentage (84) of water and made from heather peat,
one was dried directly and the other after exposure for a
more or less long time to heavy frost. The first sod contracted
a good deal on drying and gave a solid, very hard mass ; the
second, on the other hand, contracted less and remained fairly soft.

The sod dried in the absence of frost had a volume of 134 c.c,
and the sod dried after freezing, of equal size originally, had a
volume of 278 c.c, or —

1 cb. m. of peat dried without freezing weighed 747 kilos.
1 cb. m. ,, ,, after ,, ,, 360 ,,

J. Nessler1 allowed two equally large pieces from two freshly
cut peat sods to dry after one of them had been repeatedly frozen
in the open air. In this experiment 1,000 c.c. of wet peat gave : —

Volume of dry peat

Weight of 1 cb. m. of the dry peat

Water absorbed by 100 parts of the

dry mass during the first 6 hours
Water absorbed by 100 parts of the

dry mass during the first 24 hours

The investigations which Hjalmar von Feilitzen2 made with
undecomposed sphagnum peat (the proper raw material for peat
litter and peat mull) at Flahult (Sweden) are also worthy of note.

The average decreases in the volume and the weight of batches,
ten peat sods in each, were : —

"on-frozen.

Frozen.

333 c.c.

414 c.c.

400 kilos

363 kilos.

156 parts

338 parts

196 parts 373 parts.

Non-frozen peat.

Frozen peat.

Fresh-
ly cut
in au-

Air-
dry
in

Decrease in

Fresh-
ly cut
in au-

Air-
dry
in

Decrease in

Mea-

Mea-

Mea-

Mea-

tumn, spring,
1907. 1908.

sure-
ment.

sure-
ment,
p.c.

tumn,
1907.

spring,
1908.

sure-
ment.

sure

ment,

p.c.

Length of sods in cm. . .

32-5 29-6

2-9

8-9

32-9

32-0

0-9

2-7

Breadth

27-1 24-5

2-6

9-6

26-2

25-0

1-2

4-6

Thickness

10-7

8-7

2-0

18-7

10-9

10-1

0-8

7-3

Volume of sods in c.c. . .

9,423

6,323

3,100

32-9

9,383

8,087

1,296

13-8

Weight in grammes

9,565

1,333

8,232

86-1

9,169

1,134

8,035

87-6

Density (calculated)

1-02

0-21

0-81

79-4

0-98

0-14

0-84

85-7

While the weight of unit volume of the freshly cut sod was
approximately 1 • 00, after air-drying, the weight of unit volume
in the case of the frozen peat was 0-14, and for non-frozen
peat 0-21 ; the absorptive power (calculated for the anhydrous
state) was, in the case of the : —

Frozen peat . . . . . . 1,082 per cent.

Non-frozen peat . . . . 847

1 Wochenbl. des Landw. Vereins in Grand Duchy of Baden, 1886, No. 3.
8 Mitteilungen, 1908, p. 235.

(2595) x

266 THE WINNING OF PEAT

The percentage of mull in the peat litter taken from the willow
was, in the case of the frozen peat, 15 to 20, and in that of the
non-frozen, 10-5.

From these results it is evident that peat frozen through and
through not only dries quicker, remaining looser while doing so
and therefore more easily torn up and disintegrated, but that it
is also more absorptive than non-frozen peat from the same bog.
As occasions arise, we should take full advantage of this property
of frozen peat, in the manufacture of good and cheap peat litter,
and also of peat suitable for insulating walls, sound-dampers and
drying bricks. By allowing peat, otherwise unsuitable, to freeze,
a peat litter quite serviceable as a bedding material for stables
can be won on a small scale.

In addition to moss peat itself, when this and other suitable
or valuable litter are lacking, undecomposed grass or sedge peat
(fibrous peat) can also be worked into peat litter and peat mull.
This is done especially in South Germany,Austria, and Switzerland.
Such peats or portions of them consist mainly of tangled masses
of reeds, sedges, grasses, semi-grasses, woody plants (Phragmites
communis, Eriophorum vaginatum, Car ex, J uncus, Scirpus, &c), the
undecomposed layers of which are formed of a body very similar
to moss peat. Its absorptive power for water, and especially
for ammonia, is indeed smaller than that of moss peat (the
absorptive power of various Bavarian and Franconian grass or
sedge peats believed to be suitable for conversion into peat litter
was only 400 to 800, and that of some North German low bogs was
between 1,000 and 1,800 parts per 100 of dry matter, while the
percentage of ash varied between 1-0 and 18-0, that of the
nitrogen between 0 • 75 and 3 • 20, and that of the lime was anything
up to 4 per cent.). In accordance with the nature of the plants
from which it is formed, its tendency to decompose in the ground
is greater than that of pure moss litter. For this reason, and also
owing to its percentage of nitrogen and lime, its manurial value
is also greater. In judging from the point of view of sale or use
the value of the one or the other kind, we must take into account
the fact that the density of grass peat, and therefore of grass peat
litter, is as a rule greater than that of moss peat, that a larger
amount of grass peat litter than of moss peat litter is required for
the same effect, since its absorptive power is generally smaller,
and also that grass peat litter is neither so soft nor so elastic as
moss peat litter.

In doubtful cases, and especially before proceeding with the
erection of large factories, it is advisable to have a careful and
expert examination made of the quality of the peat intended to be
used for the manufacture of peat litter and peat mull, and for this
purpose samples should be sent to the official bog experimental
stations. Several peat litter factories have failed utterly owing to
working a raw peat quite incapable of giving a good peat litter.

The cost of freightage and transport both of the raw peat to
the peat litter factory and of the finished peat litter to the place
of sale also affect the commercial success of a peat litter factory.

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL 267

2. — The Winning of Peat Litter on a Manufacturing Scale

Besides the possibility of a market and the existence of
good means of access to the factory, another condition which must
be fulfilled before the factory is erected if this is to be commercially
successful is that the bog should be a sufficiently large one, and
should contain light mossy or fibrous peat, which alone gives a good
peat litter. The fibrous peat may be present either as an upper
layer on fuel peat or it may form the main portion of the bog.
Experience has shown that it ought to be at least half a metre in
depth, and on account of the amortization of capital the right of
working it should run for not less than twenty years, the amount
of litter peat contained in it being sufficient for at least tha
number of years. As a cubic metre of raw moss peat gives 80 to
120 kilos, on the average 100 kilos,1 of air-dry peat litter, then for
every 1,000 m. tons or 1,000,000 kilos of the output per annum,
which will depend on the output per day and the number of
working days, at least 1 ha. will be required every year, when
the peat layer is 1 m. thick, and therefore 20 ha. for twenty
years. If the thickness of the peat layer is greater or less than
this, the area required will be correspondingly larger or smaller.

The manufacture of peat litter2 begins as a rule with raw
peat, cut by hand or machinery into separate pieces or sods and as
air-dry as possible (25 to 30 per cent, of moisture). The manner
of winning this cut peat is the same as that of the cut peat for fuel
purposes described in Section III. It is only necessary to bear
in mind that for the reasons mentioned above, spring (when,
owing to danger of frost at night, the winning of fuel peat cannot
commence) and autumn or winter (when the winning of fuel
peat has been already stopped for want of sufficient time for
drying) are the best seasons for winning raw peat for litter. In the
winter, however, it can be continued only during the first or light
frosts, when only the excavated peat freezes. This freezing of
the excavated peat facilitates its maceration and improves the
absorptive power of the litter formed from it.

The drying of cut peat for litter is best carried out in the
way already described for the drying of fuel peat, and, indeed, as
we must again point out, in no case should " artificial drying ':
contrivances be employed. Moreover, trials of new suggestions
or discoveries of this kind should not be attempted. All such
contrivances for removing water from peat, which in its natural
state has a very high percentage of moisture or water (in 100 kilos
of raw peat there are as a rule 85 kilos of water for every 15 kilos
of dry matter), in any way other than by drying in the air, so that
the product — fuel peat, peat litter, peat fibres, &c. — may be able to
compete in the market with other commercial substances — brown
coal, coal, straw litter, &c. — have failed to attain their object.

1 Compare the figures given on p. 252.

2 For balance sheets of moss litter factories, compare Schreiben
Oesterr. Moorzeitschrift, 1906, and Dr. Zailer, " Torfstren und Torfstreu-
werke," Hanover, 1915.

268 THE WINNING OF PEAT

We must bear in mind that for winning even a partially dried
raw peat, containing about 30 per cent, of moisture, from raw
peat with 80 per cent, of moisture approximately 357 kilos of
water for every 100 kilos of dry substance, or 250 kilos of water
for every 100 kilos of the partially dried peat obtained, must be
removed by spontaneous or artificial evaporation (pp. 60 and 61).
Hence the heat, or other energy corresponding to it, theoretically
required to evaporate this amount of water is so great that from
the monetary or commercial standpoint complete failure must be
inevitable, even when the technical contrivances are assumed to
be as perfect as possible. Whoever values his money should never
attempt the artificial drying of raw peat.

The absorption of water during showers is not inconsiderable,
especially in the case of light fibrous peat. To make air-drying
certain, it may therefore be necessary, according to the locality, to
make use of the roofs of planks, the drying poles, the hurdles,
the spiked poles, the trestles, or the huts employed, as already
described,1 in drying fuel peat. Drying sheds in the proper
sense of the term are as a rule too dear. In simple air-drying
on the ground it is very important, especially for moss peat sods,
that the ground should be as dry as possible, and therefore should
be so well drained that the sods, when spread, cannot absorb
moisture from the underlying ground.

The sods, when sufficiently dry, are collected into more or less
large clamps roofed with boards, or into large store houses for
further working according as the sods are required. The clamps,
as well as the store houses or sheds, ought to be protected on the
weather side, and finally, in order to facilitate subsequent drying,
provision should be made for the free passage of the air through
the peat.

The owners of some peat litter factories prefer buying the peat,
air-dry, from neighbouring peat cutters to winning it themselves.
This may be done at any place where moss peat superposed on, or
interposed between, layers of fuel peat must be removed when
winning fuel peat in more or less big layers, the moss peat being
then raised like the fuel peat in regular pieces which are spread
for drying.

The operations of a peat litter factory comprise : —

(a) The tearing up or setting free of the fibres of the peat
sods, together with the sifting and removal of mull from the
torn-up peat.

(b) The pressing and packing of the peat litter and peat mull.
The disintegration of the air-dry peat sods is effected by a

willow. The latter is a machine, in the mantle or body of which
there is a rapidly rotating drum, provided with numerous pins or
teeth or formed from several toothed discs (or circular saws) by

1 Thus, for instance, in the peat litter works in Sebastiansberg (Erzge-
birge) peat litter sods are successfully dried on hurdles similar to the
Carinthian drying trestles shown in Fig. 19. Cf. Schreiber, " Das Moor-
wesen, Sebastiansberg," Staab, 1913.

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL

269

the aid of which it tears up the pieces of peat thrown in through
a hopper (Figs. 106 and 107). The degree of disintegration can
be varied according to the quality of the fibrous peat and according
as this is to be worked mainly to peat litter or to peat mull.
Sometimes the inside of the body is also provided with pins or

Fig. 106. — Willow for peat litter.

counter-teeth, between which the teeth of the working roller
pass. The steel pins are fixed on the rollers in oblique lines or
screwwise, and the work is thus better distributed and lighter,
since only a few pins are, in turn, actually engaged at work at
any time.

Fig. 107. — Double willow for peat litter. A. Heinen, Varel.

In order to avoid excess of dust and blocking of the machine,
the number of revolutions per minute should be 500.

With the object of increasing the output, the willows have
recently been generally constructed in the form of the so-called
twin or double willows, with two adjustable tearing rollers moving
in opposite directions with unequal velocities, which are either pin
and toothed or circular saw tearing rollers, according to the nature
of the raw peat to be disintegrated and the product intended to be
manufactured. The individual saw-blades of the latter, which are
separated from one another by intervening pieces, are formed like

270

THE WINNING OF PEAT

those of circular saws, and can easily be taken out for sharpening.
The slower running saw-blade willows are the more suitable for
working cotton-grass peats and moss peats, as well as fibrous
sedge peats which are not much decomposed, and the more rapidly
running toothed and pin willows are the better adapted for
working ripe, mouldy and crumby kinds of peat. Double willows
such as these give more litter and less mull than the single willows.
Machines of this class are constructed, for example, by A. Heinen,
of Varel ; A. Beeck, of Oldenburg ; R. Dolberg and Co., of
Hamburg, Rostock, and Berlin, amongst others.

R. Dolberg and Co. provide the tearing rollers of their saw-
blade willows with blades having peculiarly formed teeth, those
of the one roller intermeshing with those of the other (Fig. 108).
Usually the willows are driven from the shaft of a belt pulley,
and in such a way that a cog-wheel on the shaft of the roller
interlocks with another cog-wheel on the shaft of the counter-
roller, the second roller therefore rotating in a direction opposite
to that of the first.

A. Heinen, of Varel, has, as shown in Fig. 107, made a useful
alteration in the mode of driving with the object of avoiding
cog-wheels and the breakages associated with these. The shafts of
the rollers are driven independently, and, in order that the rollers
may grip the peat more firmly when it is fed rapidly or when the
pieces are more or less hard each shaft is provided with a powerful
flywheel. The working surfaces of the rollers consist of cast-steel
toothed rings, which can be taken off when necessary.

Twin or double willows cost, according as they are saw-blade
or toothed roller willows, the following amounts, the lower figures
corresponding to the saw-blade willows : —

Approxi-

Cost of

Cost of

Driving power.

Output per hour

mate

willows

willows

in kilos.

weight

alone in

with sieves

in kilos.

Marks.

in Marks.

Hand, for domestic use

Up to 300

100-250

125

220

Hand, for domestic use

,, 500

200-260

225-300

350-375

(two workmen)

Horse and capstan . .

From 600-750

220-280

275-350

390-450

Steam-engine, 4 h.p.

750-1,000

230-300

300-450

450-650

6h.p.

„ 1,000-1,200

500-600

450-600

650-800

6-9 h.p.

„ 1,500-2,000

600-800

500-750

700-900

9-10 h.p.

„ 3,000-4,000

950-1,100

800-1,000

1,200-1,400

10-15 h.p.

„ 4,000-5,000

1,200-1,400

1,200-1,400

1,500-1,800

The machine factory of C. Weber and Co., of Artern, sells
smaller disintegrating machines for the manufacture of peat litter,
hand-driven at 75M., and power-driven at 120M.

Also, A. Beeck constructs for specially large factories having
four to six balers a twin willow, the rollers of which consist of
separate and easily removable pin plates and are driven indepen-
dently from a belt pulley. Per metre length of the rollers, the
output per hour is 8,000 to 10,000 kilos and the price 1,500M.
without and 1,800M. with a sieve.

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL

271

In addition to these, willows with horizontal rollers, so-called
peat-grinding mills with vertical shafts, are made (Fig. 109) for
small scale or hand working. They resemble coffee mills in their

Fig. 108. — Saw-blade willow.

construction, and are used mainly for converting into mull pieces
of peat of a more 'or less mouldy character or the sittings from the
peat litter. Although peat mills can also be used for disintegrat-
ing peat sods, especially on farms, they are employed mainly for

Fig. 109.— Peat mill.

making or grinding peat mull when the amount of peat mull
obtained from the sieves in the manufacture of peat litter is
insufficient to meet the demand. Peat mills are not well adapted
for working fibrous or moss peat. With an output per hour of

272

THE WINNING OF PEAT

500 to 2,000 kilos of mull and with a power of consumption oi
2 to 10 h.p., they cost, according to the mode of construction and
the design of the grinders, 500M. to 1,200M.

As a rule, a shaking sieve or a cylindrical sieve is used in
conjunction with the willow or peat mill to sift the dusty or
pulverulent peat mull from the fibrous peat litter, since these
substances are used for different purposes, and therefore each is
regarded as an impurity, or at least as an undesirable admixture,
in the other in spite of the properties common to the two upon
which the purposes for which they are used depend. The shaking
sieve (Fig. 110) has a mesh width of 2 mm. to 3 mm., and the
cylindrical sieve 2 mm. to 4 mm. The price of the shaking
sieve is 250M. to 350M., and that of the larger cvlindrical sieve
450M. to 550M.

Fig. 110. — Peat mill with a shaking sieve.

For ordinary and well-dried moss peat, the amount of mull
separated by the sieves during the manufacture of peat litter is
15 to 25 per cent.

Fig. Ill shows a peat mill or mull mill of R. Dolberg and Co.,
of Hamburg, which is used for working peat litter into mull.
This mull willow gives 90 per cent, of peat mull and 10 per cent.
of pure peat cotton or peat fibres from the moss or litter peat
fed into it.

The machine costs : —

Power.

Output per hour in
kilos.

Approximate

weight in

kilos.

Price in
Marks.

Hand

6 h.p. engine

8 h.p. engine

Up to 300
Up to 1,000
Up to 1,500

240
485
860

200
375
600

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL

273

A special mull willow, which is also able to work peat sods
directly, giving 80 to 90 per cent, of very finely divided mull, is
used for the manufacture of large quantities of mull (for molassine
meal, packing purposes, heat insulators and sound dampers, &c).
Fig. 112 shows a mull willow of this type made by R. Dolberg
and Co., of Hamburg (D.R.P. 165464) It consists of a feeding
drum and a grinding drum. The former is composed of discs of
wood and saw blades, which seize the pieces of peat thrown into
the hopper and feed them to the grinding drum. The peat
tending to collect between the rows of teeth is pushed out by a
comb and fed to the grinding drum. The latter consists of a large
number of sharp annealed steel saws. It tears the pieces of peat
fed to it into a fine mull, which is then sifted in order to separate
the residual peat cotton or peat fibres.

Fig. 111. — Willow for peat mull (mull willow) with shaking sieve.

The grinding drum makes 500 and the feeding drum 5 revo-
lutions per minute.

The data for mull willows such as these are : —

Output per hour
in kilos.

Weight.

Horse-power
required.

Price.

Without

sieve, in kilos.

With sieve,
in kilos.

Without

sieve, in

Marks.

With sieve,
in Marks.

1.000-1,500
2,000-2,500

1,250
1,400

1,450
1,750

15

21

1,400
1,650

1,550
1,850

A. Beeck, of Oldenburg, also constructs a peat mull mill for
working peat litter suitable for large scale operations. A hori-
zontal drum, which is surrounded by an easily removable sieve,
is furnished with teeth over two-thirds of its length. The teeth
are arranged along the lines of a screw, and in that part
of their length from the feeding end to the middle they gradually
decrease, so that the space between the toothed drum and the

274

THE WINNING OF PEAT

cylindrical sieve gradually decreases and therefore the tearing and
disintegrating action of the teeth increases. On the last third
of the drum, which is furnished partly with small teeth and partly
with oblique grooves, the remainder of the charge which has not
already fallen through the sieve, by which the fineness of the mull
is determined, is ground up to the required fineness, and at the
same time the unground peat fibres pass out at the front end of the
drum. These machines are on sale in three sizes, with outputs
per hour from 500 to 4,000 kilos, and they cost : —

In Marks

For an output per hour in kilos of
With a required horse-power of

1,000-1,100

500-700

2-4

1,700

1,500-2,000

5-6

3,275

3,500-4,000
9-12

Such a combination of mull mill and willow for the direct
working of large peat sods into peat mull with an output of 900 to
1,000 kilos per hour costs 2,500M., and the sieve costs 300M. to
600M., according to its size. The largest machine has, however,
two drums, which rotate with different velocities, whereby the

Fig. 112. — Mull willow. R. Dolberg and Co.

grinding of any fibrous peat present is facilitated. This machine
is at work for the North Germany Peat Company at Triangel,
near Gifhorn, and for L. Hornburg, Ltd., at Platendorf, in the
neighbourhood of Triangel.

For working large peat sods into mull, a willow is combined
with a mull mill by placing the former, by means of which the peat
is disintegrated and torn up, over the drum of the mill. The peat
then falls directly into the mull mill, in which it is further ground.
The width of the mesh of the sieves, which can be interchanged,
permits of any desired size of grain in the peat mull to be obtained.

Pressing and packing of peat litter and peat mull is necessary,
in order to put those quantities of the substances not required at
the producing station itself into a form both capable of being
transported and suitable for the market. The light, loose and
cumbrous material falling from the sieve is converted by strong
pressure into regular, nicely trimmed bales, and retention of the
power of holding together thus given to it is made still more
secure by packing it suitably (Fig. 113).

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL

275

For this purpose the loose peat litter is first pressed into
cubical or rectangular bales by means of vertical or horizontal
angle-lever presses or spindle presses until its volume is decreased
to h to | when working by hand or with horse-capstans, or to
^ to | when working with steam power. While still in the press
the bale is bound with strong wire with the aid of wooden laths
laid on it. This packing is sufficient for bales intended for inland
use. It generally consists of 6 to 8 wooden laths, 6x1*5 cm.
thick, bound together by four wires, and costs 50 Pfg. per bale
(Fig. 1 13). The pressing of a bale, including the packing, requires,
in addition, the placing of the lower laths in the press box, the
removal of intrusions above the press piston, the filling of the
press box, levelling and putting the laths on the upper surface,
closing the upper clapper, starting the power, pressing, opening
the front and back clappers, pulling through and binding the
wires, releasing the stops, and finally pulling out and sliding

Fig. 113. — A peat litter bale, tied.

away the bales. The time required for these operations is, in all,
from three to six minutes, according to the type of the press.

For export, and also in the case of the finer kinds of peat
mull, the bales are, in addition, sewn up in jute.

Usually the bales are 100 to 125 cm. in length, 80 to 90 cm.
in width, and 55 to 65 cm. in height, or their cross-section may
be 70 to 75 cm. square, so that a bale contains 0-4 to 0-7 cb. m.
of press litter or peat mull and weighs from 125 to 130 kilos. The
manufacture of standard bales, each 0-5 cb. m. in size, has been
attempted with a view to simplifying the trade. The standard
bales, on the average, ought to weigh 125 kilos.

According to the amount of pressing, the quality and the
dryness of the peat worked, the weight of a cubic metre of pressed
peat litter varies between 200 and 250 kilos, and that of a cubic
metre of pressed peat mull between 250 and 300 kilos ; there is
a similar variation in the weight of the individual bales even from
one and the same factory.

Good pressing and cheap but firm packing cannot be neglected
if the peat litter is to be turned out as a marketable and

276

THE WINNING OF PEAT

transportable article. Well-dried peat litter is more difficult to
compress than somewhat moist litter, and, moreover, if the
compression is less than 1 : 2 the bales do not hold together
sufficiently well. Moisture, however, diminishes the practical

Fig. 114. — A hand-worked peat litter baler.

value of the peat litter. If the peat is well pressed by means of
steam presses it is possible to put a full load (10.000 kilos) of it
on a railway double wagon.

Fig. 114 shows a vertical press for hand working, Fig. 115
one for steam, Fig. 116 another with its driving gearing, and

Fig. 115. — A steam-driven peat litter baler (angle-lever press).

Fig. 117 a horizontal peat litter press. The output of^the latter
is, other conditions being the same, somewhat greater than that
of a vertical press. According as the trade requires that the
litter be supplied in bales of a definite volume or bales of a definite

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL

277

weight, the loose material to be pressed is filled into the press-box
by hand or by machines (elevators, transporting belts, conveyers,
spiral screws) until the amount in the press-box has a definite
volume or a definite weight The box is then closed by a lid D
and the peat is strongly compressed by a piston worked by

Fig. 116. — A steam-driven peat litter baler showing the driving gear.

a latch-lever, chain-lever, or angle-lever K, Hv H2 (Fig. 115)
or by a screw-spindle (Fig. 117).

Recently ratch and pinion presses have been much used instead
of angle-lever or spindle presses, on account of the smaller space
they require and the greater ease with which they can be installed.
The consumption of power is somewhat greater in their case than

Fig. 117. — A steam-driven horizontal peat litter baler (spindle press).

in that of the angle-lever presses, but the output is also greater.
It is still an open question which kind is to be preferred.

Presses such as these are constructed by the Limeburg
Iron Works ; A. Heinen, of Varel ; A. Beeck, of Oldenburg ;
R. Dolberg and Co., of Hamburg and Rostock, and others.

278

THE WINNING OF PEAT

A continuously acting press by J. A. Gustavsson, of Altomte,
is working successfully for the Swedish Brown Peat Litter
Company at Skyttorp.1

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A lever press worked by hand with a daily output of about
80 bales (100 x 60 x 70 cm.) costs 600M. to 700M. ; a similar one

1 Described in the Oesterr. Zeitschrift fur Moorkultur und Torfverw.,
1910, p. 44.

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL 279

for steam power with an output of 10 to 15 bales per hour costs
1,200M. to 1,500M., and its driving winch 600M. to 800M.

When there are two presses in a factory, it is best to instal only
one winch to drive the two. The piston of one press can be made
to move downwards while that of the other is going upwards.
A saving in cost, time, and wages will thus be effected. It is said
that in this way 50 to 60 bales can be made per hour.

Ratch and pinion presses with an output per hour of 20 to 25
bales (from 100 x 65 x 70 to 122 x 60 x 80 cm.) cost 3,500M. to
3,800M., and require a 2 to 4 h.p. engine.

Fig. 118 shows a peat litter factory as planned by the machine
manufacturer A. Heinen, of Varel. The litter peat, brought from
the clamps in cars running over a track, is emptied into the
willow R, from which the finely torn peat is carried by the
elevator or conveyer Z to the upper story of the factory, and there
fed into the hopper T. In the latter there is an adjustable
flap-valve k, by means of which the torn material can be fed,
according as the main product is to be peat litter or peat mull,
either into the sieve 5 for peat litter and peat mull residue or
into the mull mill M for peat mull exclusively. If the main product
is to be peat litter, the press P± can be reversed, and it also can
then be utilized for peat litter.

A. Beeck now constructs his peat litter factories so that the
willow is on one side of the vertical conveyer or elevator and the
mull mill on the other. Litter and mull are then brought up to
the sieves by the elevator. The litter is next led directly to the
presses, and the mull either collects on the upper floor or passes to
the press. The sieve residues from the mull mill pass directly to
the peat litter baler.

In some peat litter factories attempts have been made to
convey, elevate, feed and sift the torn peat, especially when peat
mull is the main product, by means of compressed air instead of
by machines and sieves, and, for hygeinic reasons, to combine
the plant with a dust-removing installation. What the advantage
of this is time will show.1

The installation costs of a peat litter factory may be assumed
at:—

for 1, 2, 3, 4 presses.

35,000-40,000, 65,000-75,000, 95,000-110,000 110.000-120.000M.

They vary with local conditions and with the foundation walls,
drying trestles, drying sheds, storing sheds, field railways, &c,
required. From one-third to half of these sums are to be
provided as working capital.

1 Such installations have been set up, e.g., not only by the Griendtsveen
Company at Rotterdam, but also at the experimental station of the Edward
Dyckerhoff Poggenmoor Utilization Co., Ltd., near Neustadt. The latter
plant was destroyed by the burning of the factory in 1911, and has not
been reinstalled in the present very large factory, which has an output of
600,000 kilos of peat per day, and is equipped with all the most recent
appliances. For the description of this factory, see Illustr. Landw. Ztg.,
1914, No. 79.

280 THE WINNING OF PEAT

Reliable average figures for the cost of production cannot
be given, owing to the great differences in the rates of wages, in
the nature of the bog, in the outputs, in the number of possible
working days (200 to 300), in the drying procedure, &c. The net.
cost, including the necessary writing-off of buildings, machines
and implements, as well as the interest on the cost of plant and
the working capital, vary between 10M. and 15M. per metric
ton or 1M. to 2M. per 100 kilos. It may be assumed that in
successful peat litter factories the interest on the installation
and working capital does not in general exceed 10 per cent.

The cost of winning the air-dry peat sods is the most important
item in the total cost of manufacturing 100 kilos of finished peat
litter. The cost of cut peat in the clamps varies, according to
statements received, from 50 Pfg. to 90 Pfg. per 100 kilos.

In Hanover 1M. to 1 -5M. per 1,000 sods, 35 x 12 x 15 cm. each,
is paid for cutting the moss peat intended for peat litter, the sods
being placed in heaps of 10 sods each ; and in Oldenburg the rate
is 0-75M. to 1M. per 1,000, while drying and collecting into large
clamps cost a further sum of 0-50M. to 0-80M. In the air-dry
state, 1,000 of these sods weigh about. 300 kilos.

Transport to the factory, disintegrating, sifting and pressing
the peat are reckoned at approximately 0-20M. to 0-30M. per
bale or 100 kilos of transportable product. Packing is reckoned at
0-18M. to 0-22M. per 100 kilos.

At the end of 1914 the usual market price at the factorv was :
For good peat litter, 1 • 50M. to 2 • 20M., for good peat mull, 1 • 60M.
to 3-00M., per 100 kilos, the higher prices being paid for the less
dense material.1

In spite of the excellent qualities of moss peat as a litter and
of peat mull as a mixing powder for closets and cesspools, as
a preserving and packing material for fruit, as a complement for
molassine meal, as a heat insulator, &c, the amount of peat litter
and peat mull required per annum varies to an extraordinary
extent. Both the amount used and its market price are much
affected by variation in the output of straw from farms, by railway
and other transport costs, by the state of the weather during the
season in which the peat is dried, and by the yield from the bog
of cheap moss peat suitable for litter. In years in which straw is
abundant the demand for peat litter is considerably less than it
is in other years, when, however, fodder also is perhaps deficient.
Dry summers decrease the cost, and wet summers increase the
difficulty, of manufacturing it. All these circumstances, as well as
actual, or perhaps prospective, competition of neighbouring peat
litter factories, the peat of which may be better suited for litter
and, with the same cost of production and the same selling price,
may be a more valuable article for the buyers, must be carefully
considered when erecting new peat litter factories. Inattention to

1 In 1915-16, during the War, the price was 220M. for 10,000 kilos,
having a volume of at least 35 cb. m., with an extra 7-50M. per metric ton
for every cubic metre more than the thirty-five.

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL 281

any of the above points may entail the loss of the whole cost of
the installation.

Of the larger peat litter factories of Germany and Austria-
Hungary,1 the following may be mentioned : The North German
Peat Co., at Triangel, near Gifhorn (Arnold Rimpau, of Gifhorn) ;
the Brunswick Peat Litter Factory, formerly Ed. Meyer and Co.,
of Brunswick ; Edward Dyckerhoff Poggenmoor Peat Utilization,
Ltd., near Neustadt ; Peat Litter Co., formerly Fed. Wolff and
Co., of Bremen ; Meyer Bros, and Co., of Oldenburg ; Bielewo
Peat Litter Factory in the Kosten district ; the East Prussian Peat
Litter Factory at Heydekrug, in East Prussia ; the Budda and
Neuhof Peat Litter Factories in West Prussia ; the Westermoor
Peat Litter Factory, near Owschlag ; the Karolinenhorst Peat
Moss and Mull Factory, near Stargard, in Pomerania ; the factory
of the Royal Peat Department of Wiirtemberg at Schussenried ;
the Bavarian Peat Litter and Mull Factory at Haspelmoor ; the
Feilenburg Peat Co. ; the Peat Litter Co. at Himmelspforten ;
Neudorf-Plattendorf Peat Litter Factory ; the Peat Coke Co.,
Oldenburg ; Pfungried Peat Works ; the Saxon Peat Litter and
Mull Factory at Reitzenhain ; the Sebastiansberg Peat Co., Ltd.
(Erzgebirge) ; that of Prince Schwarzenberg's Mining Co. at
Schwarzbach, in Bohemia ; Ignaz Glaser's Peat Litter Factory
at Biirmoos, near Salzburg ; Prince Esterhazy's Peat Litter
Factory at Esterhaza ; the First Carinthian Peat Litter and
Mull Works at Buchscheiden, near Feldkirchen ; the Laibach
Peat Industry Co. at Laverca, near Laibach ; O. M. Roberts van
Son ; Schrems Peat Litter and Mull Wrorks at Schrems ; Peter
Wieser's Peat Litter Factory at Elzenbaum (Tyrol) ; Admont
Peat Industry ; Robert Weinlinger and Co. (Styria), amongst
others.

In other countries, especially in Holland (Helenaveen and
Hoopeveen), Sweden, and Norway, numerous large peat litter
factories have been erected in recent years. These have a
considerable export trade with countries poorer in peat, such
as France and England.

3. — Winning Peat Litter for Use by Farmers

For owners of bogs who are also farmers, it is not. so much
a matter of manufacturing peat litter in large quantities as of
making it in small quantities for use in their own farmyards, with
the aid of their farm hands and horses. In such cases, instead of
winning cut peat and employing peat mills or willows, the following
simplified process, which for evident reasons is not, however,
suitable for large scale operations, can be employed : —

1 See also Dr. Zailer : " Die staatliche Forderung der Torfstreuerzeugung
in den Osterr. Alpenlandern," Zeitschrift fur Moorkultur und Tcrfver-
wertung, 1910, p. 73, as well as his book, " Torfstreu und Torfstreuwerke,"
Hanover, 1915, p. 314-15, and Hans Schreiber in Mitteilungen, 1907, as
well as his account of Austria's peat litter factories, VII. Jahresbericht der
Moorkultur station in Sebastiansberg, 1905, Staab,

(2595) L"

282 THE WINNING OF PEAT

The upper layers of the bog, which has been sufficiently drained,
are ploughed fairly deeply at the beginning of winter. The
ploughed layer, which will have become frozen during the winter,
is harrowed as finely as possible in spring, and broken up by
frequent light harrowing in dry weather. When the upper layer is
sufficiently dry it is collected into banks or ramparts with the aid
of shovels, striking or scraping boards. The cleared areas (strips)
lying between the peat ramparts are again torn up by means of
a harrow, and the litter peat, loosened and dried after repeated
harrowing, is heaped on the ramparts already formed. According
to the amount required, this process is repeated, and in good
weather the peat litter which is sufficiently dry is collected into
more or less large covered sheds or clamps. In dry summers the
harrowing may indeed take place ten times, and the dry litter may
be heaped on the peat litter ramparts, which thus gradually and
continuously increase in height. Any pieces which are too coarse
can be separated by sifting and further disintegrated in a hand or
capstan peat mill, for which purpose the peat litter disintegrating
machine,1 which resembles the peat mills and which is described
in the section on the utilization of peat litter in Part II, can be
employed with advantage.

4. — Valuation of Peat Litter

Peat litter is — the amount of compression being constant — ■
all the better the lighter it is per unit of volume, e.g., 1 cb. m.,
or a bale of a definite size. The degree of compression is, however,
very hard to determine, and therefore in trade one is tempted to
compress into a bale of a given size only just as much substance
as is required for the coherence of the bale. On the other hand,
for the same absorptive power the litter contained in unit volume
is all the more valuable the greater its weight, but this weight
increases also with the percentage of water and ash, which sub-
stances decrease the value of the article. Hence it is obvious that
the determination of the quality of peat litter and its valuation
as a commercial article is not a simple one. According to what has
just been said, neither the total volume (the number and the size of
the bales), the total weight, nor the determination of the weight
of unit volume or its converse is alone sufficient for the valuation
of the litter.

When dealing with peat litter deliveries, we should always
examine : —

(1) The external appearance of the litter.

(2) The weight of the litter delivered and its volume.

(3) The percentage of moisture and ash in the litter.

(4) The absorptive power of the litter.

This examination can be carried out in a manner quite sufficient
for trade, and without troublesome or expensive chemical analyses,
as follows : —

1 Constructed by the Kyffhauser Machine Co., of Artern, in Saxony.

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL 283

In external appearance good peat litter should consist entirely
of loose, soft and elastic peat moss or peat grass fibres, as little
decomposed as possible, without hard, mouldy or solid lumps or
felted masses of much decomposed, humified peat, and should be
free from dust or earthy admixtures. In doubtful cases the
presence of these admixtures may be established by loosening and
shaking the felted fibres over a sheet of white paper, or, better
still, by placing the loosened sample in a glass vessel, pouring
on water, and well stirring the mixture. The dusty and earthy
admixtures fall to the bottom at once. Before the fibres become
saturated with water and sink to the bottom they can be removed
from the water, and the impurities left at the bottom can then
be easily examined.

The weight delivered can be determined by weighing in the
ordinary way. It ought to be noted, however, whether the weight
given in the invoice has been delivered without appreciable loss,
i.e., whether not too great a loss has occurred during transport
owing to insufficient compression or faulty packing of a material
the crumbling of which cannot be completely avoided. This loss
often amounts to 10 per cent, and more. The total value can
be obtained from the number of bales and the volume of each
bale.

The percentages of moisture and ash, as well as the absorptive
power, may be ascertained by taking specimens1 from the interior
of some of the bales (not from the exterior, as the external parts
may be much drier or wetter according to the state of the
weather) .

From each of these average samples 100 g. are weighed on
a delicate balance, and these are then dried in an oven, the tem-
perature of which should not exceed 100° C, for five to six hours
and again weighed. The decrease in weight of each sample in
grammes is the percentage of moisture in the peat litter. Thus, if
the weight were 70 g. the litter examined would contain 70 per
cent, of dry matter and 30 per cent, of moisture. If the percentage
of ash is also desired the 70 g. are ignited in a porcelain crucible
over a gas burner or spirit lamp and kept stirred by a glass rod
until all the combustible matter is burnt. The residue is then
cooled and weighed. The number of grammes thus obtained is the
percentage of ash in the sample analysed, and from this the
percentage of ash in the anhydrous substance can be easily
calculated. If the residual ash, for instance, weighed 4-2 g., the
percentage of ash in the peat litter analysed would be 4-2 per cent.

1 When sending average samples for examination these should be taken
from at least 10 per cent, of the bales, and if the number of these be less
than 100, from at least 15 per cent, of them. The samples should be taken
from every part (the edge as well as the centre of the bale) by means of
a special sampling auger. The specimens should be carefully mixed, and
an average sample of at least 400-500 g. taken from the mixture should
be sent for analysis in a perfectly dry and air-tight vessel. A peat auger,
suitable for taking samples, and recommended by Professor B. Tacke, is
made by Westphal, of 132, Johannistrasse, Bremen, and sold for 6M.

2S4 THE WINNING OF PEAT

of the weight as delivered, or since 100 g. of the weight as delivered

. 4-2 x 100
contain 70 g. of anhydrous matter, it is = 6 per cent.

of the anhydrous substance.

Another quantity of 100 g. from the same fresh sample is
placed in a glass vessel and covered with water with a view to
determining the absorptive power of the sample. After two to
three days the water is poured off, the specimen is drained on
a sieve, and again weighed. Its increase in weight in grammes
(e.g., an increase of 1,500 g.) is the absorptive power " per 100 "
the peat litter has in the state in which it was delivered and
examined. In the case mentioned this would be 1,500 per cent.1

Since, according to the first test, 70 g. of dry matter and 30 g.

of moisture were contained in 100 g. of the specimen, then 1,500

plus 30 equals 1,530 g. of total water correspond to every 70 g. of

1,530x100
anhydrous substance. The calculation gives, therefore, - — —

= 2,186 per cent, as the absorptive power of the anhydrous matter
of the peat litter or of the variety of raw peat employed for its
manufacture.

The former determination is important for the purchaser of
the peat litter in determining the practical value of the article
bought, and the latter for the bog-owner or the peat litter manu-
facturer when examining varieties of peat as to their fitness for
conversion into litter.

From this it follows that the most suitable basis for the peat
litter trade is "by weight." It will be well, however, to fix the
price for a maximum degree of moisture (e.g., 25 to 30 per cent.),
a maximum degree of ash (e.g., 5 per cent.), and a minimum degree
of absorptive power (e.g., 1,000 per cent.), and that for deliveries
deviating from these standards in a manner prejudicial to the
practical value of litter a corresponding diminution in the price
to be paid for the article delivered should be made. With the
ordinary good commercial article, moreover, 100 bales should
have a volume of 50 cb. m.2

Thus, for instance, the Agricultural Society of Westphalia

1 As a result of many comparative experiments with the various modes
of carrying out this determination, the following method (the so-called
Bremen method) has been adopted by the directors of the chief experimental
bog stations as the standard process (see Mitteilungen, 1909, p. 185) : —

The absorptive poivev of a specimen of peat litter is determined by
saturating a carefully selected average sample of 30 g. in weight, which should
not contain pieces of more than 2 cm. in diameter, with water at room tempera-
ture in a vacuum such as can be obtained with a good water pump, and without
the addition of ammonia. After standing for three days the specimen is
filtered in a cubical wire basket of 10 cm. side lined with filter paper until
drops cease falling from the wire basket, which is inclined at angle of 30° to
a corner. The results are to be calculated for 100 g. of the specimen in the
anhydrous state, and also for the degree of dryness in which the specimen ivas
received as well as for the air-dry condition with 30 per cent, of moisture.

2 For the valuation of peat litter, compare also Mitteilungen, 1905,
pp. 221 and 227, and 1909, pp. 177-188.

WINNING OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL 285

and Lippe has decreed in its regulations relating to dealings with
peat litter factories that : " The delivering factory guarantees
that the peat litter sold does not contain more than 25 per cent,
of water and 2 per cent, of ash, and therefore contains at least
73 per cent, of vegetable dry matter. If the samples (taken and
examined in a manner prescribed) contain higher percentages,
the buyer is justified in deducting for every increase in 1 per cent,
of water or ash one-thirtieth of the contract price as compensation
therefor."

According to the decision arrived at by the representatives of
the Experimental Bog Stations on February 18th, 1914, first grade
commercial peat litter should not contain more than 35 per cent,
of moisture, and, similarly, the percentage of moisture in second
grade peat litter should not exceed 40. The percentage of moisture
and the absorptive power are determined throughout the German
Empire and Austria by the process of the Bremen Experimental
Bog Station as modified by Tacke and Minssen.1

Good peat litter containing 30 per cent, of moisture can absorb
at least eleven times, and other kinds at least six times, its own
weight of water in each case. Good peat mull should, in addition
to possessing these qualities, contain no pieces with diameters
greater than 3 to 5 cm.

The determination of the absorptive power for every delivery
of peat litter can be omitted only when the average absorptive
power of the peat litter from a given bog or a given factory has
been established in the case of samples to which no objection can
be raised, and when this absorptive power is always maintained
to a satisfactory extent. Even in this case an occasional check
is desirable.2

To avoid the disadvantages and difficulties connected with sale
by weight, due to variations in the degree of dryness which are
often considerable, the Peat Litter Combine, E. V., Berlin, which
was formed in 1915, during the War, and to which all the peat
litter factories of Germany belong, has recently proposed that
the sale and the delivery of the article should be "by volume,"
i.e., according to the number of bales pressed to a fixed volume
(standard bales). While maintaining the degree of dryness which
is in all cases necessary for the good quality of the article, the

1 Mitteihmgen, 1909, p. 177, and 1913, p. 131.

2 It has been assumed that an absorptive power, in so far as it exceeds
1,200 per cent., cannot be fully utilized in a stable ; peat litter, however,
with an absorptive power materially under 1,000 per cent, is still, as we have
already mentioned, quite capable of being used ; it is simply a matter of its
price as against the market price, the practical value and the available
supply of other litters. In the air-dry state these litters have the following
absorptive powers :—

Straw . . 200-350 per cent. Saw-dust . . 360-500 per cent.

Heather . . 190-230 „ Wood cotton 133-333

Bracken . . 200-250
Compare the statements in Part II, under the " Utilization of Peat
Litter, &c." The absorptive powers for ammonia and the percentages of
nitrogen of these litters are also less than those even of the most kinds of
grass peat.

286 THE WINNING OF PEAT

uniformity of the quantity of useful matter delivered in a number
of standard bales is to be attained and guaranteed by a degree
of compression (ratio of the volume of the pressed bale to the
volume of the press-box) or degree of condensation (hitherto
generally one-third to one-fourth) which is to be maintained by
every factory.

Section VII

PATENTS1 RELATLNG TO THE WINNING

OF PEAT2

Extracts from the German Letters Patent

(The numbers of the patents given are the same as those of
the various Letters Patent)

The activity of the inventor has been fairly pronounced in
the realm of peat, and patents have been granted for a number of
discoveries. It would take us too far and it would not be of
sufficient interest to the general reader of this book to describe
individually and to discuss technically or commercially all these
proposals, most of which have, indeed, remained as mere proposals.

In so far as one or other of these proposals has actually been
adopted in the peat industry, has been experimented with on
a large scale, no matter whether with or without success, and has
seriously interested any circles, particulars of the contrivances
relating to it have been considered in the foregoing sections of
this book.

So far as regards the others it must be left to the individual to
form an opinion as to their possibilities from the following extracts
from the Letters Patent relating to the treatment of peat, and for
any given case to acquaint himself more fully with it from the
Letters Patent itself (each of these can be had for 1M. from the
Imperial Patent Office in Berlin). From the following particulars
he will generally be in a position to form his owq opinion as to the
objects, aims and practical values of the various proposals and as
to the commercial success to be expected from them while taking
into account the nature of peat and the statements made in the
preceding sections.

1 Only German patents are here considered, as experience shows that
patents for all important discoveries are applied for first in Germany even
by foreigners. With regard to the time during which the protection given
by a patent lasts the following may be noted : —

A German patent lasts fifteen years from the date of notification, unless
it expires during that interval from non-payment of the fees, or from
renunciation by the holder, or has been nullified in the Courts, or has been
withdrawn. Supplementary patents expire with the chief patent.

Anyone may consult without charge the official Patent Roll, which gives
information with regard to the patents, as well as the Letters Patent at the
Imperial Patent Office in Berlin. The Letters Patent are also placed for
consultation, free of charge, with Corporations, Societies, &c, in many
cities of Germany. The places where they are thus on view are notified
publicly from time to time, and may be ascertained by inquiry at any
Chamber of Commerce and any Chamber of Industry.

2 Compare the corresponding section at the end of Part II on
"The Utilization of Peat."

288 THE WINNING OF PEAT

1. — Dehydration of Peat by means of Machines

P. 15172, February 9th, 1881, R. Fdsche, Halle on the Saale :-
Dehydration of cut peat by addition of ashes or slack, chaff,
disintegrated straw or heather, saw-dust, wood charcoal, coke
from coal, brown coal or peat, and

P. 17098, July 30th, 1881, the same /—Warming of this mixture by
compressing with the object of more completely dehydrating
the peat.

P 59640, March 17th, 1891, Gerard, Paris :— The peat, after
conversion into a uniform pulp, is to be passed slowly and in
a thin layer between wire gauze surfaces, first through drop-
ping or suction contrivances, then with its sides covered with
surfaces of felt or similar body through roller presses, and
finally through a drying chamber in which it is partially
coked. After this the peat removed from the wire gauze
surfaces is mixed in a kneading machine with liquid cements
with the object of converting it into a mass which can be
" formed."

P. 83025, February 27th, 1895, Nottbeck, Lielax :— A dehydrating
roller in which the material to be dried is passed into the press
rollers by means of a feeding cylinder which is hollow and
pierced with holes, like a sieve.

P. 88948, April 14th, 1896, Schonemann and Co., Schoningen : —
For the preliminary drying of peat it is to be made into a pulp
of mud with the addition of water, pumped into filter presses,
and there exposed to the action of compressed air.

P. 89591, January 29th, 1896, Kerinnes, Jorksdorf :— The peat,
which has already been passed through a peat machine, is to
be partially dehydrated by rollers, with filter frames on their
sides, and afterwards kneaded and formed once more by
a peat machine.

P. 90663, July 17th, 1896, Stauber, Berlin :— The transport car for
the cut raw peat is to be furnished with sides which are pierced
with holes and movable on hinges, and the hook to which the
transporting power (machines, animals) is attached is, in order
that the peat may be pressed during the journey, so placed
that the applied power moves the walls of the box-car
towards one another.

P. 91810, August 2nd, 1896, Fiber, Landsberg-on -Lech :•— Peat
dehydrating machine, with a press drum divided into cells by
slides with the object of making it more easily emptied.

P. 97526, March 6th, 1897, Max Schoning, Berlin :— The piston
head of a dehydrating press, which works in a vessel pierced
with holes, is to be provided underneath with hot chambers
heated electrically.

P. 101408, June 16th, 1897, Count Schwerin, Wildenhoff, and
Kerinnes, Jorksdorf : — Flexible traverses are to be fixed both
transversely and longitudinally on the upper filter cloth of
a dehydrating press. These are to prevent the peat from
damming in front of the rollers, and similar flexible supports

PATENTS KELATING TO THE WINNING OF PEAT 289

(rubber tubes and the like) are to effect the condensation at
the sides in the longitudinal direction of the filter cloth.

P. 109482, May 19th, 1899, Dusseldorf Iron Co.:— With the object
of automatically adjusting the press plates for the thickness
of the press cakes the plates, between which the cakes, enclosed
in bags or cloths, fall automatically, are to be connected by-
ropes or the like with supports capable of an up-and-down
movement. As the press piston moves forward these supports
are lowered to such an extent that the press plates can move
forward without hindrance during the time of application of
the pressure, but during the backward motion of the piston
the supports are raised so far that the press plates swing free
and automatically adjust, themselves to the distance apart
required for the introduction of new press cakes.

P. 117651, May 9th, 1899, Bockfisch, Teterow :— The raw peat is
to be led on an endless filter belt between two rollers placed
over one another and is to undergo a preliminary compression
in a tapering space between a feeding base and the upper
roller, and is then to be pressed by the stretched filter belt
against the hollow walls of the rollers, which are bounded
on the sides by flanges so that the substance cannot escape
there.

P. 132017, July 21st, 1900, The Whittington Peat-Coal Syndi-
cate, Ltd., London : — Peat is to be dehydrated by addition
to it of quicklime, sugar, nitre, and soot.

P. 133375, March 27th, 1901, Estlander, Jokkis and Humppila
(Finland) : — A press with rotating discs, in which two smooth
press rings obliquely inclined to one another form with two
fixed circular walls a gradually contracting press chamber.

P. 143404, January 8th, 1901, Krupp, of Hanover, and Heine, of
Imbs (Norway) : — Non-disintegrated peat is to be separated
from the peat pulp by means of a cylindrical sieve (like that of
a paper machine) and then led to a heated drum in which it
is dried.

P. 148387, June 24th, 1902, Hendnnen, Moscow :— Dehydration
of peat by means of compressed air, a piston pierced with
holes like a sieve being kept pressed in a vessel, against the
peat according as the dehydration proceeds, by means of
compressed air with the object of preventing the formation
of cavities in the material pressed.

P. 153965, March 5th, 1903, Ruparti and Schloemann, Dussel-
dorf : — A dehydrating press with endless press cloths and
special enclosing pieces, fixed on the sides of the piston head
or the press plate, and with flexible guides above as well as
below, in which the filter cloths move.

P. 160938, July 2nd, 1903, Dyeworks, formerly Meister Lucius
and Briining, Hochst-on-Main : — Dehydration of peat by
means of presses after salts, such as sodium chloride, sodium
or ferrous sulphate and the like, or acids (sulphuric, hydro-
chloric, &c), have been added to the disintegrated peat.

P. 161676, September 27th, 1902, Ekenberg, Stockholm :— Wet

'290 THE WINNING OF PEAT

peat is to be made easily dehydrated, for the manufacture of
press peat, by heating it in closed vessels to 150° C. or over.

P. 166150, September 5th, 1903, supplementary to P. 148387,
Hendunen, Moscow : — The pistons, pierced with holes like
sieves, except at their ends, are made so that the compressed
air can be introduced into them directly and the expressed
water led away from the press cylinder, and also so that they
can serve as lids or bottoms for the latter.

P. 166721, May 7th, 1904, the same .-—Bodies pierced with holes
for placing in piston presses with double-walled cross-pieces,
also pierced with holes, for dividing the press cake into
separate portions.

P. 169117, December 21st, 1902, Ekenberg, Stockholm :— The wet
peat, kept in motion and continuously mixed in tubes open at
both ends, is to be kept enclosed in compressed layers whereby
with the use of a narrow and long tube a sufficient resistance
is attained to prevent the scattering about of the peat.

P. 172102, June 26th, 1903, supplementary to P. 169117, the
same : — The tubes are heated so strongly that the mass moved
forward in them carbonizes, the moist mass being introduced
into and kept in the tubes under so high a pressure that
neither gases nor vapours can escape.

P. 179045, March 26th, 1905, Hemmerling, Dresden :— Peat
dehydrating press, in which the charge is divided by hollow
partitions so that the water can be led away. The hollow
spaces and the tubes connecting them with the press space are
arranged so that air, but not the liquid pressed out, can escape
from the hollow spaces and at the same time the expressed
liquid is prevented by the air pressure from carrying minute
particles of the pressed material away with it.

P. 217118, April 30th, 1907, Alexanderson, Stockholm :— Dehy-
dration of raw peat after freezing and thawing by pressing
out the water.

P. 234424, December 8th, 1908, Peat Coal Investment Co., Ltd.,
London : — Peat dehydrating press with a press box formed of
thin pieces and in which a screw shaft is adjustable longitu-
dinally so as to adapt the amount which is plugged in the press
box in front of the screw, and to which increased pressure is
due, to the more solid or looser consistency of the material to
be pressed.

P. 250367, November 3rd, 1910, Franke, jun., London : — Peat
dehydrating press with press cones which are pierced with
holes and are also provided with teeth to tear up the material.

P. 257558, September 28th, 1910, Abresch, Neustadt-on-Haardt :-
Dehydration of raw peat with addition of bone-dry press
peat.

P. 258331, July 17th, 1910, Brune and Horst, Neustadt-on-
Haardt : — Dehydration of raw peat by mixing it with coke and
wet pressing in such a way that the coke after the pressing of
the material is separated and employed again for addition to
more peat.

PATENTS RELATING TO THE WINNING OF PEAT 291

P. 258604, May 30th, 1911, Abresch, Neustadt-on-Haardt :— Press-
belt rollers in which the boxes for the materials to be pressed,
and which are attached to endless belts, have walls pierced
with holes and lying free on all sides.

P. 260316, August 14th, 1910, Franke, jun., London :— Dehy-
drating presses with impermeable false bottoms which consist
of combustible materials (wood, paste-board, and the like)
and which remain in the material when pressed.

P. 263722, April 7th, 1912, Philip Roth, Berlin :— Peat dehydra-
tion with discontinuous compression and formation of vacuum
in such a way that the degree of compression and the degree
to which the air is pumped out or that of each working
operation return automatically to zero during the breaks in
the process.

P. 264002, February 26th, 1911, Wet Carbonizing, Ltd., London :—
The so-called wet carbonization of peat by Ekenberg's process
is to be carried out in such a way that only a short portion of
the tube is to be heated to 180° C.

P. 267687, September 28th, 1910, Abresch, Neustadt-on-Haardt :—
Press-belt rollers, in which rigid side-walls and cross-walls
on the press-belts, pierced with holes from the mouth onwards,
form moulding boxes (closed on all sides) for the pressed
material, the side and cross-walls overlapping one another.

P. 267865, March 19th, 1912, Franke, London :— A spiral spring-
brush addition for fitting piston in dehydrating presses.

P. 268374, April 7th, 1912, Zahlmann, Berlin-Lichterfelde :—
Dehydrating press with a base which rests on the piston.
It is connected with a supporting pole and can be moved
independently of the piston.

P. 268720, November 29th, 1911, Wet Carbonizing, Ltd., London :
— Dehydration of wet carbonized peat for direct use in a gas
producer in such a way that the wet carbonized peat, without
heating and without any addition of other material, is first
pressed in a filter press until the cake formed contains about
70 per cent, of water, and the pressed material is then exposed
to a continuous pressure in order to bring its percentage of
water under 50.

P. 269333, November 29th, 1911, the same :— To prevent the
formation of residues in, and to remove them from, dehy-
drating vessels a vigorous motion of the mass in the vessel is
to be produced, suddenly and for a short time, by mechanical
means, and afterwards again adjusted.

P. 270484, January 6th, 1912, W otters, Weitmar, in Westphalia :—
Preliminary preparation of peat for mechanical dehydration
by heating and pressing, whereby steam, hot gases, &c, are
so led in one direction through rooms through which peat is
led in the opposite direction that after introduction of the
peat they decrease in pressure and temperature.

P. 271076, March 15th, 1912, supplementary to P. 250367,
Franke, jun., London : — In the peat-dehydrating press,
according to P. 250367, in addition to the conical insets, there

292 THE WINNING OF PEAT

are other surfaces which come in contact with the material
to be pressed, and which are also provided with teeth, or the
like, for tearing up the material.

P. 273138, August 14th, 1912, Franke, pin., London :— Peat
dehydrating press in the oppositely moving surfaces of which
press cones are fixed which have their apices turned towards
one another, and which work between one another. They are
also provided with filtering surfaces for the removal of the
expressed water.

P. 275386, November 10th, 1912, the same /—Dehydration of peat
with the aid of other bodies which are added to it, whereby
the added bodies are saturated with solid or liquid organic
substances in order to prevent their absorbing liquid.

P. 275887, September 1st, 1912, Hirsch, Berlin :— Dehydrating
press with conical openings from the interior to the exterior
for the expressed water, in which the walls containing the
openings consist of several superposed, thin metallic plates,
in which holes, progressively increasing in size, are bored.

P. 276763, February 26th, 1913, Sckulp Peat Works, Ltd., Schiilp,.
near Nortorf (Holstein) : — A brush conveyer belt for peat
dehydration contrivances made from coconut fibre.

P. 279996, October 27th, 1912, Lambrecht, Berlin :— A centrifuge
for dehydrating peat, consisting of two permeable cylinders
which are fitted with striking pistons, lie inside one another
and can be rotated in opposite directions.

P. 282781, December 12th, 1913, Jabs, Zurich :— A roller press in
which scrapers strike the peat from each roller so near the
pressing zone that the water driven out into the mantle of
the rollers cannot be again absorbed by the peat.

P. 283823, June 18th, 1914, Meyer, Dortmund :— Dehydration of
peat by letting the peat which is contained in baskets, slit or
pierced with holes on all sides and tapering at the base, fall
from a considerable height. The water given up when the
concussion occurs is let flow away, and the removal of the dry
material, as well as the bringing of new baskets to the points
of falling, are effected with the aid of a horse-capstan.

P. 287470, January 3rd, 1914, Wet Press Co., Ltd., Wiesbaden :—
Dehydration of raw peat by the aid of bodies which are added
to it for the purpose. The peat is cut into powder, without
grinding its fine fibres, and, without affecting its pulverulent
nature, it is loosely incorporated with the added body,,
forming a powdery mixture, which retains this condition up
to the pressing, which is effected by making the particles
move towards one another as rectilinearlv as possible.

P. 288521, December 13th, 1913, Dr. Charles Heine, Dabendorf
(Teltow) and Julias Rndeloff, Berlin : — Contrivance for
dehydrating raw peat in which the material to be pressed,
embedded between two transporting surfaces, is brought by
means of these to presses in which the pressure on the material
increases in steps, the pressure being released at intervals, the
transport of the material to be pressed to the various presses.

PATENTS RELATING TO THE WINNING OF PEAT 293

which again set free the body after pressing it, taking place
in steps, and the pressing of the material occurring every time
the motion of the conveying surfaces stops.

2. — Electrical Dehydration of Peat

P. 124509, April 4th, 1900, Count Schwerin, Windenhoff :— The
raw peat which is to be dehydrated is to be brought in the
form of mud or pulp in direct contact with the two electrodes.

P. 124510, April 4th, 1900, the same : — The material which is to
be pressed is to be moved by means of a spiral between two
cylindrical electrodes fitted into one another, and of which at
least the negative one is permeable for liquids.

P, 128085, April 4th, 1900, the same :— Use of a box similar to
that generally employed for moulding peat, the bottom of
which is connected with the negative pole of a source of
electrical current and is at the same time permeable for
liquids, while connexion with the positive pole is made bv
means of plates or boxes lying on the mass to be dehvdrated.

P. 131932, September 26th, 1901, the same : — In carrying out the
above process with boxes for holding peat, which are open
at the top and provided with permeable bottoms serving as
negative electrodes, positive electrodes, formed of a cell
structure containing a number of peat boxes with their
bottoms placed over one another, lying like plates above the
negative electrodes, are to be arranged in such a manner that
they can be raised or lowered simultaneously, and, when
lowered, each plate is always in contact with the peat as the
latter contracts.

P. 150069, November 25th, 1902, Byeworks, formerly Meister
Lucius and Bruning, Hochst-on-Main : — Alkaline substances
or salts are to be added to the peat to be treated according to
P. 124509. The action of these during the electrolysis at the
negative pole is the same as that of added alkali.

P. 154114, October 10th, 1902, Moller and Pfeifer, Berlin:—
A number of dehydrating cells, which are arranged over one
another in the form of a prism so that the total weight of the
cells at an electrode compresses the material enclosed between
the electrodes, are connected with a switch under the cells, by
means of which the whole prism of cells can be lowered by the
height of a single cell so that the cells can be exchanged
without stopping the dehydration.

P. 155453, November 26th, 1902, Byeworks, formerly Meister
Lucius and Bruning, Hochst-on-Main : — Dehydration of peat
by simultaneous employment of electrical osmosis and inter-
mittent pressure.

P. 163549, July 5th, 1904, the same : — The material between the
electrodes, together with the two electrodes, or at least one of
these, has a uniform, or discontinuous, forward motion during
which fresh material is continually added to the electrodes at
one side and the dehydrated material removed at the other.

294 THE WINNING OF PEAT

P. 166742, October 20th, 1904, the same /—The material to be
dehydrated is led uniformly, or discontirmously, by means of
endless belts of non-conducting, permeable material, between
the electrodes, while the latter are kept stationary or are
alternately brought nearer to and removed farther from the
conveyer belt.

P. 173630, June 24th, 1902, Schwarzer, Diamant, Adler, and
Kittler, Memel :■ — Continuous dehydration of peat while the
latter is kept in good motion, wherein, during the passage of
the electrical current and the formation of a vacuum, hot air
is led through the peat from the positive pole.

P. 179985, December 10th, 1903, supplementary to P. 124509,
Dyeworks, formerly Meister Lucius and Bruning, Hochst-on-
Main : — In the case of the process described in P. 124509 heat
is to be added at the negative electrode.

P. 185189, October 1st, 1902, the same :— As in the case of the
process described in Patent 124509, the electrical current is
to act in the presence of heat, but, during the passage of
the current and the simultaneous formation of a vacuum, hot
air is to be led through the peat from the positive pole, and
also there is to be a stirrer which will serve to introduce hot
air and act as the positive electrode.

P. 207583, July 25th, 1905, Byron Bessey, London :— Prelimin-
arily dehydrated peat is treated with an alternating current
in such a manner that while strong heating of the mass is
avoided, the action occurs intermittently, the water set free
by the electrical current, being mechanically removed in the
intervals.

3. — Disintegration and Sifting of Peat

P. 1293, July 2nd, 1877, P. 4759, May 26th, 1878, Brosowsky,
Jasenitz : — Peat disintegrating machine, in which the knives
are curved and also to which water is added.

P. 80014, April 11th, 1894, Stauber, Berlin :— The peat, loosened
in the ordinary way by rollers, is to be freed from fibres
by sifting, the sieve being provided for this purpose with
a grate-like fibre-catcher.

P. 89810, June 17th, 1896, Stauber, Berlin :— The raw peat,
ground by rollers, is to be sifted more or less completely from
fibres, branches, stones, &c, by arranging an obliquely
inclined, flexibly suspended retarding plate over the exit of
the obliquely inclined shaking sieve, so that it retards the
substance shaken and at the same time makes the exit smaller.
The coarse, sifted material coming from the exit slit is, in so far
as the peat fibres are to be recovered, led to a rapidly rotating
brush, which throws the hard impurities, stones, roots, &c,
away from the end of the sieve, but retains the clinging fibres
on its bristles and brings them to a ridge-shaped scraper
meshing into the bristles, which lets them fall on a collecting
plate.

PATENTS RELATING TO THE WINNING OF PEAT 295

P. 106710, October 4th, 1898, Kerinnes, Jorksdorf :— The raw
peat is to be pressed by a piston through a cylinder furnished
with both rotating and stationary cutting arms. It can also
be driven through a ball mill before it leaves the cylinder.

P. 110746, February 3rd, 1899, Ball, London :— In a peat
disintegrating machine the peat is to be pressed by means
of curved rotating knives through metal plates, which are
pierced with holes and arranged in tiers over one another, and
it is at the same time to be cut or torn into small pieces by
the wedge-shaped and the sickle-shaped knives.

P. 129969, December 21st, 1900, Ludicke, Prostkergut :— Peat is
to be finely ground by an arrangement consisting of a fixed
grinding disc (pierced with holes) of a peat machine through
which the peat is pressed by the screw of the machine and a
grinding disc which is placed outside the cylinder and rotates
with the shaft of the latter. The peat pressed through the
fixed disc is disintegrated by means of the revolving disc.

P. 170980, June 15th, 1905, Dr. Frederick William Ferdinand
Schultz, Berlin : — An arrangement for the grinding of peat
from a preliminary disintegrating machine, the cylinder of
which ends in a tube of sufficient length to allow a grinding
roller of more or less small diameter to work (under pressure)
against the inner surface of the tube.

P. 171786, March 27th, 1903, the same : — The peat coming from
the preliminary disintegrating machine is pressed between the
horizontal grinding surfaces of grinding stones, one of which
forms a flange-like portion of the press cylinder.

P. 282912, October 24th, 1913, Verhoeven, Utrecht :— Teeth,
arranged spirally on the surface of a grinding drum, grind the
peat thoroughly to powder against the inner grinding surface
of a stationary sieve drum and press the powder out through
holes in the sieve drum.

4. — Peat Machines and their Components

P. 466, August 21st, 1877, Mecke and Sander, Ocholt :— Com-
bination of a dredger with a peat machine and conveyer, in
which the dredger is so suspended that it delivers the raw
peat directly to the mixing machine or distributor.

P. 1293, July 2nd, 1877, and 4759, May 26th, 1878, Brosowsky,
Jasenitz : — Peat disintegrating machine with cell drum,
slides, drum knives and flap-valve knives.

P. 3484, April 30th, 1878, Grotjahn, Berlin :— Peat machine
mouthpiece, with intermediate walls capable of being drawn
out of the mouthpiece.

P. 4640, September 3rd, 1878, Giffhorn, Brunswick, and Westerich,
Harberg : — Mouthpiece with intermediate walls, wedge-
shaped inside, rounded underneath, and capable of being
tilted outwards.

P. 7492, November 3rd, 1878, Schlickeysen, Berlin :— Machine for
digging, separating, lifting, working, forming, and spreading

296 THE WINNING OF PEAT

peat, consisting of two digging, mixing and forming machines
(see p. 130), provided with screw and spiral knives and
working in the same manner as steam ploughs.

P. 8873, August 21st, 1877, Mecke and Sander, Oldenburg:—
Peat-dredging and peat-mixing machine with distributor.

P. 9412, October 17th, 1879, Dolberg, Rostock :— Sod-cutter,
consisting of one or more circular knives arranged in front of
the mouthpiece of the peat machine.

P. 11232, April 11th, 1880, the same : — Sod divider, consisting
of intermediate walls arranged in pairs over one another in
the mouthpiece. The walls taper like wedges and do not
quite reach one another so that blocking is avoided.

P. 13057, November 3rd, 1878, Schlickeysen, Berlin : — Peat
digging and mixing machine similar to that under P. 7492.

P. 14645, February 13th, 1881, Mecke and Sander, Oldenburg : —
Floating peat machine, with dredgers suspended freely on
supports, for use in bogs which cannot be drained.

P. 16790, January 21st, 1881, Brosowsky, Jasenitz : — Peat-
digging machine with single or double intermediate gearing
according as necessary.

P. 19668, July 20th, 1881, the same : — Peat-digging machine
with double intermediate gearing and intermediate gearing
shafts lying beside one another horizontally, so that the
machine will have a convenient height.

P. 19670, March 14th, 1882, Steeneck, Gnarrenburg :— Sod-
cutting machine, with circular knives for cutting trodden or
dough peat.

P. 20921, April 23rd, 1882, Schultz Bros., Minister in West-
phalia : — Peat sod willow for manufacture of peat litter.
The knives on the drum move in the opposite direction to the
peat sods which are pushed towards them in a channel.

P. 36195, December 18th, 1885, Muller, Demmin : — Arrangement
for driving peat -digging machines.

P. 39509, November 25th, 1886, the same /—Alteration in the
driving arrangement.

P. 43106, August 21st, 1887, Dolberg, Rostock :— Improvements
in peat-digging machines.

P. 58030, December 6th, 1890, Hansen, Jasenitz : — Peat-digging
machine with a digger which falls automatically and is lifted
in the return stroke.

P. 61816, August 30th, 1891, Vollhering and Bernhardt, Lubeck : —
Dredger with a dredging ladder formed in three parts, which
are connected together by hinges.

P. 62424, October 19th, 1890, Challeton, Montauger :— Flap-
valves on peat diggers which fall into place horizontally,
when the digger is being hauled up, so that falling out of the
cut peat prism is thereby prevented.

P. 63737, September 17th, 1890, Brosowsky, Stettin :— Peat-
digging machine with chain driving.

P. 74031, July 19th, 1893, Durr, Pfungenried :— Distributor for
peat machines, consisting of two tubular cups placed opposite

PATENTS RELATING TO THE WINNING OF PEAT 297

one another on an axle and into which the peat pulp, corning
from the peat machine, runs so that after filling the cup
which at the moment happens to be on top, the pulp becomes
scattered on the drying ground as the cup tilts, the other
cup turning upwards at the same time to receive its charge
in turn.

P. 79798, April 17th, 1894, Strenge, Elisabethfehn :— A peat-
digging and forming machine in which an endless chain is
supported on a frame, which can be adjusted both vertically
and horizontally. The cutting knives and the elevating
buckets are arranged alternately on the chain. The frame
supports an horizontal and also an inclined transport channel.

P. 89591, January 29th, 1896, Kerinnes, Jorksdorf, East Prussia : —
Manufacture of machine peat in such a manner that the
peat which has been worked in the machine is partially
dehydrated by means of rollers with filter frames at their sides,
and is then worked once more in, and formed by, the peat
machine.

P. 93186, July 31st, 1896, Dolberg, Rostock :— A peat-digging
machine with automatic releasing and steering of the digging
mechanism.

P. 98270, December 21st, 1897, Karnot, Riga :— A peat-winning
machine, including a cylinder which can be moved sideways,
upwards, and downwards, and a cutting and mixing
contrivance consisting of a cone with cutting knives.

P. 104745, February 16th, 1898, Kerinnes, Jorksdorf :— A peat
machine in which the peat is dehydrated under continuous
pressure, then mixed, again dehydrated and kneaded, and
finally pressed through sod-forming pieces as a continuous
band of peat.

P. 104746, July 3rd, 1898, Bartsch and Nitschke, Jasenitz:—
A peat-cutting machine with a double transport track in
which the track of the car which takes away the peat is beside
the track for the cutter and between the latter and the
working platform.

P. 106020, April 16th, 1899, Logatni and Galecki, Warsaw:—
While digging peat a pit is made in the bog with the aid
of a movable weir, and the peat, cut by the vertical slane
method, is mixed in the pit.

P. 108631, February 15th, 1898, Kerinnes, Tilsit :— A peat-work-
ing machine in which spiral blades, capable of being rotated,
pierced with holes and with their ends formed into rubbers
or scrapers, are fixed in the tubes intended for the dehydration
of the peat, the object of these blades being to keep the
filter walls clean and to push the peat, which has been already
dehydrated, towards the centres of the tubes.

P. 110602, October 5th, 1899, Brosowsky, Jasenitz :— A peat-
digging machine in which the knife-box guide, reaching almost
to the bottom of the bog, can be adjusted for depth. At its
upper and lower ends it is furnished with rollers round which
the driving chain runs.

(2595) x

298 THE WINNING OF PEAT

P. 114033, August 4th, 1899, Dolberg, Rostock :— A peat band
cutter in which a click, set in action by the peat bands or the
sod boards, sets free the knife shaft, the rotation of which
is controlled by a friction clutch, when a cut is to take place.

P. 120840, January 29th, 1899, Brosowsky, Jasenitz in Pomera-
nia : — A contrivance for cutting and removing peat cubes
from the peat prism consisting of a knife moving to and fro,
which in its return through the peat cube, resting on it,
pushes the previously cut peat cubes still farther on the
transport cars.

P. 128532, October 25th, 1900, Galecki, Warsaw :— A box-shaped
peat cutter in the interior of which contrivances are arranged
by means of which the cut peat contained in the box is mixed.

P. 129040, March 15th, 1901, Strenge, Elisabethfehn :— A peat-
cutting machine in which two or more circular knives,
attached to a frame and at the same time acting as wheels for
the frame, are so arranged that every two knives, separated
from one another by the width of the peat band to be cut, are
placed behind one another and therefore are not on the same
axle. The axles are driven from a motor (a power machine)
fixed on the frame.

P. 134745, October 19th, 1901, Galecki, Warsaw :— A transport-
able peat machine in which a base supported on a transport-
able frame and capable of revolution round a vertical axis,
carries several mixing cylinders which are arranged round its
circumference, and which are fed in turn from a filling
contrivance during the revolution of the base. The movable
bottoms of the cylinders open and close automatically as they
pass a notch in the supporting frame.

P. 138027, February 8th, 1902, Brosowsky, Jasenitz :— A bearing
frame for peat-digging machines, made in the form of an
obtuse- angled triangle, so that the machine may stand more
securely.

P. 140122, August 5th, 1900, Bade, Bremen :— A dough peat
divider in which an adjustable shaft, carrying several circular
knives, runs parallel to the dividing roller. In the forward
motion of the contrivance its knives are made to rotate
rapidly by means of a chain so that the layer of peat to be
operated upon, which was divided by the knives of the roller,
is cut through by the rotating circular knives.
P. 140726, July 13th, 1901, the same :— The above cutting
contrivance is modified so that straight-cutting knives can be
driven downwards into the peat in rapid succession by means
of a crank-shaft or the like, and the lance-shaped cutting
knives can receive an up-and-down motion in an oblique
direction in reference to the surface of the peat, so that the
peat may be more easily and more certainly cut, and damming
in front of the knives may be prevented.
P. 149571, March 29th, 1909, Hansen, Herning (Denmark) :—
A peat machine with an endless sod-spreading belt, which
passes over a supporting frame. The frame can be rotated

PATENTS RELATING TO THE WINNING OF PEAT 299

round the horizontal axis and can be set in motion by a shaft
which rotates the frame as soon as the end of the peat band
strikes against a plate placed over the belt, the peat being
then tipped on the drying ground.

P. 153147, December 16th, 1900, Krupp, Hanover, and Heine,
Jmbs (Norway) : — A centrifugal pump dredger, the peat
being separated under water by the knives of the dredger,
and then raised in a continuous stream by the pump.

P. 154577, September 29th, 1901, Schlickeysen, Neukolln :—
A contrivance for digging and removing peat (see Fig 52).

P. 156953, July 31st, 1903, Dreyer, Ostersode, near Gnarren-
burg : — A transportable machine for dividing the upper
layers of peat bogs into sods by means of cutting knives
with an up-and-down motion. It is provided with a starting
lever for the knives and rollers.

P. 157121, November 8th, 1902, Schlickeysen, Neukolln : — Side
and bottom knives for the peat-digging machine of
P. 154577.

P. 161169, July 26th, 1904, Heyman and Poppe, Bremen:—
A floating peat-digging machine in which the cutters empty
the peat through a side opening into the trough of an elevator.
It is provided with an adjustable wall for shutting out water.

P. 161953, March 9th, 1904, Weitzmann, Greifenhagen : — A peat
machine with a special preliminary disintegrator (knife-drum
and cutting blades in the hopper).

P. 163368, January 5th, 1904, Blomdahl, Eskilstuna (Sweden) :—
A peat machine with counter-knives only in the ascending
portion of trie feeding neck, which is made to the full width
of the machine cylinder.

P. 163369, November 5th, 1904, Oltmann Strenge and Sons,
Elisabethfehn, near Augustfelm : — A peat machine with
parallel knife spirals, the first knife courses of which reach
only to near the mantle, a resistance being thus opposed to
the peat behind the lower knife courses, and the process of
mixing being improved accordingly.

P. 165805, November 5th, 1904, Oltmann Strenge and Sons,
Elisabethfehn : — A peat dredger with cutting knives inclined
obliquely outwards on both sides with the object of mixing
the peat more uniformly.

P 166784, January 6th, 1904, Dobson, Beonerton (Canada) : —
A transportable peat-winning machine with a rotating cutter,
the peat won by the machine being distributed over the
drying ground by means of an endless conveyer belt.

P. 168071, January 10th, 1905, Marius lb Nyeboe, Copenhagen : —
A floating, mixing, and kneading machine with two or more
kneading and mixing channels which, starting from feeding
points at different, depths, unite at their other ends, giving
always a uniform mixture of the various layers.

P. 169185, January 5th, 1904, Blomdahl, Eskilstuna (Sweden) :—
A peat machine with spiral knives and counter-knives, the
former of which are so made that they both press the peat

300 THE WINNING OF PEAT

from the circumference to the axis of the cylinder and give it
a forward motion in the direction of the knife shaft.

P. 177446, December 28th, 1905, Luhrs, Bokeloh, near Bremer-
vorde : — A peat plough for winning machine-cut peat, in
which a front roller, provided with transverse knives, divides
transversely the peat strips which are to be raised, knife discs
behind this cut them at the sides, and a toothed disc, resem-
bling a circular saw, lying behind these, separate the strips
from the underlying uncut peat.

P. 180283, January 25th, 1906, Charles F. M. Wiencke, Rostock,
in Mecklenburg : — A conveyer for the boards on which the
peat sods are removed from a peat machine, consisting of two
parallel endless chain conveyers, connected with one another
by cross-bars supporting carriers which are suspended freely
between transportable bearing frames at the sides and support
the sod .boards on the cross-bars, while the winch for working
the bearing frames at the sides is driven by the conveyer
chains, and these are kept in tension by a suspended weight.

P. 200565, December 15th, 1906, von Morsey-Picard and von
Verschuer, Cassel : — A mouthpiece for peat machines, with
two side walls for the mouthpiece made of electrically
conducting material.

P, 214556, January 31st, 1908, Bunting, Jeddeloh, Oldenburg :—
A peat distributor with an endless belt, which is provided
with arms by means of which the peat is uniformly spread
and levelled.

P. 220291, June 29th, 1909, Henry Albert Knopf, Jaderberg,
Oldenburg : — An endless conveyer for peat sods capable of
being moved in the direction of its cross-section. The bearing
frame of the conveyer can be rotated round the longitudinal
axis so that it can be tilted to one side when it is fully charged
with sods, which are thus spread on the drying ground.

P 225922, March 31st, 1909, Beckmann, Papenburg :— A machine
for cutting peat, the cross-cuts being made with knives having
an up-and-down motion and the longitudinal and bottom
cuts by several angle-knives attached to a frame trailing
behind the machine.

P. 226216, May 9th, 1909, Henkensiefken, Geestemunde :— A peat-
winning machine for vertical peat walls, with a cutting
and elevating contrivance movable on a longitudinal girder,
in which the cutting and elevating contrivance is provided
with a vertical and a horizontal cutting disc and a dividing
contrivance for the peat sods.

P. 227083, May 29th, 1909, Dr. William Wielandt, Grand Duchy
of Oldenburg : — A peat -spreading belt consisting of several
plates, arranged so that they can be tilted, in which the plates
which form the transporting course are supported by a vertical
bearing rail, on the releasing of which the supported plates
tilt down, and in this way all the sods on them glide off
simultaneously. The releasing of the bearing rail takes place
when the front sods come in contact with a back-stop.

PATENTS RELATING TO THE WINNING OF PEAT 301

P. 231393, January 18th, 1910, Koscielski, Petrograd :— Specially
formed slit openings for the cutting discs of peat machines.

P. 233380, September 28th, 1909, Knopf, Jaderberg (Olden-
burg) : — A peat-digging or dredging machine with vertically
rotating spirals or blades, arranged in screw fashion, which
are provided on the outside with teeth or knives which cut
off the peat when they are pressed against the peat wall, and
feed it to an elevator.

P. 233381, June 19th, 1909, Anvep, Helsingborg (Sweden) :—
A peat dredger, which is supported on a frame which can be
pushed across the trench and is fixed on a bridge movable
along the trench so that the dredger can be moved over the
whole width and worked to any depth required for the dredg-
ing operations without putting too much weight on the
external edge of the bank.

P. 233809, November 7th, 1908, Hendunen, Moscow :— A peat
machine with a centrifugal drum interposed between the
hopper and the kneading spiral and with knives fixed trellis-
wise to the wall of the drum in order to disintegrate and
condense the peat more thoroughly.

P. 237905, July 14th, 1910, Fred Baumann, Mannheim :— A sod-
spreading belt consisting of plates which are arranged in
series, like the tiles on a roof, and can be tipped crosswise at
one end. The dimensions of the various plates are such that
when one plate is released all the following plates tip and
empty.

P. 239194, April 8th, 1909, Treude, Meppen :— A machine for
cutting peat provided with transverse, longitudinal and
bottom knives. The longitudinal and the bottom knives are
supported by a bow which allows a certain amount of play
so that the peat can be cut to various depths.

P. 247489, March 23rd, 1909, Dr. Wielandt, Grand Duchy of
Oldenburg : — A peat-dredging machine which moves parallel
to the peat bank. The dredger beam, lying in a plane at
right angles to the direction of motion, is inclined sideways
so that its head lies above the transporting frame. The whole
dredger beam can be moved any way desired round the
horizontal and the vertical axis so that dredging can take
place at any desired angle.

P. 252639, February 20th, 1910, Strenge, Ocholt, Oldenburg :—
A sod-cutting wheel for peat machines, the knives of which
may be adjusted as desired by means of a rotating ring.

P. 256892, August 8th, 1911, Wet Carbonizing, Ltd., London :-
A marsh peat dredger consisting of a digger, a pump and
tubes. A contrivance, interposed between the digger and
the pump, by cutting and grinding the peat adapts it for
further transmission.

P. 258603, December 29th, 1909, Rogoff, Gus Chrustalnyi,
Russia : — A single-shaft peat machine, the cutting knives of
which work against counter-knives, fixed in an adjustable
manner as hoops round the shaft.

302 THE WINNING OF PEAT

P. 263771, September 19th, 1911, Zelenay, Twer, Russia:—
A peat-digging machine with a cutting contrivance fixed at
the lower end of an adjustable vertical cylinder and with
a transporting spiral in the cylinder.

P. 264003, June 5th, 1912, Sirenge, Ocholt, Oldenburg :— A peat
machine with sod cutter and sod spreader such that the sods
emerge first on a sliding board and then in groups on a second
cross-sliding board whereon a considerable number of such
groups of sods are transported to the discharging place by
means of a conveyer, which moves in the direction of the
longitudinal axis of the second sliding board, and the whole
series of sods is tipped, all together, on the drying ground
in such a manner that the sods stand upright on their ends
beside one another.

P. 265412, March 9th, 1912, supplementary to P. 26377 1 , Zelenay,
Twer, Russia : — The conical cutter of the machine patented
under 263771 is equipped with two or more screw-shaped
ducts, the exit edges of which are provided below with broad
knives, and above with a steel plate in which a hole is cut.

P. 265684, November 30th, 1911, Gress, Rosenheim, Upper
Bavaria : — A peat-cutting machine with slits for the longitu-
dinal and the bottom knives and consisting of a curved plate
supporting all these knives and their bearings.

P. 269741, February 11th, 1912, Wet Carbonizing, Ltd., London :—
A pit made in a bog is to be used as a collecting station for cut
and disintegrated peat suitable for pumping.

P 269993, November 27th, 1912, Anderson, Walentymow, near
Raschkow : — A peat machine with a cutter which can be
moved upwards, forwards or sideways, which, in addition
to a lifting contrivance for the up-and-down courses, can be
adjusted from the side by means of a slit in the cross-frame
on which the cross-motion takes place.

P. 272528, October 20th, 1910, Wielandt, Oldenburg :— A peat-
cutting machine in which there is an up-and-down moving
contrivance capable of cutting in three directions. By with-
drawing a click at the proper time after a horizontal cut the
contrivance falls through the height of a vertical cut.

P. 274271, April 19th, 1913, Strenge, Ocholt, Oldenburg :— A sod
spreader with an endless conveyer belt consisting of separate
plates, capable of being rotated. In order to spread the
sods the plates are swung down by automatic removal of
a supporting rail, each plate rotating round a line through its
centre. The loaded plates are kept in the horizontal position
by means of a supporting rail which projects above the back
edges of the plates and which, when the plates are to be
swung down, is drawn back horizontally by the driving
mechanism and thus releases the back edges of the laden
plates.

P. 279725, February 13th, 1913, Hinrichsen, Hermsdorf, near
Berlin : — Mixing and pushing knives with a wave-like cutter,
the blades of which are also wave-shaped.

PATENTS RELATING TO THE WINNING OF PEAT 303

P. 280456, December 9th, 1913, Mai, Wiesmoor, East Frisia :—
A sod-spreader formed from revolving chains, wherein one
chain revolves in the reverse direction round the other and
supports the receivers of the inner chain, but has now and
then openings in its course so that the receivers of the inner
chain separately lose their support at places lying con-
tinuously behind one another in a spreading line, and empty
themselves by tipping.

5. — Peat Pressing ; Piston Presses and Stamp Presses

(Briquette Presses)

P. 2152, February 16th, 1878, Hack, Lauenburg : — A peat kiln
with right-handed and left-handed distributing spirals,
through which the peat mould, which has been previously
sifted, is distributed on a wide box-shaped drying floor, heated
by steam and consisting of upper and lower boxes. The peat
is moved about on the floor of the kiln by an endless chain to
which scrapers are attached and is at the same time turned.
When the drying is finished the anhydrous peat again falls
into a distributing spiral which feeds it into the well-known
stamp presses.

P. 53844, October 27th, 1889, Ruederer, Loe, and Gumbart,
Munich : — Freshly slaked lime is added to the dried peat, the
mixture is coked with recovery of the by-products, and then
the residue, after addition of water, is compressed into press
peat charcoal. An endless conveyer belt with flaps distributes
and pushes the material to be dried over the drying plates.

The coking oven contains chambers, the bottoms and
covers of which taper obliquely, and an adjustable tube by
regulating which the operations can take place with or
without the recovery of by-products.

P. 60627, 63923, 70638, June 17th, 1891, Stauber, Berlin:—
A peat press in which the material to be pressed is driven
through a compressing cylinder to forming rollers or forming
tubes, the press material passing between the forming rollers
only after it has been so much compressed that it has raised
a valve which has a counterpoise regulated for the density to
which it is intended to compress the peat.

P. 91810, August 2nd, 1896, Filser, Landsberg-on-Lech : — A peat-
pressing and drying machine having a pressing drum con-
taining cells in its cover provided with slides which move up
and down. When the peat is compressed the slides are pushed
over by means of a pair of levers fixed on the common shaft,
and after the compression the slides are pushed fully in by
means of gearing, so that the pressed material can then
fall down over a stripper.

P. 103118, December 10th, 1896, Stauber, Berlin :— The raw peat
after removal of fibres and other admixtures is to be dehy-
drated while hot b}r pressure, dried in a steam oven and again
pressed.

304 THE WINNING OF PEAT

P. 103509, November 2nd, 1898, Raoul de Faucheux d'Humy,
Liverpool : — The dehydrated peat is to be heated and stirred
simultaneously by means of steam, then intimately mixed with
oil, peat distillation products, mineral oil, and the like, and
finally filled into forming pieces or pressed.

P. 117152, August 11th, 1897, Kerinnes, Tilsit : — In order to keep
the cementing substances which expand in water in an active
condition, the peat, in the manufacture of press peat from
disintegrated material, at the ordinary temperature or when
heated at most to 80° C, is to be treated in such a way that it
contains not less than 60 per cent, of water, and is then to be
pressed.

P. 134974, August 12th, 1900, Hasselmann, Munich : — In manu-
facturing press peat from fibrous and mossy peat mixed with
easily inflammable substances, oleic acid is to be added to the
mixture, the constituents of the latter reacting with it to form
oleic acid derivatives.

P. 139625, September 22nd, 1901, Helling, Wandsbeck :— When
milk of lime is employed in manufacturing press peat, pow-
dered pyrolusite, or a similar manganese compound which
can give off oxygen, is also to be added.

P. 152217, August 6th, 1902, Schwarzer, Diamant, Alder, and
Kittler, Memel : — A peat press in which a table is moved
backwards and forwards under a hopper. At the end of each
stroke the table moves under a stamping contrivance.

P. 161415, June 10th, 1902, Zschorner, Vienna : — For making
a uniformly grained peat (for press peat) a double-drum
dehydrating press is to be attached to a peat band machine,
and to the former a peat-disintegrating machine is likewise
to be connected, which feeds the peat grains (mould) to
a rotating cell-drum, from the interior of which hot compressed
air is blown through the peat grains which fill the cells in the
circumference of the drum.

P. 163277, February 22nd, 1903, Peters, Langenberg :— Peat for
the manufacture of press peat is disintegrated, made into
heaps, allowed to stand some time to become spontaneously
heated, and then worked up further in the well-known way.

P. 164226, April 9th, 1904, the same :— In order that the decom-
position may be quicker, the heaps of peat, prepared as in the
last method, are heated artificially.

P. 164274, March 22nd, 1904, Kellond and Morrison, Chicago :—
A feeding contrivance for peat presses, wherein the mouth is
opened and closed once during each compression by means of
a sliding valve connected with the stamp of the press.

P. 167548, August 16th, 1903, White, Toronto, and Griffin, Guelph
(Canada) : — Manufacture of press peat having a hard crust.
The wet peat is first exposed to a small pressure in closed
moulds, which are continuously heated and are provided with
steam exits, so that the dried, porous parts of the external
layer of the peat are kept in front of the exits ; the pressure is
then increased, step by step, until a hard crust is formed, and

PATENTS RELATING TO THE WINNING OF PEAT 305

is finally diminished so as to prevent the splitting of the crust
and to make the press sod easily removable from the mould.

P. 172504, November 4th, 1903, Seemann, Tilsit : — In order to
manufacture press peat from wet peat in a single course of
operations, wet peat is heated in a closed cylinder, provided
inside with a transporting spiral, and passed into a press
containing revolving moulds, in which the material is pressed
and then pushed in the form of separate sods through the
moulding table to the drying train, whereby the heat enters
through the hollow cover of one end of the train and plays
round it in a direction opposite to that in which the press sods
are moving, after which it passes through the hollow cover of
the screw cylinder and the hollow screw-shaft and finally is
used to heat the peat in the hopper of the screw cylinder.

P. 173928, February 7th, 1905, MacGregor and Pearson, Old
Charlton (England) : — A peat press in which the press piston
glides in a moulding tube which holds a more or less large
number of the manufactured press sods.

P. 177981, February 7th, 1905, the same : — A contrivance for
manufacturing press peat from wet peat wherein an edge-
mill for disintegrating and kneading the peat is placed under
a dehydrating contrivance and over a moulding press.

P. 179814, June 24th, 1903, Luedicke, Prostergut, near Marggra-
bowa, East Prussia : — Manufacture of press peat in such a way
that the peat is changed, by heating it to about 125° C, into
a pulpy mass, and the various peat particles become covered
and cemented by the resinous constituents, which become soft
without coking of the peat and volatilization of the resinous
constituents taking place, after which the peat pulp, without
any further special treatment, is worked up in the usual
manner.

P. 182459, June 8th, 1906, supplementary to P. 179814, the
same : — In the process just described, as soon as the peat has
been heated to about 125° C, the muffle is opened and resin
powder or resinous bodies are added to the peat to increase the
percentage of resin in the latter, so that a thin, dense layer
forms on the surface of the press peat.

P. -220538, June 25th, 1907, American Peat Machinery Co., Port-
land, America : — The following contrivances are combined
with the object of disintegrating and mixing peat for press
peat machines : A feeding funnel with a transporting spiral
and under it several short tubes, following one another,
provided with screw courses and ending in a mouthpiece.
A screw shaft passes through them, the lower portion of
which is furnished with knives which work between curved
blades.

P. 253427, May 30th, 1909, Peat Coal Investment Co., Ltd.,
London : — Peat is to.be dehydrated according to P. 161676,
169117, and 172102, then dried as completely as possible by
heating to 120° C, and finally converted into press sods in
the ordinary manner.

306 THE WINNING OF PEAT

P. 268721, May 11th, 1912, Wet Carbonizing, Ltd., London :— For
pressing wet carbonized peat, the material to be pressed is
prepared by piling in layers so that it encloses as much air as
possible.

6. — The Drying of Peat

P. 22223, March 7th, 1882, Rothbarth, Gifhorn, and Selwig and
Lange, Brunswick : — A peat drier in which the peat is spread
on the surface (permeable to air) of a slowly moving conveyer
belt, which is placed in a closed chamber and exposed both to
the action of a current of hot air and the direct action of heat.

P. 64962, 84458, 88429, and 89462, December 25th, 1891, Stauber,
Berlin : — A drying contrivance with belt conveyers arranged
like steps, between which peculiarly constructed plates,
capable of being heated, are interposed. By means of crank
pins the material to be dried is kept in motion on the plates.

P. 68685, October 11th, 1891, Kauffmann, Soest : — A drying drum
with a star-shaped heating drum in the centre and a larger
drum, pierced with holes, provided with a spiral and scrapers
and fixed on the same axis, which are arranged semicircularly
round the heating tubes.

P. 82038, November 13th, 1894, Hansen, Sandefjord (Norway) :—
A peat-drying contrivance consisting of a series of elevators
which alternately raise and let fall the peat in such a way
that the peat which falls down from the scrapers of the one
elevator is taken up by the scrapers of the other, a current
of hot air passing at the same time through the plant.

P. 108333, November 29th, 1898, Kerinnes, Jorksdorf :— A drying
shed consisting of several stories, having a vertical shaft
passing through it, in which is arranged a transporter, which
can be elevated and lowered, from which the car boards
carrying the peat sods are pushed on rollers sideways into
the rooms in the various stories of the shed.

P. 115007, June 4th, 1899, Gehrcke, Hamburg : — The water con-
tained in peat, which is heated in a closed space, is to be
converted into high-pressure steam suitable for power
purposes. The dried peat is to serve for heating the closed
space in which the steam is to be generated from the raw peat.
The peat is to be fed continuously, under pressure, into the
drying tubes at one side of a tubular boiler, separated there
into steam and dry substance, and the latter, which comes out
of the other side, is to be used for heating the drying boiler.

P. 116293, October 18th, 1903, Dunlap, London :— A peat drier
with a drum which can be heated and out of which the air
can be pumped, wherein, in order to divide up the material to
be dried and to press it in thin layers on the inner surface
of the drum, a roller is arranged inside the drum, so that it can
exert a regular and automatically adjustable pressure against
the inner surface of the drum.

P. 139056, March 7th, 1902, Hannemann, Berlin :— A drying

PATENTS RELATING TO THE WINNING OF PEAT 307

contrivance with tubes through which the peat is moved by
spirals, and which are built into the steam or water chamber
of a steam boiler.

P. 59455, December 5th, 1890, /. A. Soetje and Alb. KaJil, Ham-
burg : — An oven for drying peat mould for press peat or peat
charcoal, wherein, in order to obtain large drying surfaces, the
material to be dried is kept in thin layers between latticed
walls, between which it slowly descends while hot tubes pass
through the surrounding space and the vapour produced is led
away through special channels.

P. 156025, June 25th, 1902, Schlickeysen, Steglitz :— The drying
of formed peat is facilitated, and its resistance to the action of
the weather or pressure is increased, by working the raw peat
after addition to it of powders, such, as coal-dust, peat mould,
saw-dust, or the like.

P. 164225, July 25th, 1903, the same ;— A further modification of
the process just mentioned, wherein these powders are also
placed on the surface of the freshly formed peat.

P. 166597, May 19th, 1903, the same :— The formed peat bands
are heated for a short time, i.e., so long as only the surface
water evaporates, whereby a crust forms round the still cold
core of the sod, and it then becomes possible to pile the peat
without further trouble.

7. — The Winning and the Treatment of Peat Fibres

(Cf. also " Peat as a Fibrous Material for Paper, Paste-board,
Textiles, &c," under Patents, Part II.)

P. 11729, January 21st, 1880, Thiimmler and Seidel, Dresden : —
Bleaching peat fibres and giving them a sheen by means of
chlor-ether with subsequent separation of the fibres by sudden
development of carbon dioxide, and by softening them by
means of glycerine vapours.

P. 18115, March 31st, 1881, Friedrich, Plagwitz-Leipzig :— For
winning peat fibres from disintegrated fibrous peat, obtained
in the ordinary way, use is made of a centrifuge (the staves of
which are provided with oblique holes to unroll and flatten out
the peat fibres) in combination with a sieve and a rake for
winning the extended peat fibres, also a three-roller press for
manufacturing formed peat by driving the sifted mouldy peat
through a forming mouthpiece.

P. 22905, October 31st, 1882, Nehlmeyer, Hanover :— For the
disintegration of pieces of peat and the separation of the peat
fibres from the peat litter and the peat mull, funnel-shaped
vessels are to be employed, the side walls of which are to be
provided with points or teeth and are to be rotated in opposite
directions, while the peat thus pressed and ground falls on
a moving endless sieve in order to separate its fibres.

P. 23107, August 2nd, 1882, Friedrich, Plagwitz-Leipzig :— The
disintegrated fibrous peat is stirred with water in a trough by

308 THE WINNING OF PEAT

means of .rollers, just as in a hollander, from which the float-
ing more or less long fibres are separated from the shorter
by means of sieve-grids. After the sifting the different kinds
of peat fibres are to be treated separately ; the finer in
a hollander, and the coarser in a finishing or tearing mill.

P. 35900, November 25th, 1885, Kleine, Linden, Hanover:—
A washing machine, wherein peat fibres are to be purified and
made into paper stuff by the slow backward and forward-
motion of a grid.

P. 37547, April 3rd, 1886, the same : — A machine for removing
reeds from peat, the object of which is to win the reed grass
contained in peat for commercial purposes, especially spinning,
weaving, and the manufacture of paper and paste-board.
A roller, equipped with blunt, closely packed, short teeth,
works against a vertical surface contiguous to it. The peat
thus torn up falls on a shaking sieve in which the mull and
litter are sifted, and the material which has not gone through
the holes of the sieve then passes under a second roller having
teeth which are long, far apart, and mesh through a grid, the:
fibres being thus separated from the mould.

P. 42200, June 21st, 1887, Schleipen, Cologne-on-Rhine :— The
freshly cut peat is shaken in a funnel with a " porcupine " in
order to disintegrate the peat and separate the fibres. The
disintegrated peat is stirred in a vat until the fibres have
separated from one another. The fine fibres are passed
through the meshes of a sieve drum to a collecting vessel
which has a sieve bottom, the collected and washed coarse
fibres are raised by a water-engine to an endless sieve and led
from this under a press roller.

P. 50304, April 12th, 1880, Berand, Bucklersburg (Baden) :—
Working peat fibres in a special machine with pin-drums
and water-blast.

P. 50516, July 10th, 1889, Beckmann, Papenburg :— Peat fibre
sifting by washing on a shaking, box-shaped sieve.

P. 78845, June 9th, 1894, Paul, Hamburg : — A machine for
cleaning peat fibres from earthy and woody constituents,
wherein a grinding cone, furnished with bristle brushes,
works against a similarly furnished, conical, grinding ring.

P. 79389, April 28th, 1884, Cannot, Meppen :— A machine for
peeling peat fibres provided with grooved peeling drums,
which have a longitudinal as well as a rotary motion so that
as complete as possible a peeling is attained.

P. 83332, March 28th, 1895, Rotten, Berlin :— Peat is to be
separated into fibres, mould, and other portions of plants, by
allowing the peat, suspended in water, to flow in at the front
side of a box provided with partitions which are not quite as
high as the internal sides of the box, until it overflows the
partitions and passes out at the rear, and then letting it,
together with the water, fall on a sieve or a plate pierced with
holes, the meshes or holes in which are of small dimension,
with the object of separating the plant remains on the bottoms

PATENTS RELATING TO THE WINNING OF PEAT 309

of the compartments formed by the partitions, the peat fibres
remaining on the sieve and the mould passing into a receiver
which is placed under the sieve.

P. 90483, July 3rd, 1895, Stauber, Berlin :— The peat is to be fed
into two drums in turn, one of which effects the preliminary
drying and disintegration of the peat as well as the separation
into fibres and peat proper, while the other dries the peat
proper and is to dry and disintegrate further the fibrous
portion which it is also to further separate into peat proper
and fibres.

P. 92265, July 15th, 1896, Cannot, London : — To obtain unbroken
peat fibres as free from dust as possible these are to be
separated from the peat by the latter being raked backwards
and forwards in a vat filled with water, whereby the earthy
portions are separated from the fibres and are then removed by
means of a false bottom, pierced with holes, which is fixed
in the vat.

P. 96540, October 20th, 1895, Charles Geige, Diisseldorf :— Manu-
facture of chemically pure fibres from peat by extracting crude
peat fibres with alkalis, drying and breaking up the fibres
which are brought first into an acid bath, with the object of
converting the starch contained in the fibres into sugar and
destroying the proteins, and afterwards into a fermenting
bath to decompose the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
The fibres are treated with an agent for removing fatty bodies,
again washed, boiled with dilute acids or alkalis, washed
once more, and finally bleached.

P. 102988, September 6th, 1898, Rom, Liau (Norway) :— The peat
is to pass between two belts, moving with different velocities
in the same direction and provided with " points " or knives,
whereby the more rapidly moving " points " are to take the
peat fibres with them and from which they are to be taken off
by a fan or a comb.

P. 123785, January 1st, 1901, Societe Tempied et Dumartin,
Paris : — A spun material from peat containing pure peat
fibres on the outside with an inner base of one or more fibres
of cotton or the like.

P. 127393, December 11th, 1900, Dr. Beddies, Berlin :— The raw
peat, which has an acid reaction, is mixed and washed after
addition of alkaline wash water in a mixing and pressing
contrivance provided with blunt screws, and the mass of peat
fibres is uniformly disintegrated. It is then bleached, &c,
and worked to paste-board or paper in the usual way.

P. 144830, January 30th, 1901, Kalmann, Rabenstein (Lower
Austria) : — Separation and working of peat fibres : The cut
peat is to be first purified by washing and rubbing and the
material obtained is to be worked by repeated (but only for
a short time) grinding and re-soaking in water first to half-
stuff, and by a repetition of the treatment, under increased
pressure, to full-stuff and finished paper.

P. 150698, February 6th, 1903, Garnholz, Oldenburg, and Kettler,

310 THE WINNING OF PEAT

Osternburg : — Winning of peat fibres in such a manner that
the peat bands as they came from a peat machine strike
against prongs for removing the fibres.

P. 154144, May 4th, 1916, supplementary to P. 142658, Pollak
and Esser, Vienna : — In the contrivance protected bv
P. 142658 a to-and-fro moving table is to be employed instead
of the revolving table there mentioned.

P. 156842, November 8th, 1903, the same /—Manufacture by
stamping from peat of a product suitable for half-stuff,
wherein the peat is put in thin layers on a revolving support,
where it is subjected to the action of pounders or hammers.

P. 159284, July 9th, 1902, Gamholz, Oldenburg, and Keltler,
Osternburg : — A fibre winner such that the peat mud is fed
through a channel to an endless revolving cloth which is
furnished with scrapers or tines for catching the peat fibres.

P. 161667, November 23rd, 1902, supplementary to P. 159284,
the same : — Revolving chain combs are placed in the above
contrivance, the object of which is to take the fibres from the
channel and carry them to the striking-off brushes.

P 161668, November 25th, 1902, supplementary to P. 159284,
the same : — Rotatory or up-and-down moving grids or combs
are arranged above the channel for the purpose of taking the
fibres out of it.

P. 162108, November 25th, 1902, supplementary to P. 159284,
the same : — Several rollers with combs on their circumferences
are employed to take the fibres out of the channel.

P. 167831, December 30th, 1902, supplementary to P. 161668,
the same : — -The fibres are taken up from the peat mud as it
flows from the vat through a supporting tube, by means of
grids under one another and also under the mud vat.

P. 168172, May 23rd, 1905, Dr. Beddies, Berlin :— The peat is
ground until its short friable fibres are disintegrateds and then
the disintegrated portions are swept away from the durable
long fibres by a current of water.

P. 169381, January 8th, 1903, supplementary to P. 167831,
Gamholz, Oldenburg :— Winning of peat fibres according to
P. 167831, wherein the grids oscillate or rotate under the peat
mud exits.

P. 180397, July 9th, 1905, Dr. Oswald John, Cothen, Anhalt,
and Henry Wollheim, Grunewald, Berlin : — Separation and
bleaching of peat fibres, by bleaching with hydrogen peroxide
the peat fibres which have been separated from one another
by means of dilute hydrofluoric acid.

P. 203269, June 6th, 1907, Beck, Hamburg :— A contrivance for
manufacturing a half-stuff from peat by pounding, wherein
the main shaft extends over the whole width of the revolving
table and drives a set of pounders at each of its two ends while
the driving of the other pounder shafts is effected by bevelled
wheels, and the revolving table itself is driven from one of
these pounder shafts.

P. 208421, June 6th, 1907, the same .-—Manufacture of half-stuff

PATENTS RELATING TO THE WINNING OF PEAT 311

from peat, whereby the peat which has been pounded on a
revolving table is subjected, in regular succession, to a number
of pulling or rubbing actions of different intensities.

P. 209354, September 5th, 1907, Reif and Dyckerhoff, Hanover :—
A machine for breaking up fibres in peat, wherein two tearing
rollers, rotating in opposite directions, are provided with
screw-knives having their courses wound in the same
direction.

P. 216203, September 8th, 1908, Christeiner, Munich :— A contriv-
ance for separating disintegrated peat into its fibrous con-
stituents consisting of an inclined revolving cylinder with
several channels on its inner surface which are parallel to the
longitudinal axis of the cylinder. The disintegrated peat is
fed into the upper end of the cylinder together with water from
a water-spraying tube, which projects into the cylinder, while
the wash water and the earthy substance leave the cylinder
through openings placed near its lower end and the purified
and separated mass of fibres through openings at its lower end.

P. 216934, July 2nd, 1908, Franz, Admont, Styria :— The cut, raw
peat, before washing and separating the fibres, is pressed
into an endless band and cut into discs of, approximately,
equal thicknesses, the operation being in preparation for the
later one by which the half-stuff is separated.

P. 221712, May 20th, 1909, Reif and Dyckerhoff, Hanover :-
A machine with a comb made from discontinuous rows of
sharp teeth, having the same axis or parallel axes, which
intermesh with a point-disc or point-roller and tear up the
product coming from the cutting rollers without formation
of powder.

P. 258068, March 19th, 1912, Granville, New York :— Separation
of fibres from peat, wherein a powerful current of water is
employed to set free the peat and to bring the separated
constituents to the place where they are to be further treated.

P. 288210, February 5th, 1915, Dr. Leo Ubbelohde, Karlsruhe,
Baden : — A contrivance for preparing peat for paper stuff
consisting of a vat having a sieve bottom and a rake which is
moved to and fro in the vat and which has its teeth directed
upwards.

Section VIII
NOTES

From the Sections on the Winning of Peat

( The figures given in parentheses indicate the pages on which further

particulars are to be found.)

Peat in its natural state, no matter whether it is black peat,
mould peat, or fibrous peat, contains as a rule 80 to 90 per cent,
of water, and even in peat from well-drained bogs the percentage
of water is rarely under 80 1 (p. 57).

The percentage of water in air-dry peat should be only 20 for
fuel peat, 25 for peat litter, and in either case it should not exceed
25 to 30, while in press peat the percentage of water should not
exceed 15.

Hence considerable quantities of water must be raised and
worked with the raw peat and removed from it by drying. It
should be noted that 100 kilos of raw peat containing 80 per cent,
of water (20 kilos of anhydrous substance and 80 kilos of water)
give only 25 kilos of fuel, or litter, peat in the air-dry state con-
taining 20 per cent, of moisture, or 26-7 kilos in the air-dry state
containing 25 per cent, of moisture, and that in every 100 kilos of
raw peat 75 or 73-3 kilos of water must be moved as if it were
ballast, and must be evaporated during the drying2 (pp. 60, 61).

This unusually high percentage of water increases the difficulty
and also the cost of winning dry peat.

As the water evaporates, the volume and the weight of the peat
which has been raised from the bog (raw peat) diminish. On an
average, 1 cb. m. of raw peat containing 80 per cent, of water, and
weighing approximately 1,000 kilos, gives only 0-28 cb. m. of
air-dry cut peat weighing 250 kilos (pp. 60, 61, 63). In the case of
machine peat, the decrease in volume is still greater, owing to the
greater contraction of the peat (p. 244).

Many a peat, even when it has a good fatty or slippery appear-
ance, often contains a high percentage of ash and has therefore
little value as a fuel, while other fibrous peat, which may perhaps
be considered suitable for peat litter, may have only a small
absorptive power (pp. 262-264).

Before the working of a bog commences, it is essential that the
quality of the peat from its various layers should be carefully

1 On the other hand, moist brown coal, as raised from the mine, rarely
contains more than 60 per cent, of water.

2 On the other hand, 100 kilos of moist brown coal, as raised from the
mine (60 per cent, of water), give 50 kilos of air-dry fuel — i.e., double the
amount mentioned above — and in their formation only 50 kilos of water
require to be evaporated.

NOTES 313

examined1 with a view either to organizing the best scheme for
the development of the bog, or to protect oneself from delusion
and loss (p. 282).

Industrial winning of peat is preceded with advantage by
drainage of the bog during a period of one to two years, by which,
as a rule, the water in the peat is lowered by 5 to 10 per cent. This
apparently small decrease is of considerable importance, since
owing to it, for the same total output (in raw peat raised), and,
therefore, as a rule for the same amount paid in wages, the amount
of dry peat finally obtained from the same weight of raw peat is
materially increased, and, with it, the success of the undertaking
Even if the percentage of water in the raw peat be decreased from
90 to only 85, i.e., by only 5 per cent., then from 100 kilos of raw
peat 20 kilos ( !) instead of 13 • 3 kilos of air-dry peat will be obtained.
This is an increase of one-half or 50 per cent. (pp. 60, 61, 244),
and with the same expenses the total output, and, therefore, the
earnings of the industry, is increased to the same extent. With
reference to volumes, the difference is smaller, but in this case also
it is still considerable (pp. 63, 246).

Large areas are required for the drying grounds (pp. 50, 216,
et sqq., also p. 253), which should be dry, level, and situated as
high as possible.

Transport and freightage should be cheap, and a large market
should either exist or be capable of being created.

The only method of drying which has hitherto proved satis-
factory is air-drying ; in wet districts, or when production on
a large scale is to be assured, air-drying may be assisted by
contrivances such as spiked poles, open trestles, " horses," huts
or sheds (pp. 45-49, 216, et seq.).

In order to make certain of a sufficient amount of raw peat for
continuous working of peat by machines (machine peat) even when
the weather is unfavourable, the necessary reserve of raw peat can
be accumulated. This will not be injured in any way during the
winter, since, when mixed and kneaded in machines, it regains its
cohering and contracting powers. On the other hand, frost acts
injuriously on freshly cut peat and freshly moulded peat or
machine peat because frozen sods do not retain their power of
cohering and contracting (pp. 65, 251, 265).

Every method of artificial drying is uneconomic so long as it
is a matter, as is generally the case, of winning peat fuel, and
peat litter or peat as a substitute for cheap materials for textiles,
paste-board, artificial wood, artificial stones, &c. In this respect
new experiments should be avoided even when the " new " drying
process promises technical success, i.e., the plant is really able to
turn out well-dehydrated or dry peat. As a commercial process,
artificial drying is always too dear. The same may be said of a
combination of artificial heating with air circulation (pp. 58, 82,
216, 268).

1 Most of the official Bog Experimental Stations have stated that they
are prepared to do this. With regard to the specimens to be sent fcr
examination, attention should be paid to what was said on p. 283.

(2595) y

314 THE WINNING OF PEAT

Dehydration of peat by compression, even when an electrical
current is employed, is unscientific and does not lead to the goal
desired. By strong compression, even with a pressure of 400 to
500 atmospheres for several hours, the percentage of water (85) in
a peat could not be lowered below 63 (pp. 72, 85-89).

Compression of machine peat with a view to obtaining neat
blocks of fuel similar to press coal is also too dear.

The fact that the artificial drying and the dehydration of peat
by wet or dry presses with or without electrical dehydration are
uneconomic is not affected in any way by the patenting of various
contrivances or processes (mostly owing to some novel contrivance
which has been found to be technically successful) (pp. 287-293).

The best raw material for peat fuel is black, humified peat,
as dense as possible, while that intended for peat litter should be
light-coloured fibrous or mossy peat of low density (pp. 260-266).
As a fibre substitute for spinning and weaving materials, wadding,
paper, paste-board, only peat containing a high percentage of
humified cotton-grass (Eriophorum vaginatum) is a suitable raw
material.

The simplest and as a rule the cheapest mode of winning is
that of hand peat (p. 23 et seq.). Hand peat (cut, pulped, or
moulded peat) is frequently good enough for ordinary household
requirements. On account of its defects (p. 64), it is scarcely
suitable as fuel for more or less large industrial furnaces and
better-class dwelling houses, or for transport and trade on
a large scale.

For winning large quantities of peat for conversion into peat
litter or peat mull or for gasification (for gas engines, &c.) where
it is not so essential to obtain a firm, dense product which can
be improved by mixing and kneading and made suitable for
transport over long distances, crumb peat winning and peat dust
winning (pp. 35, 65) deserve attention. The same remark applies
to the cut peat machines (p. 37) which have been recently
constructed and which have done well in their trials.

For preparing a denser and better peat, capable of competing
with brown coal and coal, only the uni- or multi-spiral peat-mixing
machines and the machines required for the manufacture of
machine-pulped peat or machine-formed peat, briefly termed
machine peat, have proved successful, while the more recent fully
automatic or large scale machines with dredgers and automatic
sod spreaders are available for large installations, bog power
stations, factories for the supply of fuel to railways in countries
poor in coal, and the like (pp. 94-169).

With regard to the cost of winning machine peat, it should be
noted that this cost varies within fairly wide limits according as
the kind of machine used and the nature of the bog worked vary
(see p. 227 et seq.). The average cost per metric ton of air-dry peat
fuel calculated for the whole year's output is, owing to various
industrial troubles which are still unavoidable in every industry,
as a rule higher than the price per unit (metric ton) calculated from
the actual output per hour or per day for even carefully conducted

NOTES 315

experiments over a few days' systematic working (p. 229). Even
in the case of large scale industries the average net cost per
metric ton of air-dry peat fuel calculated from the output during
the whole year is only in exceptional cases under 5M. (pp. 158,
160, 231).

Press peat can be made from peat by the aid of the contrivances
(presses) used in the press coal manufacture in as good and
neat a condition as that of the press coals from brown coal powder.
Even years ago this operation offered no difficulties of a technical
nature. Press peat is, however, as a rule too dear (p. 81), especially
in districts in which press brown coal and press coal have succeeded
in gaining a footing. These latter are usually more valuable
and have a higher calorific power than press peat and are also
well liked for heating purposes both in households and in factories.
For this reason the installation of press peat factories and the
manufacture of press peat are generally uneconomic. Only under
quite definite conditions can the manufacture of press peat be
taken into consideration. It always requires a large capital for
plant and working expenses (pp. 79, 81).

To prevent the cost of production of the press peat being too
heavily loaded by too short a time for amortization of the cost
of the installation, the working life of a press peat factory must
not be assumed as less than twenty years, and the bog must be
sufficiently large and productive to last this period. Even with a
single press industry having a yearly output of about 10,000 m. tons
about 5 ha. of bog 2 m. in depth will be required per annum,
so that altogether 100 ha. will be necessary, together with the
corresponding amount of drying ground. Single press industries
are, however, less remunerative than industries with several
presses (p. 81).

In Germany and Scandinavia the few press peat factories
which were working at the beginning of this century have all been
shut down despite efforts, extending over many years, to keep
them going (p. 83).

Only peat which is poor in ash is suitable for the winning of
peat fuel. Peat containing more than 10 per cent, of ash can only
in exceptional cases be utilized and sold in the market (p. 12). At
the place of winning, and with low costs of manufacture, a peat
rich in ash may be used in gas furnaces or for the production of
power gas (see Part II).

For the manufacture of machine peat the machine must be
carefully selected, taking into account the quality of the peat to be
worked and the nature of the product, i.e., whether it is machine
pulp or machine-formed peat (p. 94 or p. 136). Neither cheapness
in the price of the machine nor its guaranteed output is the
deciding factor.

The season for winning hand or machine peat may be assumed
to be during the months from April to the end of July, i.e., lasting
only 90 to 100 working days, while that for peat litter factories
may be assumed to last up to 300 working days.

For winning for commercial purposes, the depth of the bog

316 THE WINNING OF PEAT

should be at least 1 m. for hand peat and 1| to 2 m. for machine
peat. It is desirable to combine the winning of peat fuel with that
of peat litter.

We should attach as much importance to the good condensing
action of the machine, due to its thorough tearing, mixing, and
kneading action (pp. 71, 113, 170-174, 241-254), as to its actual
average output while operating in the bog to be worked during
a run of at least one week's duration (pp. 226-229).

A peat machine which under the same conditions — with the
same number of workmen, the same output per hour in cubic
metres of formed peat, and the same or a somewhat higher
consumption of power (fuel) — has a 5 per cent, greater condensing
action and about a 5 per cent, greater average output during the
week's working, shows in contrast to another machine having
apparently the same output by volume a net gain of 10 per cent.
in the total working expenses. This alone may frequently bring
about the commercial success of the whole enterprise, especially
when the increased output is associated with the better drainage
of the bog (p. 245 et seq.).

The better the kneading and mixing action of a peat machine,
the drier the peat from one and the same bog can be worked, the
greater the output for the same expense, the less the machine
peat splits and crumbles during drying (pp. 113, 170 et seq., p. 243)
and the better is it able to withstand the action of rain during the
first few days when drying on the ground.

A big peat factory with several machines is more remunerative
than a small factory with only one peat machine.

The driving of several peat machines in common from a single
power-station (electrical) is to be preferred to driving them by
separate engines (locomotive), both labour and capital being
saved thereby (pp. 230-241).

In winning peat on a commercial scale, it is advisable, in order
to lower the cost of production, to employ machines each of which
has an output of at least 100 cb. m. of formed peat per day. When
labour is scarce, it is desirable to install fully automatic or large
scale machines (pp. 154-169, 230, 232-241).

The track and field railway system between the peat machine
and the drying ground for the rapid transport of the loaded peat
cars and for putting the unloaded peat cars again in the position
required, has a great influence in preventing irregularity in the
output of a machine peat factory (p. 203 et seq). One should
therefore visit, beforehand, successful large peat factories and also
obtain expert advice. For large scale industries (bog power-
stations) and for economizing labour, and therefore for decreasing
the cost of winning, it is desirable to install peat-forming machines
with peat dredgers and automatic sod spreaders. In this case
careful selection should be made, taking into account the nature
of the bog (whether it contains wood and roots) (p. 154 et seq.).

The installation capital required for the same output is, indeed,
somewhat greater in the case of fully automatic machines than it is
in that of ordinary peat machines, but, on the other hand, the

NOTES 317

working expenses and the number of labourers required are
smaller in the former case (pp. 230-239).

It is desirable when procuring new machines to obtain a
guarantee not only of the mixing and condensing action but also
of the minimum output of the peat machine under the given local
conditions and including the maximum number of workmen and
the maximum amount of power required, and to regard this
guarantee as fulfilled only when it has been borne on trials of at
least one week's duration at the given place. The question of a
somewhat higher price for the machine cannot then arise. This
average output during a more or less long working trial and the
dry weight of the manufactured product are decisive factors in
the success of the enterprise (pp. 157-169, 227, 230-254).

If a machine factory imposes the condition that its representa-
tive is to conduct the operations until the workmen have been
trained and the average output of the machine mentioned in the
agreement has been attained, it should, on the other hand, be
required that these are to take place within a definite period from
the date on which the machine is capable of starting operations, as
otherwise if the machine does not satisfy the requirements the
machine factory may refuse to take it back and to make restitution
of any payments made on account. It is to be noted in this case
that the working of one of these machines is of a satisfactory nature
only when it does not demand too much skill from agricultural
labourers and does not require too long a time to train them to
carry out the operations. It is the business of the maker of the
machine to so adapt it from the very start for the peat to be
operated upon that the machine at the place in question will give
even with ordinary labourers the output, promised and agreed
upon, within a fixed period of time.

It is obvious that a machine which is to be delivered under
conditions such as these will be more expensive than one delivered
without such a guarantee. The experience of many years in peat
factories is, however, in favour of obtaining such a guarantee.

So far as the product and the output from a machine are
concerned in addition to the average output during at least a
week's trial it is important to know (1) how much freshly formed
peat (in cubic metres or in number of fully loaded boards) and
(2) how many kilos of dry peat 10 or 100 cb. m. of the bog give,
since the costs of winning and drying depend usually on the volume
of the formed peat and the selling price on the weight of dry
substance obtained.

It is desirable to manufacture peat litter and peat mull
intended for sale, from light, mossy, and fibrous peat, the dry
material of which has an absorptive power equal to at least eight
times its own weight (p. 262).

We should be very careful, if not sceptical, when dealing with
any "recent " or " most recent invention " in the peat world, even
when this is " patented," as patenting is no proof of the com-
mercial success of the discovery with which its industrial utilization
is solely concerned. Whatever is suitable and applicable for the

318 THE WINNING OF PEAT

winning of peat has been described in detail in the various sections
of this book. Further developments or ideas, so far as they have
been made the object of public recommendations and, therefore, of
discussions in expert circles, have been duly considered in the
corresponding sections. There are at present no other discoveries
relating to the winning or the improvement of peat which are
worthy of note and have at the same time undergone satisfactory
trials. During the last twenty-five years not a single one of the
many discoveries or inventions in the domain of peat winning has
attained any considerable importance whatever or any success
worth noting except the peat dredgers, which have already been
mentioned and described in detail, the automatic sod spreaders or
peat pulp distributors, and the cut peat machines.

Peat, like every other moist, fibrous, mouldable, compressible,
loose, spongy, pulverulent, doughy, cohesive, miscible body, by
the aid of machines (or suitable modifications thereof) employed
for treating these substances, can be dehydrated, dried, have its
fibres split up or removed, be compressed, partially or completely,
smooth and neat, wet or dry, cold or warm, can be formed, thick
or thin, solid or hollow, into plates, roofs, or bricks, be used to
make paste-board, paper, or textiles, and be pressed into building
wood or smooth, chocolate-coloured plates or blocks for the
manufacture of ornaments. With the well-known artifices all
this is, without further trouble, technically possible, but from the
commercial standpoint these attempts and their technical possi-
bility are of no value, as these products, owing to the nature of
peat, are, as a rule, of too slight a value or are too dear in
comparison with the corresponding products from the materials
ordinarily and successfully employed in their manufacture —
a competition in which the peat would be successful is, therefore,
out of the question.

In any case, a peat discovery should be taken up only after very
careful consideration and after procuring a statement of opinion
from some independent expert consultant whom we know to have
undoubtedly a deep knowledge of peat. Millions have already been
invested in experiments on so-called " new solutions " of the peat
problem and most recent peat inventions, and have been lost, even
within the last ten years, in spite of warnings by the author in the
previous edition of this handbook (1904).

PART II

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

Section I
THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL

A. — General Remarks on Fuel and Combustion

1. — On Fuel

In every commercial fuel the only elements which function
as heat producers are carbon and hydrogen ; all the other con-
stituents are of no advantage, and, moreover, require to be heated
to the temperature of combustion without contributing anything
to the heat evolved. Hence from the many substances which con-
tain carbon and hydrogen those have been selected as fuel which
contain the greatest amount of carbon or hydrogen, or carbon plus
hydrogen, relative to the other constituents which injuriously
affect combustion. So far at least as industry is concerned, almost
the only body which fulfils this condition is plant fibre, which is
composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in the ratio of 44-4,
6-2, and 49-4 per hundred parts by weight of the substance.
This is employed either in the unchanged state as wood or in the
form of its naturally humified products — peat, brown coal, or coal
— or its carbonized or gasified products, coke and gas respectively.

These modifications or transformation products of plant
fibres, which in industrial and domestic use are designated "fuels,"
contain more or less small amounts of sulphur derivatives which
burn with evolution of heat, forming sulphur dioxide. They also
contain incombustible, earthy constituents, which remain as ashes
after the combustion and prejudicially affect the value of the fuel.
The latter remark applies also to the combined sulphur, the
products of combustion of which act injuriously upon any metallic
surfaces with which they come in contact.

Combustion of these bodies can occur only by combination
with the oxygen contained in the air admitted into the fire, since
all ordinary combustions are merely chemical interactions between
substances and oxygen. In e very-day life a chemical combination
is called a combustion only when it takes place with the evolution
of a considerable amount of light and heat (fire).

In the combustion of plant fibre and its transformation
products (fuel in general) —

The hydrogen burns to water by combining with eight times
its weight of oxygen, and the carbon burns either to carbon dioxide
when a sufficient amount of oxygen is present (complete

320 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

combustion), or to carbon monoxide when there is a deficiency m
oxygen (incomplete combustion) .

The weight of oxygen required for the combustion of every
3 g. of carbon is in the former case 8 g. and in the latter 4 g.
Fuel generally consists of more or less large pieces, and, as it is
only the surface of each piece that is in contact with the air, that
is, therefore, the only place where combustion of the piece can
occur. Gasification, however, takes place in the interior of the
piece, owing to the heat developed at its surface. Combustible
gases developed inside find their way out through splits or clefts
originally present or formed by the bursting of the pieces. In this
way they get into the fire, where they meet the oxygen of the added
air, and reacting with this, burn with evolution of heat, making
a by no means unimportant contribution to the combustion itself.
As the results of gasification and incomplete combustion show,
these gases consist of a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydro-
carbons, and of greater or smaller amounts of sulphur dioxide
and water vapour according to the percentages of sulphur and
moisture in the fuel. The easily combustible hydrocarbons
consist partly of so-called light carburetted hydrogen (marsh gas)
and partly of heavy carburetted hydrogen (defiant gas). When
the gases formed in this manner ultimately burn in the fire they
give the same final products — carbon dioxide and water — and
produce the same heating effect as those obtained by direct
combustion of the solid fuel.

The quantities of heat developed in the combustion of different
fuels vary with the nature of the fuel. For purposes of comparison
the heat developed is measured in thermal units, under which
term we shall understand the amount of heat required to raise
the temperature of 1 g. of water through 1° C. (1 calorie = a).

(In finding the calorific powers of different fuels we determine
the number of thermal units developed at 0° C. by the complete
combustion of the different substances.)

According to the investigations of the physicists Favre and
Silbermann, the heat developed in the combustion of —

Calorics.

Carbon to carbon dioxide is . . . . . . . . 8,080

Carbon to carbon monoxide is . . . . . . . . 2,473

Carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide is . . . . 2,403

Hydrogen to water at 0° C. is . . 34,462

Hydrogen to water vapour at 100° C. is 29,000

Sulphur to sulphur dioxide is . . . . . . . . 2,221

Sulphuretted hydrogen to sulphurous acid . . . . 2,741

This means, for instance, that the heat developed by the
combustion of 1 g. of carbon is able to raise the temperature of
8,080 g. of water through 1° C.

In the case of fuels which contain carbon, hydrogen and
sulphur in different amounts, their calorific powers, i.e., the number
of thermal units evolved by the combustion of unit weight of the
fuel, can either be calculated (calculated calorific power) from the
chemical composition of the fuel or determined by direct experi-
ment in bomb calorimeters (directly measured calorific power).

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL 321

In the first case it is assumed that the amount of heat developed
by the combustion of a compound is equal to the sum of the quantities
of heat developed by the combustion of its separate components
(carbon, "free hydrogen," sulphur). Here, however, it must be
noted that the portion of the hydrogen which in the body may be
regarded as combined with oxygen in the form of water, or rather
which during combustion combines with the oxygen of the fuel
forming " combined water " (i.e., one-eighth part of the weight of
the oxygen in the fuel) is assumed to have no useful thermal effect,
and, therefore, only the excess (" free hydrogen ") of hydrogen
above this amount is to be taken into account in the calculation
of the calorific power. Accordingly the f oh owing formula, which
is called the Verbands formula, or the modified Dulong formula,
has been adopted for the calculation of the calorific powers of
moist or air-dry fuels, for steam raising and for furnaces, by the
German Engineering Society and the Union of Steam Boiler
Superintendents : —

The calorific power of a fuel = 81 C + 290 (H — -) + 25 S -6 W

8

where C, H, O, S, and W are the percentages of carbon, hydrogen,

oxygen, sulphur, and water contained in the fuel. Hence, from the

percentage composition of a given peat, or from that of a similar

peat, the calorific power of a peat can be calculated within a degree

of approximation sufficient for practical purposes. The heat

actually developed during combustion (i.e., the directly measured

calorific power) is about 5 per cent, greater than that calculated by

means of the above formula. In case of necessity it is desirable

to have the calorific power of a fuel determined by the Bog

Experimental Stations or other public testing bureau. (Cf. also

p. xviii.)

In these stations it has been the rule that calorific powers should
be determined only by means of bomb calorimeters, therefore,
the calculation of calorific powers from percentage compositions by
means of formulae which take into account certain corrections is
not employed.1

In reports of such determinations the distinction between the
terms " heat of combustion " or " higher calorific power " and
' lower or practical calorific power " should be observed and clearly
expressed.

2. — Calorific Power per Unit Weight and per Unit Volume, and

Temperature of Combustion

The figures mentioned above, which give the amount of heat
in thermal units that can be developed by the combustion of unit
weight of a given fuel, are called the calorific powers per unit
weight or the absolute calorific powers, in contradistinction to the
calorific power per unit volume or specific calorific power, which is
the number of thermal units developed by the combustion of unit

1 Cf. Mitteilungen, 1910, No. 8.

322

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

volume of a fuel, and which can be calculated from the absolute
calorific power by multiplying this by the density of the fuel.

In addition to these two we must also distinguish the tempera-
ture of combustion or the pyrometric heat effect, by which we mean
the maximum temperature attained during the combustion of a
substance in air at 0° C. and under normal barometric pressure.

The calorific powers obtained in accordance with the statements
given above are simply the maximum values calculated or measured
under the assumption that not even a trace of the heat developed
in the combustion becomes lost by conduction or radiation to
foreign bodies. In practice only 60 to 75 per cent, of the
maximum or " higher calorific power " can be utilized owing to
conduction by the walls of the fireplace, the impossibility of adding
only the exact quantity of air necessary for the combustion and
of preventing the heat from escaping with the products of the
combustion. The amount of heat actually utilized in contra-
distinction to the calculated or measured maximum calorific power
is called the economic heat effect or the economic calorific power of
the fuel.

3. — Composition, Density, and Calculated Calorific Power of various Fuels

Fuel.

Carbon.

o

u
13

<u

u

Water.

A O

o

Ash.

Wood, air-dry

Wood, half kiln-dry

Wood, kiln-dry

Wood charcoal, air-
dry

Wood charcoal, fully
dried

Fibrous brown coal

Earthy brown coal . .

Conchoidal brown coal

Coal, non-caking

Cherry coal. .

Caking coal

Anthracite . .

Non-caked coke

Cherry coke

Caked coke

Cut peat, ordinary.

Machine peat, air-dry

40
45
50
85

97

42-5

48

2
3
3
4
4
3

1-5

1-6

39
44
49

29
19
16
18
11
8
2

26

30-4

20
10
10
12

25

18

Density.

fO-55-/

|0-80 )

0-15-

0-20*

Calorific power of

3i

- 'u

3,232
3,636
4,040
6,868

7,837

3,980
4,648
5,557
6,608
7,438
7,680
8,305
6,787
7,434
7,838

3,950

4.430

Unit

volume.
Calories.

fl, 800-0

13,200 j
1,250

1,500

9

CD O

<D

3
o

I—*

O

o

4>

o
1-1

bfl
O

Q

1,790
2,200

2,450

1,800
1,975
2,050
2,200
2,250
2,300
2,350
2,400

to
2,450

1,720

1,850

In the powdered state it is 1-4 to 1-5.

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL

323

The foregoing table contains the average chemical compositions,
and the calorific powers calculated therefrom, of various fuels, and
is intended to serve as a basis for the comparison of these fuels
with the peats under consideration.

The following limits for the calorific powers are used for the
comparison of various fuels, containing average percentages of
moisture, by the directors of the more important Bog Experimental
Stations : — Calories.

(1) Air-dry wood 2,400-3,800

Earthy brown coal

Press brown coal . .

Bohemian brown coal

Coal

Press coal

Coke

Peat charcoal

Wood charcoal

Good peat

(11) Average peat

(12) Mediocre peat

(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)

1,500-3,400
4,500-5,000
4,300-5,500
5,500-8,100
6,200-7,600
5,900-7,500
7,300-7,600
6,900-7,500
3,500-4,200
2,800-3,500
2,000-2,800

B.— Peat as Fuel

1— Calorific Power of Different Varieties of Peat and Influence

of the mode of Winning on it

By taking into account the figures given in the preceding
tables as well as those in the tables on pp. 10 and 13 of Part I,
it will be seen that peat when properly used will make a good fuel.
Notwithstanding its very wide occurrence, peat is not generally
used as a fuel, and in many districts it has either not been
used at all or has been discontinued. The reasons for this
are that the prices for wood and coal were too low in comparison
with the cost of winning peat, and the better known, or, at least,
the commoner peats — cut, stroked and dredged peat — had, owing
to their low density, a low specific calorific power, and therefore
only a small economic calorific power. Moreover, the low density
and great friability of ordinary peat made it unsuitable for trans-
port over long distances, so that its application as a fuel was
confined to localities in the immediate neighbourhood of the places
where it was won.

Owing to the low density of peat it was obvious that a large
fireplace would be required for the combustion of a definite
quantity of peat in a given time, and therefore that there would be
an increase in the loss of heat in the firing, which loss could not in
general be prevented. As this was combined with bad stoking
arrangements and high percentages of water and ash in the peat,
it can therefore be readily understood that industry, in order to
save time and money, refrained from making protracted experi-
ments with peat and resorted again to fuels such as wood and coal,
which although more expensive were in all cases the more reliable.

The attempts to get rid of the above-mentioned defects of peat,
to give it, by compression, a higher density and greater firmness
and to remove its high percentage of water by artificial drying,
generally led, as has been pointed out in Part I, to unfavourable

324 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

results. The products obtained by these methods — press peat
(according to Exter and Gwynne) and kiln-dried peat — were
found to be unable to compete with the other fuels when the
costs of production were taken into consideration.

It was only when the prices of wood and coal had risen con-
siderably and when we had learned how to manufacture, without
big installation costs, a cheap and a better class fuel in the form
of condensed machine peat, and had also learned, after the intro-
duction of gas furnaces, how to burn with advantage a more or
less poor peat, that we were obliged and were able to turn again
to peat as a fuel. Since that time peat has been once more
employed in industry and its use has extended from year to year.

The main requirements for favourable commercial results are
the use of a peat —

(1) As free from ash as possible.

(2) As air-dry as possible.

(3) As dense as possible (machine peat).

(4) Suitable furnaces or a good gasification plant, especially
when dealing with more or less moist and light " crumb " or
" lump peat."

By not properly attending to any of these requirements, e.g.,
by examining the raw peat superficially or not at all, or by faulty
drying contrivances, too short a drying period, faulty storing
sheds, mistakes in the selection of the peat machine, or faulty
arrangement of the furnace or gasification plant, a peat which
may otherwise satisfy all the remaining conditions may become
excluded from the group of commercially valuable fuels.

With regard to the first two points, the figures given further
on show how disadvantageously the percentage of ash or water
affects a peat which from its chemical composition would be classed
as good, while the experiments on combustion mentioned there,
together with actual experience extending over many years, show
that a light, cut, or trodden peat is difficult to use in large furnaces
with advantage and without prejudicially affecting the industry,
and also that machine peat has a higher economic calorific power
than hand peat made from the same raw material.

It is quite erroneous to suppose, as is sometimes done and as
is sometimes stated in commendatory notices by peat machine
manufacturers, that the calorific power of a given weight of a peat
can be altered by the mode of winning or manufacturing the press
or machine peat, and that it increases as the tearing up of the
fibres and the mixing of the peat are the more thoroughly effected
by the machines. The chemical composition, the percentages of
carbon and hydrogen, on which alone the calorific power of a peat
depends, cannot be altered by any machine nor can any machine
decrease the percentage of ash in a peat. It is never possible,
therefore, to make from an intrinsically poor peat by any machine,
however good, " a fuel nearly as valuable as coal." The calorific
powers of peat formed in the same way by one and the same
machine are very variable and depend on the nature of the peat
worked, but the absolute calorific power of 100 kilos of condensed

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL

325

machine peat is exactly the same as that of 100 kilos of cut peat,
if they are equally dry and are made from the same raw material.

Any change in calorific power which may occur refers only to
that of the calorific power of unit volume and to the greater
utilization of the calorific power of unit weight associated
therewith. The objective of the machine peat industry is to
increase the efficiency of a furnace fired with peat, and in addition
to obtain a product with a smaller percentage of water by rendering
it possible to dry the material more thoroughly and more certainly,
as well as to make the formed peat transportable over long
distances by increasing its firmness. Hence the statement " that
the calorific power of a fuel increases with its density " is true only
so far as the total unavoidable losses in a furnace due to radiation
from the furnace walls, incomplete combustion, &c, decrease as
the size of the fireplace decreases. The size of the fireplace is
directly proportional to the total volume and inversely pro-
portional to the density of the fuel. Hence the loss of heat from
a fuel in an otherwise well-constructed furnace is all the smaller
in comparison with its calculated calorific power the smaller it
is possible to construct the furnace for a given amount of the
fuel, i.e., the greater the density of the fuel, or, in the present case,
the greater the density of a machine peat, manufactured from
a raw peat having a given composition, the greater its economic
calorific power will be.

This is a further reason why a peat-forming machine which
aims at tearing up the fibres and mixing the peat as well as
possible should be preferred to a simple forming machine when
we want to get the best possible fuel for furnaces from a given
raw peat.

The manner in which the density of machine peat, contrasted
with that of cut peat from the same raw material, is affected by
differences in the treatment of the peat in different machines is
shown by the results of the author's experiments in Part I,
pp. 243 and 246.

The calorific powers of different varieties of peat can be easily
obtained with the aid of ultimate organic analysis, taking into
account the principles set forth in the introduction to this section.
Although the calculated values are only approximate, they are
sufficiently accurate for all matters connected with the value and
the utilization of different kinds of peat.

Professor Ritthausen calculates, for instance, for the varieties
of peat examined by him, the compositions of which have been
given in Part I, pp. 8-10, first the percentages of carbon and
" free hydrogen," on which the development of heat depends, as
follows : —

Peat No.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Carbon

Free hydrogen

43-61
0-68

45-16
0-85

44-33
0-79

45-86
0-S3

41-02
1-30

46-83
1- 17

326

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

and from these by means of Favre and Silbermann's calorific
powers he calculates for the various peats : —

Peat No.

Calorific power
Calorific power in round
numbers

3,723

3,700

3,906
3,900

3,791

3,800

3,955
3,950

3,630
3,700

4,144 c.
4,100 c.

Since experiment has shown that 652 c. are required to convert 1 g.
of water at 0° C. into steam at 150° C. (at 4 atmospheres pressure),
then the amounts of water which could be converted into steam
at 150° C. by the combustion of 1 kilo of each of the various
peats are : —

Peat No.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Water evaporated

5-67

5-98

5-22

6-05

5-67

6-59 kilos

In the cases of peats 5 and 6, the percentages of combustible
matter in which do not differ much (Part I, p. 8), we can readily
see how the percentage of ash affects the calorific power. Both
peats should have almost the same calorific powers in the anhy-
drous, ash-free state ; owing, however, to the percentages of water
and ash (11-92 in No. 5 and 5-18 in No. 6) in the samples the
percentage of carbon in No. 5 is lowered to 41 -02 and the calorific
power of the peat to 3,700 c, while the carbon percentage of
No. 6 is 46-83, and its calorific power is 4,100 c.

For this reason also the younger peats, Nos. 2 to 4, which
contain very little ash, have higher calorific powers than the
Waldau peat.

According to Dr. Victor Zailer1 the average calorific power
of the vegetable (organic) material in peat may be assumed as
follows : —

Calorific power.

Variety of Peat.

Slightly humified.

Strongly humified.

Calorics.

Calories.

Reed

5,000

Up to 5,500

Sedge or Carex

5,200

„ 5,600

Hypnum

4,900

,, 5,200

Alder or birch

5,300

,, 5,700

Scheuchzeria and Eriophorum

5,200

5,500 & over

Sphagnum

4,400

„ 5,400

Heather

4,600

„ 5,200

Liver

5,100

„ 5,800

] Mitteilung&n, 190S, p. 40.

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL

327

Results of detailed experiments on the calorific powers of
various peats have also been published1 by Dr. von Feilitzen
(Jonkoping). They refer to 57 specimens from various districts of
Sweden, of which 2 were cut peat, 1 dough peat, 9 (machine)
mud or pulp peat, and 45 machine peat. Of these samples : —

56 per cent, consisted of Sphagnum peat, containing in the anhydrous
state 3-86 per cent, of ash.

15 per cent, consisted of Hypnum peat, the ash content of which is

unknown .
65 per cent, consisted of Eriophorum peat, containing in the anhydrous

state 3-31 per cent, of ash.
20 per cent, consisted of bog-wood peat, containing in the anhydrous

state 6-78 per cent, of ash.
33 per cent, consisted of grass peat, containing in the anhydrous state

5-62 per cent, of ash.

16 per cent, consisted of reed peat, containing in the anhydrous state

5- 13 per cent, of ash.

The average percentage of ash in the anhydrous samples was
4 • 59. The average calorific power of the specimens was : —

Calories.
. . 5,526
. . 5,266
. . 3,463

Anhydrous, ash-free

Anhydrous

Air-dry, with 27- 17 per cent, of moisture

Air-dry, with 25 per cent, of moisture (calculated)

3,531

The average density of the finished products was 0 • 74.

At the Bog Experimental Station near Bremen, Dr. H. Minsen
examined 51 different specimens of peat in a calorimetric bomb
and obtained the results given below. According to the chemical
analyses the compositions of the anhydrous, ash-free peats were : —

Percentage of

In the whole
51 specime

From to

Df the

ns.

Aver-
age.

In the 44 lo\
peats.

From to

v bog

Aver-
age.

In the 7 high
peats.

From to

bog

Aver-
age.

Carbon

Hydrogen

Oxygen

50-16-60-10

4-44- 5-86

30-61-39-41

56-14

5-44

34-19

50-16-60-10

4-44- 5-86

30-61-39-41

56-00

5-43

33-90

55-38-58-88

5-10- 5-83

33-46-38-03

57-02

5-50

36-09

And the calorific powers found by means of the bomb varied for
the anhydrous specimens, which had very different percentages of
ash, approximately from 3,000 to 5,000 c.2 It may be assumed,
therefore, that the calorific power of the best German peats in the
ash-free, anhydrous condition is about 5,200 c. (rarely more), or,
including the ash, about 5,100 c, and in the air-dry state, with
20 per cent, of moisture, it is about 4,000 c.

1 Mitteilungen, 1905, v, p. 156 et seq.

2 For further particulars with regard to the mode of carrying out these
experiments and their results, as well as for the origin, age, consistency,
and chemical composition of the various samples of peat investigated, see
Mitteilungen, 1907, p. 335.

328

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

2. — Influence of the Percentages of Moisture and Ash on the Calorific

Power of Peat

How unfavourably a more or less high percentage of ash or
water affects the calorific power in the case of one and the same
peat or of different peats containing equal amounts of com-
bustible material, may be seen still more clearly from the following
figures.

If we suppose that the combustible portion of different kinds

of peat has an average composition of, let us say, 60 per cent.

of carbon, 2 per cent, of free hydrogen, and 38 per cent, of

' chemically bound " water, then its combustion should give in

the following cases : —

Calorific power.

Temperature of
combustion.*

Calories.

Anhydrous peat without ash

5,440

2,210° C.

with 4 p.c. ash

5,222

2,200° C.

„ 12 p.c. „

4,787

2,180° C.

,, 30 p.c. ,,

3.S08

2,150° C.

Peat with 25 p.c. moisture

3,930

2,000° C.

,, 15 p.c. ash & 0 p.c. moisture

4,624

1,976° C.

,, Op.c. ,, 25 p.c.

3,930

1,750° C.

,, 10 p.c. ,, 30 p.c.

3,084

1,575° C.

* The temperatures of combustion are not consistent with one another and are
obviously incorrectly calculated. — Translator.

Dr. G. Minsen states, as a result of his calorific power deter-
minations, that the decrease in the calorific power is not
proportional to the increase in the percentage of ash, the calorific
power decreasing somewhat more rapidly (and, indeed, in a fairly
regular manner) than the percentage of ash increases. He
calculates the calorific power for peat, the ash-free, dry matter of
which has a calorific power Hw, and which, in the anhydrous
state contains a per cent, of ash, from the following formula,
which he has found to be generally applicable : —

Calorific power of anhydrous peat containing ash (a)

= (100-q) (Hw-10ff)
100

Since it is chiefly the percentage of moisture which causes,
a diminution in the calorific power of a peat, it will be seen how
important it is to employ in the winning of peat every means by
which the amount of water can be decreased or removed without
great expense. It has been sufficiently emphasized in Part I of
this book that this is best effected by working the peat in tearing
machines, destroying the cohesion of the plant fibres, setting them
free, and intimately mixing the whole mass. In this way machine
peat, no matter how it has been moulded, dries with greater
certainty, and at the same time it loses, at least to a large
extent, the property cut peat possesses of absorbing water from

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL

329

moist air after drying. Whenever possible the drying is to be
facilitated by installing drying sheds and by storing the peat in
dry situations.

The evaporating powers of various peats, the calorific powers
of which have been calculated or measured, can be obtained for
commercial purposes as follows : —

If, for instance, the calorific power of a peat fuel is 4,250 c,
then this is to be divided by 652, since 652 c. are required to
change 1 g. of water at 0° C. into steam at 150° C. (corresponding
to a pressure of 4 to 5 atmospheres). The calculated evaporating
power of the above peat is therefore : —

4250

i.e., 1 kilo of the above peat is theoretically sufficient to convert
6-5 kilos of water into steam at 150° C.

Owing to unavoidable losses, the calculated amount of steam
is never obtained in furnaces actually constructed, and even when
these are well designed only § to | of the calculated quantity is
obtained.

With 1 kilo of average air-dry machine peat (containing
5 per cent, of ash and 15 per cent, of moisture) (§ to f) x 6-4
= 4-2 to 4-8 kilos of water can actually be evaporated.

In order to make it possible to institute a comparison in this
respect between peat and other fuels, the following table contains
the evaporating powers actually determined in many carefully
conducted experiments with various fuels in well-constructed
furnaces : —

Practical Evaporating Powers of various Fuels.

1 kilo of air-dry

Water evaporated in kilos.

Wood
Brown coal

,, Bohemian
Cut peat
Machine peat
Coal, poor

medium . .

best
Coke, with 15 per cent

of ash

3'
3-

4'
2
4'
4'

0-3-4
5-4-9
•5-6-0
•S-4-0
5-5 • 0
•0-6-0
6-0-7-0
7-0-8-0
5-0-6-0

In trials which were carried out many years ago, with great
care and under conditions as comparable as possible, at the
instigation of the Bavarian State Railway Department, nearly
equal amounts of water were evaporated by means of various
coals, peat, and wood on the same grate and with the same
strength of draught. The trials lasted for several hours, and in
most cases were made in duplicate.

(-595)

330

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

The results obtained were as follows

Fuel.

Percentage of

Moisture.

Ash.

Kilos of
water evapo-
rated by
1 kilo of the
fuel.

Weight in

kilos of

1 cb. m. of

the loosely

packed fuel.

Steam coal
Saxon coal

Bohemian brown coal
Miesbach coal
Traunthal brown coal
Haspelmoor press peat
Kolbermoor press peat
Lodron's " sausage peat "
Eichhorn's " ball peat "
Karolinenfeld cut peat
Burgau cut peat
Aitrang cut peat
Olching cut peat
Lochhaus cut peat
Pine wood . .

11 -6

4-8
12-20
16-20
12-00
20-00
15-50
18-66"|
13-60

17-10 y

29-70

15-00

8-70

15-00

10-00

9-86

9-25

5 • 78

5-30
2-71

3-0

0-4

8-00
6-34
6-59
5-19
3-88

4-07
3-86

4-10

3-88

933
787
759
817
576
633
611
281
405
' 245
319
222
183
207
351

If the evaporating power (6-34) of Zwickau coal be taken as
the average value for the better-class coals, and if that of air-dry
peat, containing up to 5 per cent, of ash, be assumed to be on the
average 4-1, then, according to the results of the above trials, so
far as heating value is concerned —

100 kilos of coal =

79-2 kilos of steam coal.

=

96-2 kilos of Bohemian brown coal.

=

122-0 kilos of Miesbach coal.

=

163-0 kilos of Traunthal brown coal.

=

154-0 kilos of peat.

=

163-4 kilos of pine wood.

or 100 kilos of peat =

51-5 kilos of steam coal.

=

64 • 7 kilos of Saxon coal.

=

62-2 kilos of Bohemian coal

=

79-0 kilos of Miesbach coal.

=

106-0 kilos of Traunthal brown coal.

=

106-0 kilos of pine wood.

The following results of experiments, which were made at the
Imperial Dockyards at Wilhelmshaven at the request of the
Oldenburg Railway Department with reference to the possibility

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL

331

of utilizing the peats (press, machine, and cut) which had been won
from the bog near the Hunte-Ems Canal and had been employed
in trial journeys on the railway, are also worthy of notice : —

!

Water

evapo-

Quan-

rated from

a

tity

0C

C.

° _;

H T3

Quan-

burnt

Tempera-

tity

per

ture of

Fuel.

■°.2P

burnt

Ash

hour

Per

flue gases.

B*

in

per

hour

Per

,fi Cu

experi-

sq.m.

per

kilo

O 3

ment.

grate

sq.m.

of

Per

area.

grate
area.

fuel.

Degrees
Centi-

Kilos

Kilos

cent.

Kilos

Kilos

Kilos

grade

1. Press peat* (Lauwer's bri-

580

3,300

7-83

164

601

3-66

250-350

quettes), moisture 5 per

cent.

2. Machine peat (Ruschmann,

432

3,200

4-09

165

670

4-05

280-370

Varel) , moisture 9 ■ 03 per

cent.

3. Cut peat from the Wehne

240

3,470

0-99

164

605

3-68

280-370

bog, moisture 18 "83 per

cent.

4. Bituminous coal (Central

752

2,100

5-64

96

837

8-69

—

mine)

* The press peat employed by the Oldenburg Railway Department in their locomotive
heating trials in December, 1900, was made from peat from the same bog as that from
which the cut peat given under 3 was obtained (cf. the section on the utilization of peat
in the railway industry.)

3. — Commercial Values of Peats containing Different Percentages of
Water and Ash. Comparison of these Values with those of
other Fuels.

The figures given in the preceding table may also serve for the
determination of the selling or the buying price of a peat having
a known evaporating power when the price and the calorific
power of another fuel are known, inasmuch as the prices of equal
weights of different fuels must be in the same ratio as their
evaporating powers if the fuels are to be equivalent for the working
of a furnace.

It may very easily happen that a business man who meets his
peat requirements by purchase from a single peat works may
require to calculate what the selling price of one and the same peat
with a different percentage of water will be when its price with a
given percentage of water is known. In this calculation we must
take into acccount not only the solid matter of the peat, which is
smaller in the wetter peat than it is in the same weight of the drier
substance, but also the loss of heat due to the necessity for
evaporating the excess of water present in the wetter material.

If, for instance, the price of an air-dry machine peat with 15 per
cent, of moisture has been agreed upon and if the seller owing,
let us say, to an insufficient stock of air-dry peat delivers a peat
containing 25 per cent, of moisture, then 100 kilos of the latter body

332 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

will not only contain 10 kilos of peat less (instead of 85 kilos only
75 kilos of anhydrous peat, corresponding to a loss of 11-8 per cent,
of the anhydrous peat and, therefore, to a decrease in the price of
11-8 per cent.) , but also in the case of the wetter fuel the heat of the
air-dry peat which is required to evaporate the extra 10 kilos of
water present, i.e., 10 x 640 = 6,400 kilo-calories, will become
wasted so far as useful evaporation (steam-raising) is concerned.
If the known evaporating power of the air-dry peat (containing
15 per cent, of moisture) contracted for were " n " and if 100 kilos
of the peat cost " K " 'Marks, then the equivalent price " Kx " of
a peat won from the same bog, but containing 25 per cent, of
moisture, would be given by : —

88-2 „ 640 x 10 , 640

Kx =—— K— — — -— 7f=if (0-882 -

100 100 X n x 652 n x 6520

., 640 , 1 1

or, if — — be assumed equal to — , K. = K (0-882

6520 x ~ 10' ' v 10n'"

The formula shows that the loss during the combustion due to
the evaporation of the excess water is all the greater the smaller
the calorific power of the peat. While, for example, in the case of
a machine peat, which in the air-dry state may have an evaporating

power of 5 • 0, the value of — — corresponding to this is — , or 2 per

lOw oO

cent., in the case of a poorer cut peat with an evaporating power of

3 the loss is — - = — = 3* per cent.
10m 30 3 y

Hence, in the former case the contract price must be lowered by
11-8 plus 2 = 13-8 per cent., and in the latter by 11 -8 plus 3-33
== 15-13 per cent.

From this we see once more what effect water in a peat has on
the value of the peat and how important it is on the one hand to get
rid of the water as much as possible and on the other to take it
into account when purchasing peat.

The inconvenience and the difficulty hitherto assumed to exist
in the correct determination of the percentage of moisture in a
given sample of peat and in the selling price which is calculated
therefrom have in various districts given rise to the custom of
selling and buying peat not by weight but by volume, and, indeed,
either according to a definite unit of volume (a vat, cord, or
clamp, &C.1) or "per thousand" sods manufactured in definite
sizes. In this case, however, we make the still greater mistake
of paying most for the lightest and least valuable kind of peat
at the same time receiving a much less valuable fuel, which
contains a more or less high percentage of moisture and with
which the value will vary, than that obtained when the peat
fuel is purchased in the air-dry state. In addition to the loss
of calorific power mentioned above due to the evaporation of

1 1 cord =' \ clamp = 80 vats = 108 cb. ft. = 3 \ cb. m. ; it contains
72 per cent, of peat and 28 per cent, of intervening space. 1 barrel
(Austrian) = 3 hi. and 1 ster = 1 cb. m. including intervening spaces.

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL 333

the excess water contained in a moist peat (which, however, can
be avoided by prolonged storing) one receives and pays for in the
moist peat (containing about 25 to 30 per cent, of moisture) 15 per
cent, more volume than the same mass of peat would have when
air-dry. Hence, for the same price we get 15 per cent, less useful
fuel, since every incompletely dried peat has a larger volume,
corresponding to its greater content of moisture, and, therefore,
equal volumes of fuel peats may contain very different weights of
fuel owing to differences in their degrees of dryness, notwith-
standing the fact that the peats may have been obtained from one
and the same bog. For an exact determination of the calorific
power of a peat and for taking this into account in calculating the
value of the fuel, knowledge of the percentage of water is not less
necessary when the peat is sold by volume than it is for the case
where the purchase of peat takes place by weight. Since, moreover,
in the sale of peat by volume or by number of sods it is very
difficult to ensure that the correct volume is received, and the
whole process being, therefore, haphazard and inconvenient, it
does not afford the purchasers as good a basis for judging the
wares acquired by them as that given by the sale of peat by weight.
In the former case, in order to be able to form an approximate idea
as to the fuel value of a clamp or a " thousand " of peat the
weight of this unit must first be determined. This mode of sale
would make the bog-owners direct their attention mainly not to
a product which would be as dense and as uniform as possible,
but to a light, formed peat possessing more or less the defective
properties of ordinary, light, cut peat, and would, therefore, not
be suitable for introduction into the machine peat industry.

For these reasons it is advisable that the sale of peat should,
in general, take place only by weight. The same conclusion also
follows from considerations regarding the utilization of peat. For
several years past it has been sold in this way in Hanover, Olden-
burg, Bremen, and the adjoining peat districts. In the wholesale
trade a procedure has been introduced which consists of taking into
account the percentages of moisture in different peats by means
of a variable deduction from the contract price, which, but in
somewhat more exact form, is worth attention.

In this case an agreement for the delivery of an air-dry peat at
a fixed price per 100 kilos is concluded between the seller and the
purchaser. At every delivery, however, a number of test sods are
broken, and by eye and touch (?) it is shown that either the peat is
up to the standard or that it contains a higher percentage of water
than that agreed upon. In the latter case a small, or big, deduc-
tion is made by agreement from the contract price.

No objection would be raised to the suitability of this procedure
if the determination of the percentage of water were more exactly
carried out, and this indeed could always be done without great
inconvenience by any seller or purchaser of peat.

In every household, in every industry, there is a heating place
or fireplace (baking tubes, frying tubes, oven, stove, boiler cover,
&c), in which (after fixing a movable false bottom, or the like,

334 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

to prevent charring) the artificial drying (kiln-drying) of small
quantities of peat can be carried out (in factories which use large
quantities of fuel it would be advisable to procure a small drying
oven, or the like, for this purpose). If we select several pieces
(about ten) from various parts of a large clamp of peat, the
percentage of water in which is to be estimated, weigh these on not
too rough a balance, dry them artificially, for which generally
twelve hours and in all cases twenty-four hours will be sufficient,
as the drying can be facilitated by breaking up the pieces, and
then determine the weight of the dried pieces ; anyone, with the
aid of a simple calculation from these two weights, can find in
every case the percentage of moisture in the test pieces, and there-
fore the average percentage of moisture in the whole amount of
the peat in question. This can be done in a relatively short time,
and with as much accuracy and certainty as is desired for the
required purpose, i.e., to allow for the effect of moisture on the
selling price and the calorific power of the peat.

Since the difference between the two weighings corresponds to
the moisture which was originally in the test pieces, the weight of
water in 100 parts of the peat, or in other words the percentage of
water W in the peat, is given by the formula :—

w- (G~g) m ,

G

where G is the original weight, and g the weight when dried, of the
pieces of peat.

In other words, the percentage of water in peat is obtained
when the product of 100 by the difference between the weights of
a given amount of peat in its undried and dried states is divided
by the weight of the undried peat.

If, for instance, 10 test pieces from a clamp weighed 7-40
kilos before and 5-55 kilos after drying in an oven, the water
which was contained in them was 7-40—5-55 kilos, and the
percentages of water was therefore : —

1-85x10 185 o-
= — = 25 per cent.

7-40 7-4

In more or less large households and furnace installations where
the payments for peat as fuel form large items, such a regular
testing of peat about to be purchased for its percentage of water
and the slight trouble connected therewith will quickly pay for
itself, when the selling price for a given kind of peat is corrected
according to the rules mentioned in this section, or when, by
taking into account the prices and the percentages of water, the
most valuable kind is found from amongst several samples
tendered.

Similar investigations should be made with reference to the
percentage of ash in peats and these should also be considered
when fixing prices. In this case, however, the matter is simpler,
inasmuch as this test for peat, especially machine peat from one
and the same peat works, requires only to be made once, since we
may assume that the percentage of ash in peat from one and the

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL 335

same layer is constant within certain limits. It can be easily
estimated by burning the peat, and as a rule will have been already
determined in, and known from, earlier experiments on occasions
when the same peat was already used.

G. — Design and Construction of Fireplaces suitable for
Burning Hand Peat and Machine Peat

1. — On the Air necessary for Combustion and on the Fine Gases

It is necessary to indicate how the furnaces employed for the
combustion of cut, stroked, and machine peat are constructed so
as to combine the best utilization of the calorific power of a peat,
corresponding to its chemical composition, with as careful as
possible a preparation and drying of the substance.

It has been mentioned already in the introduction to this
section that the oxygen of the air is always employed for the
combustion of the carbon and hydrogen contained in the fuel, the
carbon being burnt to carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide, and
the hydrogen to water vapour. The combustion gases, together
with the nitrogen of the added air (four-fifths of which is nitrogen),
acquire a high temperature and escape as the so-called " flue gases "
when they have given most of their heat to objects (steam boiler,
oven walls, &c.) on which they impinge. The aim of a furnace is
to so regulate the addition of the air necessary for the combustion
and the withdrawal of the combustion gases according to definite
empirical principles, which vary with the fuel and the use to which
the furnace is being put, that the greatest possible useful effect
may result from a given amount of fuel.

The most important parts of such a plant, i.e., fireplace, grate
or hearth, ash-pit, flues and chimney, depend as regards shape and
size not only on the amount of fuel to be burnt in a given time,
but also on the most suitable amount of air to be added for the
combustion.

The amount of fuel required in a given time for a furnace is
determined by experience extending over many years in the various
industries, according to the work to be done by the furnace (e.g.,
in boiler installations according to the amount of water to be
evaporated per hour, in brick kilns according to the number of
bricks to be burnt, in drying and heating installations according
to the number of cubic metres in the room to be heated, &c).
At the same time, the exact amount of air necessary for the com-
plete combustion of a fuel can be calculated from the chemical
composition of the fuel and the amount of the flue gases to
be led away through the chimney, from that of the added air,
the chemical composition and the temperature of the gaseous
combustion products.

Experience shows, however, that the calculated (theoretical)
quantity of air is in reality never sufficient for the complete
combustion of the fuel. The distribution of the air in the first place

336

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

Amount of Air necessary for Burning 1 Kilo of various Fuels,

Amount of

is

The carbon

The

Fuel.

Carbon .

Free
Hydro-
gen.

11

a u
Is

requires

oxygen

a x 16

6

and gives

therewith

carbon

dioxide.*

requires
oxygen
8x6.

kilos.

kilos.

kilos.

kilos.

kilos. 1 kilos.
1

kilos.

a

6

c

d

e

/

g

Wood, air-drv, with 20 p.c. of moisture

0-40

0-59

1-067

1-467

0-742

Wood, half kiln-dried, with 10 p.c. of moisture

0-45

—

0-54

1-200

1-650

0-835

Wood, anhydrous

0-50

0-49

1-333

1-833

0-927

Wood charcoal, air-dry, with 12 p.c. of moisture

0-85

—

0-12

2-267

3-117

1-577

Wood charcoal, anhydrous

0-97

—

—

2-553

3 • 523

1-783

Brown coal, fibrous, with 20 p.c. of moisture. .

0-45

0-01

0-49

1-200

1-650

0-835

0-080

Brown coal, earthy, as last

0-49

0-02

0-39

1-307

1-797

0-909

0-160

Brown coal, conchoidal, with 20 p.c. of moisture

0-56

0-03

0-36

1-493

2-053

1-039

0-240

Non-caking coal with 5 p.c. of water

0-69

0-03

0-23

1-840

2-530

1-280

0-240

Cherry coal

0-75

0-04

0-16

2-000

2-750

1-392

0-320

Caking coal

0-78

0-04

0-13

2-080

2-860

1-447

0-320

Anthracite

0-90

0-03

0-05

2-400

3-300

1-670

0-240

Non-caked coke

0-85

—

0-05

2-270

3-120

1-579

—

Cherry coke . . . . . . . . y

to

to

to

to

to

Coke

0-92

0-10

2-450

3-370

1-705

—

Cut peat, air-dry, with 25 p.c. of water

0-42

0-014

0-51

1-120

1-530

0-774

0-112

Machine peat, air-dry, with 18 p.c. of water. .

0-465

—

0-47

1-240

1-705

0-863

0-120

Anhydrous peat

0-57

0-02

0-63

1-520

2-090

1-058

0-160

Peat charcoal

0-90

0-015

0-052-400

3-300

1-670

—

* 1 cb. m. of carbon dioxide weighs 1'978 kilos.

t 1 cb. m. of water vapour weighs 0'803 kilo.

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL

337

vnd Amount of the Gaseous Products from the Combustions.

free hydrogen

and gives
therewith

water
vapour, t

Hence total

oxygen %
required.

Nitrogen *
present with
the oxygen in
the added air.

Hence total

theoretical

amount of

air.ll

Water vapour

formed from

moisture in

the fuel.

Total volume of
gases formed in
the combustion
by addition of
the theoretical
amount of air.

Total volume of

gases formed in

the combustion by

addition of double

the theoretical

amount of air.

d + g

/ + i + n + r

f+i+n+r+p

kilos. cb. m.

kilos.

cb. m.

kilos.

cb. m.

kilcs.

cb. m.

kilos, cb. m.

at 0° C.

at 300° C.

at 0° C.

at 300° C.

h i

k

1

m

n

0

P

1

r

s

t

u

V

—

1-067

0-748

3-552

2-812

4-619

3-560

0-59

0-735

4-289

9-007

7-849

16-483

—

1 • 200

0-840

3-989

3-158

5-189

3-998

0-54

0-672

5-496

11-542

9-494

19-937

—

—

1-333

0-933

4-431

3-508

5-764

4-441

0-49

0-610

5-045

10-595

9-486

19-921

—

—

2-267

1-587

7-529

5-967

9-796

7-554

0-12

0-149

7-693

16-155

15-247

32-019

—

—

2-553

1-787

8-486

6-719

1 1 • 039

8-506

—

—

8-502

17-845

17-008

35-717

)-090

0-112

1-280

0-896

4-255

3-369

5 • 535

4-265

0-49

0-610

4-926

10-345

9-191

19-301

M80

0-224

1-467

1-027

4-876

3-861

6-343

4-888

0-39

0-486

5-480

1 1 • 508

10-368

21-773

)-270

0-336

1 ■ 733

1-213

5-761

4-561

7-494

5-774

0-36

0-448

6-384

13-406

12-158

25-532

)-270

0-336

2-080

1-456

6-915

5-475

8-995

6-931

0-23

0-286

7-377

15-492

14-308

30-047

):360

0-448

2-320

1-624

7-712

6-106

10-032

7-730

0-16

0-199

8-145

17-105

15-875

33-338

)-360

0-448

2-400

1-6S0

7-978

6-317

10-378

7 • 997

0-13

0-162

8-374

17-585

16-371

34-379

)-270

0-336

2-640

1-848

8-775

6-948

11-415

8-796

0-05

0-062

9-016

18-934

17-812

37-405

—

—

2-270

1-589

7 • 536

5-975

9-806

7 • 564

0-05

0-062

7-616

15-994

15-180

31-878

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

—

—

2-450

1-715

8-144

6-448

10-594

8-163

0-10

0-124

8-277

17-382

16-440

34-524

)-126

0-157

1-132

0-862

4-093

3-241

5-325

4-103

0-51

0-635

4-807

10-095

8-910

18-711

M35

0-168

1-360

0-952

4-522

3-580

5-882

4-532

0-47

0-585

5-196

10-912

9-728

20-429

M80

0-224

1-680

1-176

5 • 585

4-422

7-265

5-598

0-36

0-448

6-152

12-919

1 1 ■ 750

24-675

— ■

—

2-400

1 • 680

7-978

6-317

10-378

7-997

0-05

0-062

8-049

16-901

16-046

33-697

t 1 cb. m. of oxygen weighs U427 kilos. § 1 cb. m. of nitrogen weighs 1 '263 kilos.

|| 1 cb. m. of air weighs U294 kilos at 0° C. and 760 m.m.p.

338 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

is not good enough, and the velocity of the current of air through
the fuel is too great, to allow of every particle of air coming into
such intimate contact with the fuel that every particle of oxygen in
the air can contribute to the combustion of a particle of fuel. It is
assumed, therefore, that the amount of air which must be added
through the hearth for the complete combustion of a given amount
of fuel is double the theoretical quantity.

The calculated amount of air required for the complete
combustion of a kilogram of peat is 4 cb. m., but in practice it
would be necessary to add double this amount, i.e., 8 cb. m. of air
per kilogram of peat.

In the preceding table are given the amounts of air required for
combustion and also the amounts of flue gases formed in the cases
of peat and other fuels. A comparison of these shows how
they vary for different fuels. It follows from the figures that
a furnace in which coal, brown coal, or the like has been hitherto
burnt with good results under given conditions of draught and
arrangement of fireplace may not, without alteration of the
conditions for draught, be employed for the advantageous
combustion of peat.

2. — Grate, Height of Layer of Fuel, and Shape of the Fire Chamber

As everyone knows, the objects for which a grate is intended
are to receive layers of the fuel, to be burnt in a given time, of a
suitable height and as uniform as possible, to admit enough air for
the combustion, and during the combustion to separate the residual
ashes from the still active fuel. As a rule a grate consists of a
number of firebars lying close to one another. The surface of the
grate — the total grate area — corresponds to the first of the above-
mentioned objects, while the sum of the areas of the clefts between
every two bars — the free grate area — corresponds to the last two
objects.

The total grate area depends upon the amount of fuel to be
burnt in a given time, and, indeed, it may be assumed that in
general the combustion of 100 kilos of fuel will require a total grate
area equal to 1 to 2 sq. m. in the case of peat, 1 -5 sq. m. for coal,
and 1 • 2 to 1 • 4 sq. m. for brown coal. The most convenient height
of the layer of fuel in a furnace is 20 to 25 cm. for peat, while for
coals it should be smaller, as a matter of fact, 15 cm. for brown
coal and 10 to 12 cm. for ordinary coal. For a given fuel the
combustion takes place the more rapidly but the less completely
the deeper the layer of the fuel.

Adjustment of the free grate area is regarded by many as the
chief means of controlling the amount of air to be admitted for the
advantageous combustion of a fuel. While taking into account the
figures given in the above table they recommend making the free
grate areas for the different fuels definite fractions of the total
grate areas. This fraction is, as a rule, to be i to J- for peat-firing,
i to I for brown coals, and \ to £ for coals. On the other hand,
very good results have always been obtained by regulating the

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL 339

amount of air admitted by means of a damper, i.e., a smoke
slide-valve set in the flue between the furnace and the chimney.
The latter is the better way of regulating the air, since the width
of the spaces between the bars of a fireplace depends mainly
on the character of the fuel, while the thickness of the bars, so far
as regards their strength and manufacture, depends on the length
of the hearth, and at the same time the free grate area for
advantageous combustion of every fuel, and, therefore, the width
of the spaces between the bars, is to be made as large as possible,
i.e., as wide as the fuel in question will allow, so that admission of
the air to the fuel spread on the grate may be as little impeded as
possible. The free grate area, therefore, varies with the character
of the fuel while the bars must at the same time be made as thin
as possible.

If the general rule given above were to be observed in the
construction of fireplaces it would lead us, especially in the case of
peat furnaces, to dimensions that would be almost impossible, and
certainly disadvantageous so far as good combustion is concerned.
Peat varies a good deal in its percentage of ash, and this, in turn,
varies considerably in character. Sometimes the ash, being light
and finely divided, falls through the spaces between the bars, and
at others, being more compact, blocks the openings in the grate.
The peat is used sometimes in the form of mould, sometimes as
crumby, light cut peat, sometimes as firm, dense machine peat.
Hence, in designing the grate and in determining the free grate
area, i.e., the width of the spaces between the bars, more attention
must be paid to the peculiarities of the material to be burnt in the
case of peat than in that of any other fuel. Many kinds of peat,
especially when in the form of condensed machine peat, retain
to some extent their sod shape during combustion and fall into
powdery ashes only when all the combustible constituents have
burnt away. It is necessary, therefore, especially in the case of
peat rich in ash, to make certain that the spaces between the bars
are large enough to allow the ashes to escape from the furnace and
the air required for combustion to enter it. Boiler furnaces for
peat such as this may, with advantage, have spaces of 20 mm. or
more between the bars and the latter may be 10 mm. thick
(according to the rule given above it would be necessary to give
the bars a thickness of 80 to 100 mm. (!) each) ; on the other hand,
when a peat mould or a press peat, which crumbles easily in the
fire, is being burnt the maximum width for the spaces between
the bars should be 8 mm.

The minimum free grate area, with which the total grate area
will vary when the thickness of the bars for a given case is taken
into account, can easily be calculated from the figures for the
amount of air required for the combustion given in the above table,
bv means of the formula : —

F= 9.

" v x 60 x 60'

where F is the free grate area, Q is the quantity of air given in the
table, which is double the theoretical amount, and v is the velocity

340 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

of the air current (the draught) through the grate, which may be
assumed as 0-7 to 1 -0 m. per second for ordinary fires and boiler
furnaces. This calculation can be used to find whether the spaces
between the bars are wide enough for the fuel in order to be certain
that incomplete combustion may not occur, even when the damper
is fully opened, by the quantity of air being insufficient owing to
the free grate area being too small.

It is clear that the air must be brought in contact with the fuel
as uniformly and as intimately as possible if the combustion is to be
complete. As this desired effect can be produced only by a grate
which allows the ashes to escape from the peat during the com-
bustion and at the same time admits the air uniformly from below
the grate, all fireplaces in which combustion takes place on a
flat hearth without a grate are to be regarded as not suited for
industrial work and should be avoided especially in the case
of peat.

Only light cut peat can be used in defective furnaces such as
these, since machine peat, which, as stated above, has the highest
efficiency, can be kept burning well only by means of special care.
(It is, for instance, difficult to ignite.) It is only when furnaces of
this class are taken into consideration that a bog-owner would be
induced to forgo attempts to obtain as dense a product as possible
when manufacturing machine peat.

Recently stoves for living rooms have been used with success
in which peat is burnt on a flat hearth. A sufficient amount of air
is maintained in these by means of a double supply of air at the
front and the back side of the box-shaped layer of fuel, as, for
instance, in the peat stove of Winter and Co., of Hanover.

The size and the height of the fireplace, i.e., the space above
the grate which serves for receiving the fuel and developing the
hot gases, are very important, especially for good commercial
installations. In plants where the heat is to be given to a vessel
suspended in the fireplace, as, for instance, in evaporating boilers,
heating ovens, steam boilers, &c, the height of the fireplace must
be chosen so that the flame can develop properly and so that its
hottest portions may come in contact with the wall of the vessel.
The best distance between the grate and the bottom of the vessel
to be heated may be assumed to be 50 to 60 cm. for peat-firing,
30 to 35 cm. for coal-firing, and 40 to 45 cm. for brown coal-firing.

The shape of the fireplace varies with the purpose for which the
firing is employed. It would take us too long to go into the
manifold variations for the different purposes, and we shall con-
sider more closely only steam boiler furnaces which are of general
importance for industry as a whole. As regards the others, it is
always advisable when constructing anew or modifying these
installations for peat-firing to consult an expert of standing, since
it may be seen from what has been said above how greatly many
conditions for good peat-firing differ from those which have
proved suitable for firing with other fuels, and how the differences
in the properties of natural peats, or of peats obtained by different
methods of winning, necessitate modifications of the average

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL 341

figures given above. Unfortunately, one can see again and again
how such installations are constructed by laymen and ordinary
artisans according to a fixed pattern, depending on the eye and
good luck, and it is no wonder that on the same hearth on which
perhaps coal or brown coal has previously been burnt successfully
peat cannot be so advantageously consumed. The blame for this is
only too frequently attributed to the peat, which is said to be
either " bad or too dear in comparison with coal," and often a peat
is put aside as worthless which would have given good results if
the firing had been carried out in an expert manner. The difference
in the consumption of fuel and in the heating effect between
a good and a bad firing installation may amount to 50 per cent,
or more.

While direct combustion furnaces such as these show, in the
case of a firm peat which is not rich in ash and which, above all
things, is thoroughly air-dry, a heating power which allows peat to
enter into competition with other fuels, the results, especially in the
case of large scale industries and big furnaces, are not always
favourable when light, cut, or dredged peat, peat mould, ashy,
earthy or similar peat is employed, which, owing to unfavourable
atmospheric or local conditions, cannot acquire a degree of dryness
sufficient for its advantageous combustion. It is then advisable to
gasify the fuel before burning it. The combustible constituents
of the peat are first developed as gases, and are then led to
the fireplace, where they are burned after addition of air. This
so-called gas-firing, which is, however, somewhat involved as
regards both plant and mode of working and which we shall
discuss later in a special section, enables us to employ successfully
a peat of little value, which can therefore be claimed as being
capable of utilization as a fuel.

What makes peat specially valuable as a fuel and distinguishes
it from almost every other fuel is the circumstance that the longer
flame from peat, distributing itself better over the boiler, evaporator,
&c, being purer , and in general more free from smoke and sulphur,
does not attack the metallic walls, or only slightly t and indeed allows
the boiler to be used twice as long as in the case of coal-firing.

3. — Furnaces suitable for Steam Boilers, Locomotives, Evaporating

Pans, &c.

It is exactly in the case of these furnaces, which are so important
and so often met with in industry, that the error is usually made of
not taking into account sufficiently the peculiarities of commercial
peat. In most cases, indeed, people demand that the peat, the
heating power of which they wish to examine before deciding
to use it as the sole fuel in their industries, should burn at least as
well as or, if possible, with greater commercial success than coal
in a furnace in which coal has perhaps been hitherto burnt with
advantage, alteration of the grate and fire chamber, if this is
done at all, being made only after they have convinced themselves
of the advantages of peat as a fuel. In these cases figures favouring

342 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

peat will rarely be obtained, while undoubtedly other results
would be arrived at if they adopted the reverse procedure of
first constructing a suitable new furnace, or of properly altering
the old one, and then carrying out the combustion experiments.

The properties of peat, which are very different from those of
coal and brown coal, demand quite different dimensions for the
furnaces from those required by the coals, in the same way as do
the various peats themselves, owing to natural differences and those
due to modes of winning. For instance, a light, moist, fibrous
peat having a density of 0-3 requires a quite different fire chamber
and quite different grate dimensions from a heavier, bituminous
peat more or less rich in ash and having a density of 0 • 8 to 1-3.
Taking into account these peculiarities, corresponding alterations
of the numbers given in the preceding portion of this section will
be required in the two cases in order to get the best combustion
for a given fuel. We should not, as unfortunately still happens
frequently, rely for the width and the height of the fire chamber
on the opinion of a mason or plumber " renowned " for setting
boiler foundations, or for the grate dimensions on the models
which a foundry may happen to have and for which they usually
quote per 100 kilos, nor should we depend for the height of the
chimney on the length of the scaffolding poles at our disposal.

The general arrangement and shape of the fireplace and its
position relative to the walls of the boiler are even more important
than the parts of the furnace just mentioned if combustion
is to be good and evaporation at a maximum. Moreover, the
high percentage of moisture, which in cut peat averages 25 and
in machine peat 18, should be specially taken into account.

The influence of this moisture on the development of heat
during combustion is given on p. 332, where it is shown that
640 c. are required for the evaporation of every gramme of water
contained in the fuel, so that for 100 kilos of peat containing
25 per cent, of moisture 25 x 640 = 16,000 kilo-calories may be
regarded as wasted.

Let us imagine a furnace, such as that shown in Fig. 1 19, with
an ordinary flat grate under a cylindrical boiler, and let a fresh
layer of fuel be added through the door of the furnace ; then an
amount of heat corresponding to that calculated above and to that
required for the pre-heating of the fresh fuel is first withdrawn from
the layer burning on the hearth, which thus becomes cooled, as the
freshly added peat cannot at once develop of itself the heat required
for the evaporation of its moisture. Owing to the high specific
volume of light cut peat, time is necessary for adding the
required weight of fresh fuel to the grate, and during this period
a large amount of cold air, pressing into the fire chamber through
the open furnace door, cools the fire, and therefore the walls of
the boiler.

The generation of steam is disturbed, and a complete, i.e.,
a smokeless, combustion on the hearth is made impossible through
this twofold (and considerable) degree of cooling of the combustion
gases, and also through the cooling action which the fresh layer

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL

343

of fuel exerts on the boiler immediately above it. A considerable
amount of time is required before the new layer is so far ignited
that it can help the combustion and the evaporation due to this.
An incomplete combustion, such as this, is always associated with
loss of fuel, and therefore with a greater consumption of fuel,
without, however, making it possible to maintain a vigorous
development of steam.

Hence it follows that an ordinary flat grate which is fixed
immediately under the boiler, and on which, as experience shows,
coal can be burned with advantage, is not well suited for peat-
firing, although installations of this type may still be frequently
met with.1

These defects are partially removed by means of the so-called
Fairbairn double grate, which may be regarded as a flat grate
divided into two parts by a fire-brick partition, 12 to 25 cm. iti
thickness. Each compartment is closed by a special fire door
and the combustion gases from the two compartments unite either

Fig. 119. — Ordinary grate furnace.

directly in front of, or over, the fire bridge c (Fig. 119). The
main condition for obtaining a real success and the best possible
development of steam in the boiler during the working of this
furnace is that one compartment of the fire chamber be filled with
fresh fuel while the other is in active glow. In the freshly filled
compartment the defects of the ordinary flat grate firing again
occur.

The fire becomes cooled owing to the incomplete combustion,
and thick black smoke is given off from the freshly added fuel,
together with the gases, such as carbon monoxide, formed by the

1 Ordinary back-flame firing, a shaft-firing, generally without a grate,
in which the combustion gases strike downwards round a scob into the
combustion chamber, is also unsuitable for peat-firing. An insufficient
supply of air, an irregular and smoky combustion, and a low heating effect
are characteristic of it.

344

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

incomplete combustion of the fuel. These products, however,
meet, above the fire bridge, the hot gases from the other compart-
ment, become again ignited and help in the development of steam.
It is advisable to let in air from the outside at this point through
vents in the fire bridge, by which means the combustion becomes
more complete and almost free from smoke. A considerable
portion of the heat becomes lost, however, owing to the cold air
which enters through the repeated opening of the furnace doors,
and when the peat is somewhat wet it is difficult to keep the fire
and therefore the generation of steam going well, because the cool
combustion gases, in so far as they find but little heat stored in the
boiler walls, which are always made of iron, exert a cooling action
on the boiler, and conversely the walls of the boiler, consisting of
good conductors, are at so relatively low a temperature that they

Fig. 120. — A fore-set double-grate furnace with hopper.

are unable to ignite and assist the combustion of the freshly
added fuel.

If combustion is to be made as regular and as perfect as
possible, it is very important that the freshly added fuel should
be almost completely surrounded with heating surfaces, which
may be regarded as heat reservoirs, the heat radiated from which
suffices to dry the freshly added peat quickly, so that heat need
not be withdrawn from the glowing layer to evaporate the water
in the fresh peat, and therefore cooling of the combustion gases
and the boiler is avoided as much as possible.

This may be effected by means of a so-called fore-placed
furnace (fore-furnace), the grate of which lies in front of and
not under the boiler (Figs. 120 and 121). Its combustion chamber
has a roof g made of firebrick (non-conducting material). This

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL

345

acts as a heat reservoir, since it becomes heated to glowing when
the fuel on the grate is burning brightly and counterbalances the
cooling of the hot gases and of the boiler, when the furnace is being
refilled, by radiation of the heat stored in it to the fresh layer of
fuel, whereby the moisture is evaporated rapidly, the fresh peat
becomes ignited, and the fire in a very short time again burns
brightly.

If such a furnace is installed, as shown in Fig. 121, according
to the method already mentioned for the Fairbairn double grate,
it will in all cases give good results, other conditions being
favourable. The plant may be considerably improved by feeding
the furnace through hoppers A and special openings e in the roof
instead of through the fire doors. The amount of air entering the

Fig. 121. — A fore-set double-grate furnace with hoppers.

fire chamber during the refilling may in this way be reduced to
a minimum. The lighter the peat the longer the refilling will
require, and during this process a large quantity of cold air may
enter the fire chamber, the ill-effects of which will generally become
evident very quickly in the manometer readings. This defect is
almost completely avoided by means of the arrangement shown in
Figs. 120 and 121. The fire doors t are opened in this case only for
stirring the fire, which does not often occur and requires little time.
Moreover, the doors may be made much smaller for this purpose
(15 cm. x 10 cm.) than for feeding fuel (32 cm. x 26 cm.), so that
for this twofold reason the amount of cold air which may stream
in is relatively small. The hoppers Ax. A2, are closed just above
the roof by sliding doors s, and are always kept full of peat. At
various intervals the stoker pulls out the slides, and the charge falls
according as desired, either wholly or partially, on the grate, on

(2595)

2 A

346

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

Fig. 122.— Hopper.

which it distributes itself. It is evident that the whole operation
of charging the furnace takes only a few seconds, and that the
amount of cold air which enters is reduced to a minimum, since
the sliding door is again closed directly the hopper has emptied
itself.

For more or less long grates two hoppers are arranged behind
one another, so that each (double) hearth has 2 x 2, i.e., 4 hoppers.
The hoppers over any one of the grates are
used alternately instead of both together,
so that the combustion becomes as regular
as possible.

Instead of putting the hoppers above the
stonework we may, according to Scholl,
arrange them as indicated in Fig. 122,
where the hopper a is built into the stone-
work near the stoking end of the furnace.
The sliding valve s can be moved by means
of a handle through an opening in the side
wall. The peat is placed on the stonework
above the hopper. The stoker draws it

from there with a kiln rake and feeds it through the hopper into
the fireplace. The inclined chute must be so made that the lower
side c d points to the middle of the grate, and therefore makes an
angle of at least 50° with the horizontal.

An equally good firing arrangement for peat is afforded by
step grates, which have an inclination of 40° to 45°, * with intervals
of 80 mm. to 100 mm. between the steps (Bolzano's grate).
This is especially the case with the Langen step grate, the con-
struction of which (Fig. 123) makes it possible to feed the fresh
peat into the fire chamber under instead of over the fuel already
burning there.

The smoke from the fresh peat and the carbonic oxide gas due
to incomplete combustion of the fuel are then obliged to pass
through the brightly glowing layer of peat, where they are fully
burnt by means of the oxygen of the added air and therefore
utilized for the development of heat.

The grate has an inclination corresponding to the size and the
quality of the pieces of peat and is divided into several steps,
so that between every two steps there extends, across the whole
width of the grate, a gap, 120 mm. to 200 mm. in height, through
which the fresh fuel can be pushed into the fire chamber. Two
side plates a limit the width of the furnace. These are connected
at their upper ends with a head-plate c, and at their lower ends,
on the boiler side, with two grate supports cx and c2. They are
provided with supports m m, on which the plates dv d2, dz for
receiving the fresh peat rest. These plates extend as far as the
surfaces where the combustion occurs. The combustion surfaces
consist of bent grate bars e f, which are carried on the hollowed
cast-iron bars b b, resting on the supports of the side plates. In

1 See Figs. 124 and 143.

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL

347

connexion with the grate bars g of the lowest step there are two
flap-doors z z formed of grate surfaces, which can be let down or
closed by means of the lever h. The pivots of these doors rest
on the trunnions i of the grate support c2, and between the latter
and the grate support c1 there is an ordinary flat grate surface,
which is bounded behind by the stonework of the boiler.

The peat thrown on the plates d is pushed, by means of the
fire-iron, through the long narrow opening between the inclined
grate and the plate. The fuel from e to w is thus pressed inwards,
it slides downwards over the inclined surface, and the portion from
e to w becomes filled with fresh peat. The fire remains in this
state until refilling with fresh peat is necessary. The coals
previously pushed in between e and w owing to the action of the
superimposed layer have in the interval evolved their most
volatile constituents, moisture, &c, in the form of vapours, and

g^ nat. size.
Fig. 123. — A step grate for peat-firing.

on being moved farther inwards, burn with an intense flame and
as high a temperature as possible.

Boiler furnaces such as this, fed solely with peat, worked well
for a number of years at the Augustfehn Iron Works.

The well-known Cornelius, Kudliez, and similar fire-grates
with special, air inlets and air distributors, the ingenious chain or
sliding grates, the horizontal grates with fore-feeders, the Frankel
trough grates (Frankel and Viebahn, Leipzig), the step grates of
Kowalsky, Keilmann and Volkers, amongst others, as well as the
dust furnaces of Schwartzkopff, de Camp, Wagener, and others,
can without trouble be utilized for peat-firing, as might be
expected from some recent reports.1 We have not been able

1 See " Handbuch der Trocken- nnd Brenn-ofen," by Francis Ranis,
Cologne-on-Rhine, 19 IS, for combustion, furnaces, grates, gasifiers, and
the various ovens and furnaces for the different industries.

348 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

to find definite cases in which these peat-firing plants have
already worked satisfactorily. In any given case thorough
preliminary experiments will always be necessary in order to
determine particulars such as size of grate, width between the barsr
and rate of admission of air, and the advice of a real furnace
expert will also be essential before a plant which has proved
successful for coal or brown coal firing can be employed with
advantage for peat-firing. Some of these furnaces, e.g., peat-dust
furnaces, can be employed with advantage even with coal-firing
only in the case of some very definite kinds of coal, which are not
always available ; and, as every expert knows, there are con-
siderable technical or commercial difficulties experienced in
procuring sufficient quantities of coal-dust of the required degree
of uniformity and fineness for dust furnaces.

Although great hopes were expressed in technical circles1 with
regard to the Gehrcke peat boiler (cf. p. 306, Patent 115007), with
which artificial drying of the peat is associated, and although the
artificial preliminary drying of the peat on which it is based was
regarded as a great advance, the plant has not proved successful,
and after many failures its construction has been abandoned.

For further particulars with regard to successful semi-gas
furnaces with peat-firing for boilers and evaporators, see
Section IV, on " Peat Gas Furnaces fof Boiler Installations," &c.

Mixtures of peat and coal have been used in boiler furnaces with
success in very many cases, and without any considerable altera-
tion in the existing firing plant.

After the outbreak of the French War in 1870 experiments
were made on a large scale in Wurtemberg as, owing to the
commandeering of all the railways for the transport of troops,
coal became scarce there, and supplies were cut off for a long period.

A report of the Imperial Central Institute for Industry and
Trade indicates that, apart from social economic reasons, the chief
advantages of employing a mixture of peat and coal for more or
less large furnaces are : —

(1) The prevention of clinkering of the grate in the case of
certain kinds of coaL

(2) Greater sparing of the boilers, since the longer flame
produced by mixing peat with coal is better distributed over
the boilers than in the case of pure coal and coke firing, which
give more powerful but smaller flames and attack certain parts
of the boilers more strongly and therefore gradually burn
through them.

According to the report, the best mixture was 2 parts of coal to
1 part of peat, but 1 part of coal to 1 part of peat also acted well,
and indeed in some cases mixtures of 1 part of coal with 2 parts of
peat were employed.

With reference to the firing arrangements, it is pointed out that
pure peat firing requires the same grate width as pure wood firing.

1 Cf. the Jubilee number, " Die Entwickelung der Moorkultur in dem
letzten 25 Jahren." of the Vereins zur Ford. d. Moork. (1908), pp. 215-220.

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL 349

For pure coal firing the grate is, as is well known, kept narrower,
and therefore in the case of mixed peat and coal firing the distances
between the grate bars must be adjusted to suit the ratio of the
•components in the mixture.

Peat Powder or Peat Dust Firing. — The boiler furnace employed
in Sahlstrom Factory for firing peat dust, won by Ekelund's
process, is operated as follows : the sacks of peat dust are emptied
into a reservoir over the boiler. The dust passes from the
reservoir through a channel into a tube which ends in the fire
chamber inside the combustion hearth of an igniting: oven. The
igniting oven is placed on transport rails in front of the boiler
so that it can be readily moved aside whenever auxiliary firing
with coal is desired. The powder introduced into the fire chamber
meets a hot-air blast and is ignited by the flame from the igniting
oven, the powder being immediately gasified and burning with a
bright flame. The amounts of powder and compressed air added
can be regulated.1 According to comparative experiments made
in February 1911, by R. Torneberg, with three different samples,
1 kilo of peat dust generated as a rule 4-87 kilos of steam, while
the same weight of coa1 produced 6-81 kilos of steam, and
therefore 1 kilo of coal corresponded to 1-40 kilos of peat
dust.2

For particulars with regard to peat dust firing for locomotives,
see Section IV, on " Peat in the Railway Industry."

Peat-firing for Locomotives and Locomobiles. — The use of peat
for firing locomotives obviously requires not only alteration in
the dimensions of the fire-box, but also in those of the tender,
both of which must be made considerably bigger for peat than
they are when coal and coke are used. When light, cut and
stroked peat are used for more or less long railway tracks, even
a big tender will not be able to carry all the peat required for the
journey, and one or two goods wagons loaded with peat must be
coupled to the tender unless peat depots are set up at various
intermediate points where the tender can be refilled.

After much indecision on the part of railway companies in peat
districts, and after it had been shown that only in the case of a few
favourably situated railways and during periods when coal was
dear could any saving in expenses be made by firing locomotives
with peat instead of coal, the use of peat in the German railway
industry decreased more and more at the end of the preceding
century. This was due to the desirability of uniformity in the
industry over the greatly extended railway systems of the various
districts, to the difficulty of procuring the very large quantities of
fuel required annually if peat in a sufficiently dry condition were
to be regarded as an essential part of the annual supply, and to
the ever-growing demands made on the capacity of the railways.

1 Wallgren, Chief Peat Engineer of the Government, has submitted
a report on the installation and its working costs. This report is given
in the Osterr. Moorzeitschrift, 1911, p. 71.

2 Mitteilnnge'n, 1912, p. 33.

350

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

In Germany, for instance, peat is no longer employed1 for firing
locomotives, except in the case of some goods trains in Bavaria
and on a few local lines.

In the present edition we have therefore refrained from giving
details with regard to the construction of locomotives for peat-
firing such as are contained in the second edition.

Fig. 124. — A locomobile boiler with a fore-set step grate for peat-firing.

Henry Lanz, Munich.

The attempts which have recently been made in Sweden to
utilize Ekelund's peat powder firing for locomotives and the
modification of locomotive furnaces rendered necessary by it have

Fig. 125. — A locomobile boiler with fore-set fireplace for peat-firing.
R. Wolf, Magdeburg-Buckau.

not so far led to a decisive result. The same may be said of the
more recent attempts made in Prussia to utilize peat more widely
than hitherto for firing locomotives.

The use of an ordinary locomobile boiler with peat-firing, if it
has not initially been adapted for this purpose by providing it with
a specially large fire-box and a large grate area, can be made
possible in various ways by suitably extending the fire chamber.

1 Cf. the subsection " Peat in the Railway Industry," in Section IV,
" Application of Peat-firing in various Branches of Industry," &c.

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL 351

Fig. 124 shows a step grate with a hopper added to a locomobile
boiler as constructed by Henry Lanz, of Munich,1 and Fig. 125
shows an extension containing the grate and fire chamber screwed
to the boiler as employed by R. Wolf, of Magdeburg-Buckau, in
his locomobile boilers for peat-firing.

The absence, as a rule, of sulphur from peat and the uniform
flame which necessarily results when peat is used contribute
largely to the life of the boiler of a locomobile or a locomotive.
The fire-boxes last much longer for peat-firing than for coke or
coal-firing. From the experiences hitherto gained it may be
assumed that a locomotive fire-box can be used with peat-firing
two or three times as long as with coke-firing, and that the
renewal of the grate bars, which is so expensive in the case of
coke and coal-firing, is quite unnecessary in that of peat.

D. — Methods and Plants for Increasing the Calorific Effect

of Air-dry Peat

In order to avoid the considerable losses of heat due mainly
to the moisture content of the peat it has been found necessary,
especially for smelting purposes, where it is chiefly a matter of
attaining high temperatures, and for competing with wood charcoal
and coke, to remove the moisture from the peat either by means
of external heat, i.e., by artificial drying (kiln drying), or by
carbonization.

We obtain therefore —

either by completely or partially removing the moisture,

" kiln-dried peat,"

or by removing the moisture and the " chemically bound

water," and at the same time driving out other volatile

constituents (distillation, carbonization), "peat charcoal."

Attempts have recently been made to utilize and increase the
heating effect of peat by gasifying it in gasifiers (unnecessarily
called generators).

Owing to the importance of kiln-dried peat, peat charcoal, and
peat gasification for industry, details with regard to these and
their commercial value are given in the following sections.

Manufacture of Kiln-dried Peat

1. — Various Modes of Drying

The artificial drying of peat always takes place in closed rooms,
called drying kilns, which are usually made of stones, and which
are filled with the peat sods to be dried, leaving spaces between
the sods for the passage of the gases and vapours. The drying
itself, i.e., the introduction and distribution of the heat produced
in a separate hearth, and the driving out of the moisture contained
in the peat by this heat, takes place in the following ways : —

1 From 50 to 60 per cent, of the calorific power of the fuel was utilized
in a 75 to 100 h.p. locomobile of this tvpe by the Count von Landsberg Peat
Litter Co., Ltd., of Velen (Westphalia). Mitteilungen, 1911, p. 327.

352 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

(1) By radiation from the drying walls, heated by the com-
bustion gases and by flues in the bottom or sides of the room.

(2) By direct action of the escaping combustion gases.

(3) By a current of hot air.

In all cases it is necessary to see that sufficient attention is paid
to the natural circulation of the hot gases, or the hot air, and also
to that of the gases which escape from the kiln saturated with
water vapour.

While the hot combustion gases and the dry hot air have a
tendency to ascend and to occupy the highest point of the drying
room, they sink down when they cool by giving up their heat, or
when their weight gradually increases as they become cooled, by
absorbing water vapour. The cold and moist gases should always
have an exit at the bottom of the drying room. The various
currents of the warm and dry gases, on the one hand, and the cold
and moist gases on the other, should interfere with one another as
little as possible, and the gases, once they have become saturated
with water vapour, should be led away at once without giving them
time and opportunity to give up their moisture again to the colder
parts of the room or to peat which has not yet become sufficiently
heated, since this moisture would have to be removed again by the
incoming hot gases.

The various methods of drying mentioned above take this
circumstance into account only to a limited extent, and the defects
due to this, as well as the greater or smaller utilization of the heat
of the fuel required for the drying, which varies with the different
arrangements, gave, especially for the first and the second pro-
cesses, a result which was scarcely satisfactory.

Since, according to the conclusions in the following subsection,
the commercial value of the kiln drying of peat is ordinarily either
a doubtful or a zero quantity, the manufacture of kiln-dried peat
may in general be regarded as now out of date.

The author is not aware that there are ovens or appliances for
the manufacture of kiln-dried peat now in use anywhere. For this
reason detailed description of the older plants is not given here.1

Some more recent proposals are contained in the Section
on Patents at the end of Part I, under the headings " The
Dehydration of Peat," &c, and " Drying of Peat."

2. — Commercial Value of Kiln Drying

The commercial advantage of kiln drying or artificial drying is
debatable in every case where it is merely a question of getting
the greatest possible heating effect from a given kind of peat, i.e.,
where the fuel made from it is to be used mainly for the develop-
ment of quantity of heat (number of calories), as for instance in
boiler installations for the evaporation of water, in drying
contrivances for warming large quantities of air, &c., and where it
is not largely a matter of the temperature of the gases developed

1 These plants are described more fully in the first edition of this work.

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL 353

in the combustion, which temperature is the chief thing to be
taken into account in smelting operations in ironworks.

We can see from the figures given at the beginning of the
preceding section that the calorific intensity of one and the same
kind of peat decreases considerably as the amount of water in it
increases. A peat, which in the anhydrous state, i.e., thoroughly
dried, gives a temperature of 2,000° C. on combustion, will,
when it contains 25 per cent, of moisture, give a maximum
temperature of 1,750° C, which temperature cannot indeed be
raised by increasing the amount of the fuel burnt in unit time. If
we want to attain the minimum temperature necessary for certain
purposes, as for instance in ironworks, the temperature 1,500 to
1,600° C. required for melting iron, we must improve the quality
of the fuel by drying it still more. Recourse will therefore be had
to the kiln drying of peat only w7hen estimates show that kiln-dried
peat is cheaper than the substances — coal, coke, peat, charcoal,
&c. — for which it is substituted, and for existing ironworks,
owing to their proximity to the coal districts, this can scarcely
be the case.

If the temperature of the combustion gases is not to be taken
into consideration or is only of secondary importance, and if the
number of calories can be increased by increasing the consumption
of fuel, as happens in the case of all steam installations, kiln-dried
peat will be in an unfavourable position from the very start. In
this case the amount of water evaporated will depend mainly on
the amount of peat burnt, and it will then be a matter of
determining whether the advantage obtained by the kiln drying
of air-dry peat, that is5 the increase in calorific effect due to this,
corresponds to the more or less high expenses for the kiln-drying
plant and process.

In this examination let us assume the favourable case that
in a well-devised oven the 25 per cent, of moisture in air-dry
peat may be lowered to about 5 per cent, by a fuel consumption
of 10 per cent, of the quantity to be dried, which, however, will
in reality be rarely attained.

We shall assume also that a calorific power of 4,500 corresponds
to the chemical composition of anhydrous peat, so that 1 kilo of
this peat, containing 25 per cent, of water, can develop 0 • 75 x 4,500
= 3,375 kilo-calories. Assuming that peat at a temperature of
20° C. is fed into the fireplace, the amount of heat just mentioned
must be decreased by 0-25 x (640 — 20) = 155 kilo-calories which
are required to convert into steam the 0 • 25 kilo of water contained
in the peat, neglecting the small amount of heat necessary to
heat the evaporated water to the temperature of the escaping
combustion gases.

From 1 kilo of the above peat with 25 per cent, of moisture
0-75 x 4,500-0-25 x 620 = 3,220 kilo-calories can be produced.
If its moisture has been lowered to 5 per cent, by kiln drying, this
weight of peat will give : 0-75 x 4,500-0-05 x 620 = 3,344 kilo-
calories. To do this, however, a further 10 per cent, of air-dry peat
will be required, and if this, together with the original amount of

354 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

air-dry peat, were burnt directly we should get : 3,220 -f- 0- 10 x
3,200 = 3,542 kilo-calories, or a 6 per cent, greater heating effect
than can be obtained from the kiln-dried peat. Moreover, all the
working expenses and installation costs would still have to be
taken into account, to the detriment of the kiln drying.

Even in the case where the peat burnt for the kiln drying can
be regarded as not so valuable as the peat to be dried and can be
estimated at a cost which is only 50 per cent, of the latter, direct
utilization of the air-dry peat is still more advantageous than kiln
drying, since in the first case, without any further expense, 3,220
+ 0-50 x 0- 10 x 3,220 = 3,381 kilo-calories are obtained as against
3,344 in the latter. It is a mistake not to take into account in
estimates of costs of winning for the working of a bog the fuel
required for machines and drying contrivances, because it is taken
from one's own bog and has not to be paid for. All so-called
waste can be worked into valuable fuel, especially when machine
peat is being manufactured, otherwise the plant would be a very
defective one if the amount required for the working became
waste. At any rate, the cost of raising and transporting the peat
from the trench to the point of utilization and the cost of drying
it must be taken into the estimate, and these will always amount
to more than 50 per cent, of the net cost of the same weight of
air-dry peat. The above estimate may therefore be regarded as
corresponding to the actual existing circumstances. Only in
cases where such an amount of wood remains and roots (which
must be regarded as impurities in the peat and separated from it)
is obtained in winning peat as will be sufficient to cover completely
the expenditure of fuel, and where this wood cannot be otherwise
disposed of, could the fuel for the kiln drying be left out of account.
In the latter case the kiln drying would increase the heating effect
by 3,344-3,220= 124 kilo-calories, i.e., by about 4 per cent.,
a gain which in most cases would be counterbalanced by the
increased installation and working expenses.

While therefore kiln-dried peat has to compete so far as
calorific intensity is concerned with coal and coke, it must also,
whenever heating effect is considered from the point of view of
thermal units, enter into competition with air-dry, cut, stroked, or
machine peat, which according to the foregoing must be unfavour-
able for the kiln-dried peat and could be taken into arxount only
when a careful calculation showed that transport costs from the
bog to the place of use or sale constituted a considerable portion
of the selling price of the fuel.

Since in transporting 100 kilos of air-dry peat 25 kilos of water
must be carried as ballast, useless for combustion, and since this
useless ballast per 100 kilos is decreased by 15 to 20 per cent, in
the case of kiln-dried peat, the freightage for the same amount of
actual peat substance would on an average be 18 per cent, cheaper.
According as the fuel required for 1he kiln drying in reference to
the mode of winning is to be assumed in the estimate as of the same
value as the fuel to be dried or as of no value, kiln drying or
artificial drying can be recommended as economical : —

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT AS FUEL 355

(a) When fuel of equal value is used for kiln drying, if 18 per
cent, of the freightage amounts to more than 6 per cent, of the
cost of production of the air-dry peat at the place wheie it is
used, together with the working expenses and the amortization
of the kiln-drying plant.

(ft When fuel at half the cost is used for kiln drying, if 18 per
cent, of the freightage amounts to more than the working expenses
and the amortization of the kiln-drying plant.

(c) When fuel at no extra cost is used for kiln drying, if 18 per
cent, of the freightage amounts to more than the working expenses
and the amortization costs of the kiln-drying plant after deducting
4 per cent, of the cost of production of the air-dry peat from these
expenses.

By paying attention to local conditions and to the cost of
winning given earlier in this handbook, this calculation can be
made without difficulty in every case.

In the kiln drying of peat we must always take into account the
fact that the water cannot be permanently removed from the peat,
but that, even after drying, the peat still retains its tendency to
absorb water, and when exposed to the open air it can re absorb
a portion of the water expelled, so that after some considerable
time it will again contain 12 to 15 per cent, of moisture. This
property increases with the lightness and sponginess of the dry
peat, and is present to a greater extent in cut and stroked peat than
in condensed machine peat, which is, moreover, better adapted for
kiln drying, since for the same installation costs it allows a much
greater amount of peat by weight to be put into the drying rooms
and therefore gives a greater output for a smaller cost of production.

The author has made numerous experiments on the re-absorp-
tion of moisture by anhydrous peat, the results of which are given
in the table on pp. 246 and 247. From these it follows that the
re-absorption of water by anhydrous peat in general, especially by
anhydrous cut peat, is very considerable in a relatively short time
after the drying, and that after six to eight days the effect of the
drying will have almost completely disappeared. When this
circumstance is taken into account, it is necessary, and indeed
this is generally the case, that the kiln-dried peat when used in
ironworks should be won directly at the place of use and should
not be stored. In cases where in reference to transport costs it
was advisable to submit the peat to an artificial drying, it was
found best not to lower the moisture in the peat below 10 per cent.

For all these reasons, artificial drying — the manufacture and
the utilization of peat in the kiln-dried state — is in general to
be rejected as uneconomical.

Section II
MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL

1. — The Various Methods of Carbonizing Peat

With a view to making peat better adapted for employment
as a fuel, especially for smelting purposes, and to making it
therefore more generally useful, attempts have been made to
decrease, as far as possible, not only its moisture content, but also
its " chemically bound water," nitrogen, &c, which prejudicially
affect combustion and cannot be removed by mere drying, and,
therefore, to increase the percentage of carbon, in exactly the same
way as it is increased during the carbonization of wood into wood
charcoal, or that of coal into coke.

This is attained by strongly heating the peat in a limited
supply of air, or in the absence of the latter. In the decomposition
of the vegetable constituents thus effected only the carbon and
the ash of the peat ultimately remain in the form of peat charcoal,
which is sometimes called peat coke.1

During the heating the moisture contained in the peat escapes
first ; acetic acid, light and heavy hydrocarbons, and ammonia are
then evolved, the latter bodies being supposed to be formed by
decomposition of the " chemically bound water " of the peat into
hydrogen and oxygen, with re-combination of these with part of
the carbon and the nitrogen contained in the peat. A part of the
combustible gases is burnt immediately after their formation in
order to produce the heat necessary for the further carbonization
and the remainder mixes with the other gasification products, and
these partly condense to tar and ammonia water and partly, in so
far as they are non-condensable, escape in the gaseous state.2

The main essential for the winning of the maximum amount of
charcoal is to avoid as much as possible the formation of these
by-products, in so far as they are carbon compounds, and to
conduct the carbonization so as to reduce the consumption of
the carbon or fuel necessary to produce the heat of carbonization
to a minimum.

1 The expressions " coal " and " coke," which, as a matter of fact, are
quite clear and unambiguous, should not be used in a different sense in
expert circles when referring to peat carbonization. Peat charcoal and peat
carbonization, so far as relates to the product intended to be obtained, bear
exactly the same relation to peat as wood charcoal and wood carbonization
do to wood, and coke and coking do to coal. If we wish to refer to the
incomplete carbonization of peat and the product obtained in the process,
we should not employ the incorrect expression " peat charcoal," for the
latter, which, as in the case of wood charcoal, simply denotes the product
of complete carbonization, and in the present case we should call the
product peat semi-charcoal, or partially carbonized peat.

2 See the products of distillation in Part II, Sections III and V.

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL 357

Carbonization, which may be regarded as a protracted drying
at a high temperature (air being excluded as much as possible), can
therefore take place in the ways already indicated for drying,
excluding, however, the hot-air method, as air at a high tempera-
ture would ignite and burn the peat, thus causing total loss of the
carbon. For the operation we have, therefore : —

(a) Carbonization by means of direct, heat — i.e., by means
of combustion gases.

(b) Carbonization by means of radiated or conducted heat.1
Following the methods used for the carbonization of wood, the

former of these operations is carried out in a limited supply of air
in ordinary piles, heaps, or in stonework ovens (pile ovens), and
the latter in closed stonework or iron muffles (retorts). We may
distinguish, therefore, between pile, heap, oven, and muffle or
retort carbonization.

In the first two cases either a part of the peat burns in the
presence of air at the beginning of the process, as in piles, or
cheaper (valueless) fuel is burnt, as in some kinds of ovens, on
grates lying outside the ovens, and the heat thus produced
decomposes another portion of the peat, so that the combustible
hydrocarbons, formed when the air-holes are partially closed,
serve to develop the heat necessary for the further carbonization
of the peat as the process continues. (The only exception is when
the combustion gases are taken from an already existing furnace
plant — as, for instance, gases from puddling, re-heating or blast
furnaces, which can be led into and ignited in the carbonizing
ovens.)

The heat necessary for the carbonization in muffles or retorts
is always generated in a separate furnace, and the combustion
gases are led round the walls of the muffle.

In addition to the above-mentioned decomposition products,
carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are always formed during
carbonization in the presence of a limited supply of air by the
combustion of carbon, and free hydrogen is formed by the inter-
action of carbon monoxide and steam. The yield of charcoal
depends a good deal on the amount of air admitted.

Experience shows that in all cases : —

(1) The longer the carbonization lasts, and the higher the
temperature at which it occurs, the freer the residual charcoal
will be from oxygen and hydrogen.

(2) The yield of charcoal is the smaller, and its percentage
of carbon is the greater, the higher the temperature of the
carbonization.

(3) For the same temperature of carbonization the yield
of charcoal is smaller the longer the time during which the
carbonization proceeds.

1 Attempts have also been made to effect carbonization by means of
superheated steam. A process by Vignole is described in detail in
Dr. Vogel's " Der Torf," p. 131. All such processes remained in the
experimental stage, their development being prevented by the installation
and working expenses being too high.

358 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

(o) Carbonization in Piles

The construction and the manipulation of the piles are the
same as for the carbonization of wood, but the supervision of
the piles and the correct carrying out of the process of carboniza-
tion are much more difficult for peat than for wood.

In most cases the piles are made in the bog itself, and for this
purpose the site of the pile is levelled and surrounded by a trench
so that it may be properly drained and dried. A so-called chimney
pole or chimney shaft is erected at the centre of the site. The base
of the pile slopes from the centre to the circumference, so that the
water vapour or other volatile products, which may condense below
during the carbonization, can drain away the more easily. If the
base cannot be well dried, and therefore the lower layers of peat
remain uncarbonized on account of the moisture coming up from the
ground, or if there is danger of the pile sinking somewhat through
its own weight, wooden poles 10 cm. in diameter are laid radially
close beside one another from the circumference to the central
stake, and these when covered with charcoal dust or dry sand form
a good dry base for the pile and last for several carbonizations.
A quantity of easily inflammable material — wood, straw, saw-dust,
&c. — sufficient to ignite the pile, is made into a heap at the foot of
the chimney pole, and round this the lower layer of the pile is built
of upright peat sods inclined slightly to the chimney pole. The
various layers are then heaped over one another on these sods, but
in such a way that the surface of the pile tapers like an egg at the
top. A firing channel extending to the circumference must be left
in the lower layers so that the pile can be ignited from the centre
outwards. Moreover, care must be taken to see that the sods are
laid in rows so close and so regular with respect to one another
that intervening spaces filled with air do not occur.

According as strong twigs of trees and shrubs or sods are avail-
able, the whole external surface of the pile is covered with these
so that the layer of earth or charcoal dust which is next put on
and which cuts off the pile completely from the air will not sink
into the peat. The thickness of this cover may decrease from
30 cm. at the base to 15 cm. at the top.

When the combustion of the pile has been started by firing the
fuel in the igniting channel and that round the chimney pole, and
when after a few hours the fire has progressed upwards round the
chimney pole so that the carbonization can begin, the cover of the
pile, which up to that time has been kept open for 30 cm. round
the pole, and the igniting channel are closed. The pile is then left
to itself for several hours in order that all the layers of the peat
in it may become uniformly heated (" sweated "). Any holes or
depressions formed during this time by irregular burning and
settling of the peat layers round the pole must be refilled with fresh
peat, after removing the cover at the spot, which must be again
replaced.

The fire is led from the centre towards the circumference and
gradually from above downwards by means of several air holes.

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL 359

30 mm. in diameter, made in the coyer, until the mass is uniformly
carbonized.

Owing to the many interstices which are unavoidably produced
in spite of the greatest care during the building of the pile, and
which become still bigger as the peat contracts during the carbon-
ization, and owing to the irregular sinking of the various peat layers
due to want of uniformity in the contraction, especially when
carbonizing cut peat from bogs, the layers of which differ a good
deal from one another, the peat pile settles in a very irregular
manner, producing clefts and fissures in its cover. It is very difficult
therefore to keep it compact, and in spite of the " green " cover one
can scarcely prevent a good deal of the earthy coating from slipping
into the pile and endangering the draught. Since when re-making
the pile, and also when the cover becomes torn, air always gets
into the carbonizing space, decrease in the output of the pile is
associated with this, and the charcoal burner has to watch a peat
pile with much greater care and circumspection than a wood pile
if he is to obtain equally good results.

Moreover, we have still the difficulty of extinguishing the pile
when the carbonization is finished. Peat charcoal keeps burning
longer than wood charcoal, and also it cannot be extinguished with
water, as wood charcoal generally is, since the water sprayed on
some peat charcoals runs off them without producing any effect,
and the water which penetrates other peat charcoals is converted
into steam, breaking up and crumbling the charcoal, which is
always friable. The only way usually left for cooling the pile and
completely extinguishing the glowing charcoal is to put a coating
of wet clay, 15 to 20 cm. thick, round it, and to make this compact
by striking it with a shovel so that all entry of air will be prevented,
and the fire will consequently go out.

The cooling of the fire nevertheless lasts two days, and the
whole carbonization, the burning and the cooling of a pile, lasts
from eight to twelve days.

To prevent the occurrence of the evils mentioned above, peat
sods as large, dry, and compact as possible should be employed
in the formation of the piles, which generally have a volume of
80 cb. m.

The output of charcoal when the carbonization is carried out
in piles amounts to 28 to 35 per cent., averaging 30 per cent,
(by weight), but in the case of good, dry machine peat it may
reach 40 per cent.1

1 Occasionally in Sweden a process is employed for the production of
small quantities of peat charcoal, which process has been adopted in North
Germany, rather owing to its simplicity than to the yield obtained, and
which must therefore be mentioned here.

The owner of the Wartofta estate in Skaraborgs Lehen, Lieutenant
C. Storkenfeld, wrote as follows in his pamphlet " Om Branntorf " : —

" A very simple method, and one which never fails after some experience
of it has been acquired, is to burn the charcoal in a trench dug in the ground,
lined with stones like a shaft. Pieces of wood laid on the bottom of. the
trench are ignited and more or less small pieces of peat are thrown on these
until the layer is 30 to 40 cm. in height. When this layer is burning so

360 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

(b) Carbonization in Clamps

Carbonization of peat in clamps, like that in piles, takes place,
on the whole, in the same way as the carbonization of wood.
The clamps are 2 m. in breadth and 15 to 20 m. in length.
Air passages are left from the various chimney poles to the sides
of the heap so as to give a better draught. In order to control
the direction of the combustion, holes are opened in the layers at
various heights. The precautions necessary are exactly the same
as those for carbonization in piles. The fire, which is started at
one of the narrow faces, advances about 0-5 to 0-8 m. each day.
The whole time required for the carbonization depends therefore
on the length of the clamp. The output of charcoal is the same
as that for carbonization in piles and in both processes the quality
of the charcoal depends on the nature of the peat carbonized.

(c) Carbonization in Ovens

This process was introduced in the last century in order to
counteract the difficulties occurring, and not always capable of
being overcome, in ordinary carbonization in piles or heaps.

The ovens employed for this purpose generally consist of fixed
pile walls of stonework or cast-iron, the form of which is cylindrical
in order to facilitate their construction. Each oven has an opening
in its straight, or vaulted, roof for the addition of fresh peat, and
another at its base for removing the charcoal. It has, moreover,
a fireplace under, or in front of, it with a fire door where the fuel
necessary for starting the carbonization is burnt. As soon as the
oven is filled with peat the latter is ignited through the lower fire
opening. When the contents of the oven are burning uniformly,
which can be the more easily secured by opening or closing air
holes which are sometimes made in the lower part of the oven,
entrance of air into the interior of the oven is prevented by closing
all the fire holes, draught holes, and air holes in the lower part of
the oven. The peat gradually glows, settles to about one-third of
its original volume, to which it is again restored by filling in fresh
peat through the upper opening, and when smoke ceases to escape

well that the flame rises between the pieces of peat, the whole trench is
gradually filled with peat, and finally a heap of the latter is made on top.
The trench should not be rilled too quickly, one to one and a half hours
being required for the operation, according to the dryness of th£ peat.
When the combustion has proceeded until the heap, as it settles, becomes
level with the ground, the pile is extinguished by laying on it some flags
over which clay is thrown.

" The pile cools in four days and the charcoal, which contains not even
the slightest (?) admixture of ash, is then taken out. This charcoal is so
active that it corresponds to three times (?) its weight of wood charcoal,
and is therefore of great advantage in the forge."

Unfortunately particulars with regard to the output of the peat charcoal
by weight are wanting. According to other reports the output in this
process is 30 per cent, by volume, which would be a very low one, as
60 per cent, by volume is obtained by the ordinary process of carboniza-
tion in piles.

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL 361

through the latter this also is closed. The carbonization is usually
completed in four days, and the cooling requires at least the same
amount of time.

Although most of the evils encountered in carbonization in piles
are avoided by working with these ovens, the yield is not appreci-
ably improved. The ovens suffer still more from the defect
observed in the case of piles, that the contraction of peat which is
ignited and gradually carbonized from below upwards produces a
diminution in volume and therefore more or less large interstices,
which generally give rise to irregular slipping of the upper layer of
peat. This slipping, together with the weight of the peat layer,
which is several metres in height, acts very injuriously on the
compactness of the peat charcoal already formed farther down,
and which, in the glowing condition, has not much strength.
This is also the reason why many small pieces of charcoal, much
waste and dust are formed.1

In order to remove this defect ovens were constructed in which
the peat burned from above downwards instead of from below
upwards, as in the arrangement just mentioned.

(1) Hahnemann's oven (Fig. 126) is one of the oldest furnaces
of this kind. It consists of a shaft oven, open at the top,
5 m. clear height and 2 to 2i m. clear width. The sole of the
hearth is spherical in section. On one side, and at the lowest
part of the shaft, an opening C is left for removing the charcoal.
On the opposite side there is a tube r, passing outwards through
the stonework from the lowest point of the sole, through which
the gaseous products are led into a receiver placed outside the
oven. An earthenware pipe E, glazed internally, 6 m. in height
and 40 cm. in diameter, is placed in the centre of the shaft
and is fixed in the sole. Just above the sole this pipe has
several air holes and draught holes corresponding to the internal
cross-section of the tube.

When such a carbonizing oven is filled with peat and the
discharging opening C is closed, the peat is then ignited at the top.
When the upper layer of peat is glowing uniformly, the top of the
shaft is closed by means of an iron cover, made in two halves, and
all the crevices are plastered. The gases formed by the combustion
and carbonization are thus compelled to pass down through the
whole of the peat to the sole, and from there they escape through
the draught holes and the tube E. When the glow has reached
the sole the fire is extinguished by closing the oven everywhere
as air-tight as possible, and then letting it cool of its own accord.2

The irregular slipping of the non-carbonized peat into the
interstices which are constantly being formed under it as the

1 Ovens such as these, which did not give particularly good results, and
which were gradually abandoned, are described in Dr. Vogel's " Der Torf,"
pp. 108-117, Muspratt's " Chemie," iii, Dr. Schenck's " Rationelle Torfver-
wertung," p. 34, and other publications.

2 A carbonizing oven of this type, constructed entirely of iron, has been
made by Moreau and Sons. An illustration of one of these ovens is given
in Dr. Vogel's " Der Torf," p. 119.

(2595) 2 B

362

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

carbonization progresses in the case of the older ovens already
mentioned, as well as the injurious effect of this on the charcoal,
are not experienced during the working of this oven, which is very
simple in construction, since the charcoal is always on top of the

JM

Fig. 126. — Hahnemann's peat-carbonizing oven.

raw material and the contraction associated with the carbonization
gradually goes on from above downwards, and owing to the slight
pressure between the pieces of charcoal these always lie on one
another more or less lightly.

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL

363

(2) Wagenmann's oven1 (Figs. 127 and 128) may be regarded
as an improved form of oven in so far as the shaft tapers from
above downwards according to the degree to which the peat con-
tracts on carbonization (if the peat does not contract too much
the ratio in which the oven tapers is 5 : 4), and therefore the
gentle subsidence of the various pieces of charcoal is assisted,
inasmuch as the charcoal presses from behind into a tapering
space, the decrease in the size of which corresponds to that due
to the contraction associated with the carbonization of the peat.

This oven differs from the others also by the carbonizing
chamber ending in a grate 5 instead of a hearth, and by the
combustion gases being led away through a tube R which is con-
nected with an air-pump. The mouth of the shaft is covered by

Figs. 127 and 128. — Wagenmann's peat-carbonizing oven.

a plate provided with air holes, the openings of which can be
regulated or completely closed by means of a slide. The opening
R can also be closed tightly by a plate.

The working of this oven is started in the same way as that of
the preceding, but here there is still another advantage, inasmuch
as the draught can be adjusted as required both by means of the
slide in the upper cover plate and by the greater or lesser action of
the pump. The oven shown in Figs. 127 and 128 is a double one.
The peat is raised to the top of the oven by means of an elevator
OP.

For the same raw material the yield of valuable, large pieces of
charcoal from these ovens was far better than that from piles or
ovens in which the direction of the draught was from below
upwards. The yield by weight was on the whole 40 per cent.

In the case of one of these ovens in good working order, even

1 Dr. Schenck's " Rationelle Torfverwertung," p. 35.

2 B

364

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

if a less valuable fuel than that to be carbonized (usually the best
of the winning) is added as fuel to produce the carbonization we are
still unable to prevent a part of the more valuable peat from being

let) 50

O* _L n.Gr.
I

5M.

Figs. 129 and 130. — Weber's peat-carbonizing oven.

lost by combustion so long as the gases necessary for the carboniza-
tion are developed in the carbonizing chamber itself by the
combustion of a portion of the charge in a limited supply of air.

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL 365

To avoid this loss and to be able to utilize the least valuable
material in a bog for producing the heat required for the carboniza-
tion Dr. Schenck generated gases from this less valuable material
in a special furnace, provided the top of Wagenmann's oven with
a tightly fitting cover (Fig. 128), and led the gases from the gas
furnace by means of a tube G through this cover into the carboniz-
ing chamber.

By regulating the current of gas the temperature of the oven
could be raised or lowered as required and the entrance of excess
of oxygen into the carbonizing chamber could be prevented. The
useful fuel contained in the peat remained, therefore, unburnt and
a better yield of charcoal was obtained.

(3) Weber's Carbonizing Oven as used at Staltach (Figs. 129
and 130), was constructed in a similar manner. In this case also
less valuable fuel was burnt for the carbonization of the peat in a
fireplace F alongside the carbonizing oven. The combustion gases
entered through y into the carbonizing chamber, spread through
this and carbonized the peat from above downwards. The pro-
gress of the carbonization could be inspected through the stirring
holes s, all round the oven, which were 15 cm. in diameter and
could be closed tightly by lids. By opening one or other of the
stirring holes for a more or less long time and by poking the peat
with an iron bar the combustion could also be regulated.

The oven itself was built of stones and was cylindrical in shape.
It had a diameter of 4-5 m., a height of 1 -3 m., and could take
a charge of 20 cb. m. of peat. At the level of the base and across
the whole section of the oven wire nets were stretched, and on
these, which rested on iron rods c supported on pillars p, the peat
was thrown.

The bottom was excavated to a depth of 50 cm. under the wire
frame, and in the cavity thus made the heavy tarry vapours,
formed during the carbonization, collected and were led away
through a wide tube R, which was connected with the air-pump,
and when the latter was working these vapours, together with
the other combustion gases, were drawn out of the oven.

The lid of the oven was made of plate -iron. Its edge, which
was turned to a depth of 80 mm., fitted into a groove in the oven
which was filled with sand, and in this way it was possible to make
the joint air-tight. The lid was raised by means of a chain which
was fastened to the centre of the lid and ran over a shaft fixed
in the roof. When the oven was full the lid could be again
lowered.

The fire was kept going in the fireplace for twenty-four hours,
after which time the carbonization was complete. The oven was
then left cooling for the same period and finally emptied.

Two men could charge the oven in a day and empty it in half
a day. The yield was 50 per cent, by weight and 76 per cent,
by volume. As condensed, moulded peat was employed at
Staltach, the peat charcoal obtained there, which was used in
cupola furnaces, was very strong and compact. Its density
was 0-30.

366 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

(d) Carbonization of Peat in Muffles by means of Radiated or

Conducted Heat

Partly in order to cut down the expenses by using less
valuable fuel for producing the heat required for carbonization,
partly in order to obtain a better yield of charcoal by carbonizing
in the total absence of air, and partly to be able to collect with
greater certainty and convenience the by-products of the gasi-
fication— tar, acetic acid, ammonia, &c. (by the utilization of
which, increase in the earnings was to be expected) — closed
stonework or iron muffles or retorts for containing the peat to
be carbonized were constructed. Round these the combustion
gases, produced in a fireplace in front of, alongside, or under the
muffles, were led so that their heat was imparted as fully as possible
to the walls of the muffles. Owing to the heat developed in the
muffles, from which air was completely excluded, the carbonization
of the peat took place with separation of the above-mentioned
decomposition products, the volatile constituents (tar, peat oil,
and ammonia) of which were led through a tube to a condenser
while the charcoal was left in the muffle.

The results did not, however, altogether correspond to
expectations, as the consumption of fuel was relatively high
(33 per cent, of the peat to be carbonized) and the output of
charcoal, both as regards quality and quantity, was not appreci-
ably better than that obtained by carbonization in piles. More-
over, the gain due to the utilization of the by-products (see the
following section) did not correspond to the expense incurred in
their further treatment.

Only under particularly favourable conditions, when the prices
for wood, charcoal, or coke were high, when the fuel required for
the carbonization could be assumed not to cost much and when
the yield of tar was good, was this carbonizing process able to
secure a permanent footing in a few localities.

The oven described below may be regarded as typical of the
better contrivances of this class employed in their time.1

These carbonizing plants, which are provided with separate
firing arrangements, are called muffle or retort ovens in order to
distinguish them from the pile ovens mentioned in the preceding
subsection, and are subdivided into vertical and horizontal
muffles. The vertical ovens are usually made of fire-bricks or
stones and the horizontal of iron.

These ovens were constructed (a) with vertical axes by Jungst,
of Lingen, in Hanover, and (b) with horizontal axes by Lottmann,
of Josefsthal, in Bohemia, amongst others.

1 Several of the older contrivances will be found in Dr. Vogel's
Der Torf."

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL

367

(1) Jiingst's Peat-carbonizing Oven

Figs. 131 and 132 show several ovens of this type arranged
in a row beside one another.

The carbonizing chambers A have a height of 5 m. and a clear
width of 3 m. at the bottom and 1 -5 m. at the top. The heating
holes c and the grates d have a width of 52 cm., a height of 60 cm.,
and a combustion surface of 0 • 1 sq. m. The discharging openings b
are 0-6 m. wide and 0-9 m. high. The space intervening between
the cover of the oven and the shaft itself is 0 • 5 m. at the base. The
bricks and the muffle shafts ^ a brick in thickness.

cover is

n

loo 50 V

ilUjJU-Ui

3

l

5M

Figs. 131 and 132. — Jiingst's peat-carbonizing oven.

The gases from the fires play round the muffles and escape through
the draught holes /. The exit a for the volatile gasification
products in the funnel-shaped bottom of the muffle is arched over
with peat when the oven is being set and then the muffle is filled
from the top, the opening b is walled up and the upper mouth is
closed by a lid sealed with sand. The fire ignited on the grate d
is at first kept burning gently for twenty-four hours and is then
made burn strongly for sixty hours, the liquid flowing out of a
being kept under observation all the time. At first the liquid is
aqueous, later it becomes tarry, and when it begins to smell all
the heating and draught openings are closed. The charcoal can
be removed after three days, and the whole carbonization lasts,
therefore, about seven days.

368 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

Attempts have been made in the case of this mode of carboniza-
tion to drive out the water separately during the gentle heating
to which the peat is first subjected and to retain the tarry con-
stituents in the upper part of the muffle, so that they may be
re-absorbed by the porous charcoal as this cools, thus making
the charcoal more compact, but these attempts have been
only partially successful. The charcoal in the upper layer is,
nevertheless, the best.

At the Alexis Works, at Lingen, where these ovens were used
for some time, cut peat from Burtang Bog and dredged peat from
Rupenest Bog were carbonized. The weekly output of an oven
was 1,150 kilos of charcoal with a fuel consumption equivalent to
25 to 30 per cent, of the peat carbonized. The yield of charcoal by
weight is said to have been 40 per cent, for light peat and 60 per
cent, for dredged peat.

(2) Lottmann's Peat-carbonizing Oven

The chamber ovens erected at the Josefsthal Iron Works by
the Mining Superintendent Lottmann, fifteen of which were in
regular operation in 1860, each consisted, as Figs. 133 and 134
show, of a vaulted room having an egg-shaped plan, which was
2-8 m. in width at the wider and 2-3 m. at the narrower end.
The chamber itself was formed by the inner cover h, which tapered
at the top into the stonework of the outer cover. The firing was
carried out on the central grate a and on the two side grates b b.

The combustion gases formed at the grate a were led to the
chimney g through the conduit /, not, however, directly, but, in
order that the peat in the centre should be also heated and
carbonized, they were forced by interposed partitions to pass
through U-shaped cast-iron tubes r, 24 cm. wide, and to give up
a portion of their heat to these. The gases developed on the side
grates b b played round the thin walls of the chamber through the
intervening spaces m, and then escaped through the slide valves
into the chimney.

The charging of the oven, which required 25 cb. m. of peat, was
effected through the door t and the charging holes o o. When the
oven was full the carbonizing chamber was slowly heated. As the
temperature increased the valves, which at first were all open,
were closed as far as the lowest. The gasification products escaped
through two waste pipes, 20 cm. wide, which were attached near
the crown of the arch and which ended in a condenser. After six
to eight hours' heating peat was again added through the charging
holes o o, and this operation was repeated once more later on.
The heating lasted fifty to sixty hours and could be regarded as
finished when the waste pipes, in spite of the heating, began to
grow cold and the condensed gasification products, together with
the outflowing tar, consisted of a liquid which had a wine-red
colour. The air holes in the surrounding walls were then opened
and the oven was cooled in about three days by the cold air
streaming between the chamber and the surrounding masonry

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL

369

to the chimney. The work was regulated so that the oven was
filled on Tuesday, the carbonization was finished on Thursday,
and then on the following Monday, when the oven was cold, the
charcoal was withdrawn.

Figs. 133 and 134. — Lottmann's peat-carbonizing oven.

The volume of the oven was 20 cb. m., but in the early stages of
the operations another 5 cb. m. of peat were added. One thousand
sods, 26x13x13 cm., when heated by means of 460 sods (i.e.,
45 per cent.), for which, as a rule, waste peat was employed, gave
25 cubic feet (German) or 8 hi. of charcoal, 1 cubic foot of which

370

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

weighed 3 • 5 kilos when fibrous peat and 6 kilos when bituminous
peat was used for the carbonization.

For use in blast furnaces the charcoal was mixed to the extent
of half to two-thirds with wood charcoal. It was also employed
with advantage for smelting iron, the peat charcoal from the
bituminous peat of the locality completely displacing soft wood
charcoal billets for this purpose. The following table indicates
the nature of the peat and of the product obtained from it by
carbonization.

Substances carbonized.

Light fibrous
peat.

Compact
fibrous peat.

Bituminous
peat.

Water

Per cent.
18

Per cent.
26

Per cent.
20

Charcoal
Tar

Tar-water
Gases

30-00

6-00

33-00

31-00

33-43

4-68

42-50

. 19-29

30-34

6-96

37-50

25-20

Percentage of ash in the peat
Percentage of ash in the charcoal . .

1-34
3-33

1-35
2-99

1-87
4-93

Density of the peat
Density of the charcoal

0-26
0-230

0-52
0-208

0-48
0-355

The working of these chamber ovens can scarcely be said to be
economical, since with a fuel consumption of 45 per cent, the yield
of charcoal, between 30 and 40 per cent., is obviously small, while
equally good, and even better, results are obtained with the above-
described pile ovens without any special expenditure for firing.

(3) Carbonizing Ovens with Horizontal Iron Muffles

The shape and the stonework setting for these are the same
as for the muffles and retorts for coal-gas factories, to which
a general reference is therefore given. As an example we shall
give below only the chief dimensions of, and the results obtained
in working, a peat charcoal factory erected by Dr. G. Thenius, for
the Salzburg Peat Bog Utilization Company, which was, however,
very quickly given up as it proved to be uneconomical.

The main building of the factory had a length of 38 m., a width
of 13-3 m. and a height of 7-6 m. The peat carbonized was all
kiln-dried, and for this purpose a drying installation was con-
structed with underground hot-air furnaces. The oven house was
so large that it could conveniently take 12 ovens in 2 rows with
3 to 5 muffles in each oven, that is, 36 to 60 muffles in all. Wrought-
iron muffles (Figs. 135 and 136) were employed to carbonize the

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL

371

peat. Each muffle had a length of 2 -20 m., a width of 0-93 m.,
and a height of 0-3 m. The pipe R was intended for the escaping
tarry vapours and the ammonia water and was provided with a
valve s for blocking off the vapours when desired. In the interior
of the muffles and in front of the descending pipe there was a
sieve E formed from a 20 mm. iron plate containing holes 26 mm.
in diameter, the object of which was to prevent pieces of peat from
falling down the pipe. It was found necessary to test the sieve
plate frequently by means of pointed iron rods to see whether its
holes were blocked or not.

Wrought-iron muffles were selected by the inventor because
they do not crack so easily as cast-iron, because they are cheaper,
and, also, when peat is used as fuel, last much longer than cast-iron

Figs. 135 and 136. — A wrought-iron peat carbonizer.

muffles, especially when they are surrounded by a thin covering
of a refractory material.1

2.— Recent Methods of Carbonizing Peat

The progress of technics, especially of the art of firing and
the advances made thereby in recent years in the coking and
gasification of coal and brown coal, could not fail to have an effect
on peat carbonization, which for the reasons given above had
formerly been regarded as uneconomic, and therefore abandoned.
The renaissance of peat carbonization was regarded as a new
solution of the peat problem." Several plans for the improvement
of the process were proposed, and some were even put into
operation on a large scale, but most of them after a short
time were again given up as failures. Of these only the following

1 For particulars with regard to manipulation of the retorts and the
results obtained, see George Thenius's " Die Torfmoore Oesterreichs."

372 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

are worth mentioning, either because they were given in technical
journals a quite unjustifiable importance by their discoverers and
therefore the attention of peat owners was directed to them, or
because the impossibility of their technical and commercial success
cannot be predicted by mere consideration of the methods pro-
posed for their application.

1. — Process of Gumbert and Loe

According to this process freshly slaked lime is to be added to
the dried peat and the mixture is to be carbonized, with recovery
of the by-products, then powdered, mixed with water, and made
into press peat charcoal. The carbonizing oven contains several
■compartments, with sloping bottoms and tops, and a movable tube,
according to the position of which the operation can occur with or
without recovery of by-products.

The press peat charcoal is apparently intended to compete with
press brown coal and coal for ordinary domestic or industrial
firing.

It is a priori evident that this cannot be done with commercial
success. Considering the prevalent prices for the commoner fuels
(especially press brown coal and ordinary machine peat), as well as
the decrease in weight due to the carbonization itself, the price of
unit weight of the residual peat charcoal is much too high in
comparison with the increase in the calorific power due to the
carbonization.

Peat charcoal can be considered commercially only in relation
to wood charcoal and coke, but the product obtained by this
process would not, however, be able to compete with these
substances. (Cf. the general statements with regard to the
commercial value of peat carbonization.)

2. — Ekelund's Process1

Ekelund, of Jonkoping, Sweden, bases his peat-carbonizing
process, which is to bring about " the greatest possible utilization
of large peat bogs, even those of Germany," on the experience that
carbonization in ovens is the best of the older processes, but that
it requires well-dried peat of as great a density as possible, and
therefore machine peat, which is too dear for many purposes ;
while, on the other hand, it necessitates a great consumption of
fuel for the carbonization itself, and nevertheless gives a poor yield
and a very porous charcoal. In order to obtain a peat charcoal
which could be generally used and would be marketable when in
competition with coal (!) we should not regard good air-dried or
indeed kiln-dried peat as a preliminary essential for the manu-
facture of peat charcoal on a large scale, nor should we use the

1 Further particulars are contained in the pamphlet "Die Herstellung
komprimierter Kohle aus Brenntorf," by H. Ekelund, Leipzig, 1892.

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL 373

more or less dear machine peat for this purpose. We should rather
employ ordinary half-dry cut or hand peat such as can be won in
almost unlimited quantities in any bog during summer and winter
even in unfavourable weather conditions, or may be bought locally
at very low prices.

According to Ekelund's process, by employing suitable ovens
with a fore-drying chamber,1 hand peat with 60 per cent, of
moisture can be carbonized with the same consumption of fuel as
was required for peat with 30 per cent, of moisture in the other
ovens. Since the carbonization in the oven with direct heating
does not require more than one-tenth of the fuel necessary for
retort or muffle carbonization, the result is that he can carbonize
in his oven the same quantity of peat with, however, 60 per cent.,
of moisture, by means of one-tenth of the fuel with which this
amount of peat containing 30 per cent, of moisture can be
carbonized in a muffle.

Ekelund estimated the income of a factory with a yearly
output of 100,000 hi. (8,000 m. tons) of a dense peat charcoal from
the results of large scale experiments as follows : —

760,000 hi. of raw peat at 5 ore

50,000 hi. fuel peat (machine peat) at 12 ore

3,000 days' work by labourers at 2 kr.

Cost of supervision

Interest and amortization

Sundries

Kronor.2
38,000
6,000
6,000
5,000
11,000
4,000

Total . . . . 70,000

This gives for 100,000 hi., when these are sold at the low price
of 1 kr. for 1 hi., or 12-50 kr. per metric ton, a gain of 30,000 kr.

Ekelund calculated the installation costs for such a single-
oven plant at only 16,500 kr., and for a double-oven plant, with
twice the output, only a further 6,500 kr. would be required.

The expectations based on these proposals and estimates have
not been realized. The experimental factory, which was erected
at the time, was very soon obliged to shut down. Ekelund himself
and his fellow-countrymen have not pursued the matter any
further.

1 For this purpose Ekelund provides his carbonizing oven with an upper
compartment in which the fresh peat, packed into the oven for carboniza-
tion, is heated and dried beforehand, also with another compartment under
the oven into which the finished charcoal is let fall while the fore-dried peat
is being filled into the oven from the upper compartment. Continuous
working is thus made possible. The heat withdrawn from the finished
charcoal as it cools in the lower compartment is utilized by means of
suitable contrivances for carbonizing in the middle, and fore-drying in the
upper, compartment.

2 1 Swedish krone=100 6re= 1-125 M. .\ 1 bre=U Pfg.

374 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

3. — Jebsen's Electrical Process and other Electrical Processes

According to this process the peat when dried in the air or
to some extent artificially is carbonized completely by heating it
by means of an electrical current in air-tight muffles (retorts).
The gases which are formed are led through the cover of the muffle
and utilized for heating the drying rooms. From 100 kilos of
air-dry peat, 33 kilos of peat charcoal, 4 kilos of peat tar, 40 kilos
of tar-water, and 33 kilos of gases are obtained. The charcoal,
which is very compact and has a deep black colour, contains
76-91 per cent, carbon, 4-64 per cent, hydrogen, 8-15 per cent,
oxygen, 1-78 per cent, nitrogen, 3 per cent, ash, 0-70 per cent,
sulphur, and 4-82 per cent, volatile matter. The electric current
is generated by five dynamos, each of which has an output of
80 kw. and is driven by a 128 h.p. turbine.

This process, which was at first reported upon very favourably
in Norway, can perhaps be utilized there where the electric
current may be generated by means of water power which cannot
be otherwise utilized at the given locality. Under other conditions
the process cannot be regarded as affording any prospect of
commercial success. Even the factory in Norway has already been
shut down.

Similarly, other electrical processes for carbonizing peat, e.g.,
that of the Electro-Peat-Coal Syndicate in England, that of
the Pentane Works at Tilsit, and of the Osmone Works in Switzer-
land, have not proved successful. The factories erected in 1908
to 1910 by the above-named companies have ceased working, and
the companies have been dissolved.

4. — Ziegler's Process

As a result of the experience gained by him in brown coal
distillation, the civil engineer Ziegler, of Berlin, has devised a
peat-carbonizing process by applying and suitably modifying
contrivances which have proved successful for the gasification of
brown coal. The process was first tried at Oldenburg during the
years 1894 to 1897, and after having been repeatedly improved
it remained in use up to 1913. Notwithstanding the favourable
report of the deputy sent by the State to examine and report on
the factory1 it has not met with a satisfactory commercial success.
The factory belonging to the International Peat Utilization
Company, later called the Oldenburg Peat Coke Works and
Chemical Factory, which was equipped with five ovens for work
on a large scale, produced a good marketable charcoal, was said to
show a satisfactory profit, and gave rise to the construction of

1 This report is published in the October number of the Verhandlungen
des Vereins zur Beforderung des Geiverbfleisses, 1903, Berlin, and is supple-
mented by some remarks by Ziegler in the December number. See also
Mitteilungen d. V. z. F. d. Mk., 1904, pp. 14 and 32.

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL

375

similar factories at Redkino (Russia), Beurenberg (Bavaria), and
other places, which, however, have not fulfilled the expectations
entertained with regard to them.

Ziegler, like Ekelund, strove to utilize the heat of the non-
condensable gases, given off during the carbonization, for coking
the peat so that for heating the carbonizing ovens no fuel should
be required except these gases. Ziegler, however, laid great
stress, for the commercial success of his process, on the winning
and utilization of the condensable substances — tar, ammonia,
acetic acid, &c. — carried over in the waste gases, since otherwise
the peat charcoal won would be too dear. He also considered it
important that the work should be continuous, and that the
charcoal obtained should be compact and suitable for smelting
purposes.

Fig. 137. — Ziegler's peat-carbonizing oven. Vertical section.

The heat set free during the carbonization is used for concen-
trating the by-products, and the waste combustion gases from the
fire, employed to heat the oven, are mixed with air and used to dry
the peat. Here, as in Ekelund's process, an "attempt is made to
utilize for large scale operations a raw peat which is not quite
air-dry, and thus make the process independent of the weather
in so far as relates to the winning of the raw material.

The problem of producing a charcoal sufficiently strong for
metallurgical purposes is solved in Ziegler's process, as is made
clear on p. 389, by carbonizing only machine peat in as dense
a condition as possible.

The Ziegler peat-carbonizing oven1 contains, according to a
pamphlet on the process distributed by the Peat Coke Industry
Co., Ltd., of Berlin, two adjacent muffle shafts, oval in cross-
section, the lower portions of which are made of fire-brick and the
upper of cast-iron surrounded by fire-brick (Figs. 137 to 139).

1 Compare the Letters Patent 101482 and 103507.

376

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

The muffle or retort shafts rest on a common cast-iron base d,
which is provided with two discharging openings a for removing the
charcoal. The two shafts are provided at the top with hoppers c,
which can be tightly closed. Between the two walls there are

Fig. 138. — Ziegler's peat-carbonizing oven. Outside view and section.

passages fx to /8 for the combustion gases. The dimensions of
the ovens are such that in twenty-four hours 18 m. tons, or in
a year 5,000 m. tons, of air-dry peat, containing 20 to 25 per cent.

Fig. 139. — Ziegler's peat-carbonizing oven. Horizontal section.

of moisture, can be carbonized. Experience shows that the amount
of non-condensable gases formed is sufficient for heating the ovens
and boilers in the factory. The ovens have three lower d and two

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL 377

upper e fires for heating them. The combustion gases pass
successively through the passages fx to /8, lying over one another,
and then go through the flue h into the drying rooms or the
chimney. In order to be able to watch the ovens and measure the
temperature during the operation, each fire passage has a spy-hole
in the front and in the rear side of the ovens. In the lower fire
passages the temperatures are about 1,100° C, and in the upper
600°, 500°, and 400° C. (The combustion gases, escaping with
a temperature of 300° C, are used in the new installations for
drying, in separate drying rooms, any peat which may be too
moist for use.)

In the interior of the oven the temperature rises to 600° C.
The heat contained in the gasification products (water vapour and
tarry gases), which escape from the oven shafts through the tubes
i and k at a temperature of 200° to 300° C, serves for evaporating
in the pans I and m the ammonium sulphate and calcium acetate
solutions obtained from the tar-water.

The ovens, after they have been charged with raw peat, are
heated at first by means of peat. After forty-eight hours so much
non-condensable gases are evolved that the firing with peat can be
stopped and the heating continued by the combustion of the gases
given off. The air required for the combustion is previously heated
in the cast-iron chamber under the oven, and at the same time
the finished charcoal is cooled there. The regular working now
begins ; every hour the charcoal is allowed to fall through the
discharging openings right and left alternately into cars n, which
can be closed air-tight and in which the charcoal must be left until
quite cold. Fresh peat is added to the ovens through the hoppers
c c after each withdrawal of the charcoal from the ovens, and the
work is therefore continuous. The water vapour and tarry gases
formed by the carbonization of the peat in the oven shafts are
drawn off by an air-pump o and driven through a tubular receiver p
in which they are cooled by the air, with condensation of tar and
tar-water. The non-condensable gases are driven through a safety
contrivance, and then utilized for heating the ovens, boilers, &c.
Fuel is therefore required only for starting the firing of the ovens
and boilers. The gases can develop about 1,200 kilo-calories per
cubic metre, and may also be utilized in gas engines.

In addition to the peat charcoal, a product termed by Ziegler
" peat-heating coke " or " brown coke," but better named " semi-
coke" or "semi-charcoal," could be prepared in the Ziegler
carbonizing oven without modifying the plant. This was an
incompletely carbonized product from which, in addition to water,
only small quantities of tar and gases had been removed. It
resembled the peat charcoal and was almost as strong and
compact as the latter. Even when allowed to remain for a long
time in water it did not absorb the water. The peat-heating coke
was obtained by allowing the peat to pass through the oven more
rapidly than it did when peat charcoal was being won. It was
therefore not fully carbonized.

In carbonizing (coking) air-dry machine peat (containing 20 to

(^595) 2 c

378

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

25 per cent, of moisture) the Ziegler ovens gave on an average
the following results : —

During the
manufacture of
peat charcoal.

During the
manufacture of
semi-charcoal.

1. Peat charcoal or peat semi-charcoal

2. Peat tar

3. Peat tar-water

4. Gases . . . .

50
o

36
12

100

The peat charcoal as it came from the oven was a perfect
substitute for wood charcoal and in many cases even for coke.
It was obtained in large, sod-shaped pieces. This peat charcoal
was porous like coke, but rang hard, and could be so far sintered
in the Ziegler ovens that, unlike wood charcoal, it withstood
pressure as well as coke.

On examination of peat charcoal, peat semi-charcoal and wood
charcoal, the following results were obtained : —

Peat charcoal
from a high-bog

Peat semi-
charcoal

peat poor in ash.

Wood charcoal.

Carbon

Hydrogen

Nitrogen

Oxygen

Sulphur

Ash

Moisture

84-23
1-93
1-49
6-28

3-09
4-47

73-50
3-59

14-41

0-20
2-50
4-34

85-18
2-88

3-44

2-46
6-04

Calorific power. .

•

•

100-00
7,042 c.

100-00
6,776 c.

100-00
7,670 c.

The peat tar obtained by this process resembles brown coal tar,
and differs from it only by containing considerably more creosote.

Like brown coal tar, it can be separated by distillation into
wax and illuminating oil.

The commercially saleable products from 100 kilos of tar are,
according to Ziegler : —

10 kilos of paraffin wax melting at 48° C.
58 kilos of illuminating oil.
12 kilos of creosote oil.

The peat tar-water contained, so far as useful constituents are
concerned, ammonia, acetic acid, and methyl alcohol.

From 1 cb. m. of the tar-water about 10 kilos of ammonium
sulphate, 15 kilos of calcium acetate, and 15 kilos of methyl
alcohol were recovered.

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL 379

In a carbonizing factory of this type the following substances
are obtained from peat in the order given : —

Peat

Peat charcoal Tar Tar-water Combustible

gases

Illuminating Creosote Paraffin Ammonium Calcium Methyl
oil wax sulphate acetate alcohol

From the nature of the process there can be no doubt that
the well-burnt peat charcoal thus obtained is generally equal in
value to good wood charcoal both as regards its utility and its
calorific power. According to a report from the Bleymuller blast-
furnace works at Schmalkalden, it will withstand the pressure
in blast furnaces having heights up to 12 m.

The saleability of the charcoal, as well as the commercial value
of the whole process, depends on the cost of production of the peat
charcoal, including freightage to the place where it is utilized, the
selling prices of the by-products (tar, ammonia, &c), as well as
on the market price of the wood charcoal competing with it, or
in the case of peat charcoal for heating purposes on the prices
of brown coal and coal.

From the above particulars it follows that the commercial
success of Ziegler's peat-carbonizing process depends on the
winning and utilization of the tar and other volatile products,
since if this is not done the charcoal will, without doubt, be too
dear. If this is not sufficiently borne in mind, or if the utilization
of the gasification products meets with difficulties, the profit
expected from the undertaking will be endangered. This has been
the case in the Ziegler factories which have so far been constructed,
for instance at the large Russian factory at Redkino, which has
eight carbonizing ovens and was intended for a yearly output of
500,000 pud, and at the factories at Beurenberg, where the winning
of the quantity of air-dry machine peat necessary to keep the
carbonizing plant working fully appears to have proved too
troublesome and too expensive on account of the machines
employed there being insufficient for the purpose.

5. — Bamme's Peat-carbonizing Process

Bamme, like Ziegler, tried to utilize peat by carbonizing it,
with recovery of the by-products. Carbonizing ovens for his
process have been erected at Augustfehn (Oldenburg) and Stick-
hausen (East Frisia). Bamme's oven differs somewhat from
Ziegler's. It is a chamber oven consisting of a number of
compartments lying beside one another, which are provided with
heating flues under it as well as in its two sides. The base of the
chamber consists of a plane sloping at such an angle that isolated
pieces of peat or charcoal will not remain lying on it. The main

2 C 2

380 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

effect of the inclined surface is that the peat which has already been
carbonized to some extent continually slides to the lowest and at
the same time the hottest place, where it remains about four hours,
and becomes fully carbonized at the more or less high temperature
which is constantly maintained there. The fires for heating the
ovens are inside the stonework of the ovens and on a level with
the base of the oven house. By using only refractory stones for
the inside of the chamber and for the fireplaces we can prevent
the walls of the chamber from burning away and keep them
air-tight. In this process also, peat containing 25 to 30 per cent, of
moisture is used. The charging takes place through a hopper
which can be closed at the top and the bottom. When the
chamber is full the heating of the oven with peat is continued
until carbonization with development of gas sets in. The gases
pass through the condenser, in which tar and tar-water separate,
and the non-condensable gases are again led to the fires. After
some time the amount of these gases is sufficient for the heating
of the chambers, no other fuel being required for the continuation
of the process. When part of the charcoal is finished, which may
be seen by looking through the spy-holes, it passes into a cooling
chamber which has movable shutters at its top and bottom, and
from which it is withdrawn every four hours. According as the
finished charcoal is removed from the oven fresh peat is fed into
it and the work is thus made continuous. The discharging opening
is above the sole of the oven house, so that working rooms lying
under the surface of the bog are thus avoided.

The capacity of a chamber is 27 cb. m., corresponding to a
charge of 8,000 kilos of peat containing 30 per cent, of moisture,
which, when the carbonization lasts twenty-four hours, would
give about 2,700 kilos of peat charcoal or " peat coke " by with-
drawing it six times, i.e., every four hours. Bamme stated that
the carbonization required only sixteen to twenty hours and that
the output of a chamber was about 3,000 kilos in twenty-four
hours.

He gave the yield as follows : Peat containing 30 per cent,
of moisture gave : —

30 per cent, water.

35 ,, peat charcoal or 50 per cent, of the dry substance.

4 „ tar „ 5-8

20 ,, tar- water „ 28-6

9 „ gases „ 12-8

2 „ loss „ 2-8

1 ,000 kilos of the dry peat were said to give on an average 215 cb. m.
of non-condensable gases, 1 cb. m. of which weighs 0-6 kilo and
gives 5,000 kilo-calories on combustion.

According to the table on pp. 60-61, however, 143 kilos of peat
containing 30 per cent, of moisture correspond to 100 kilos of dry
peat, so that in the carbonization 10 x 43 = 430 kilos of water
must first be separated from the 1,000 kilos of dry peat, and the
evaporation of this water would require 430 x 650 = 279,500 kilo-
calories. We have at our disposal in the non-condensable

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL 381

(combustible) gases 215 x 5,000=1,075,000 kilo-calories, so that
795,500 kilo-calories remain for the carbonization of the peat and
the evaporation of the solutions, i.e., for the complete manufacture
of 500 kilos of charcoal and the working up of 58+286 = 344 kilos
of tar and tar-water.

With an installation capital of 200,000M. the profit was
estimated at 45 per cent.

In this case also the hopes entertained with regard to the
process were not fulfilled.

The actual profit derivable from a plant such as this is greatly
affected by the factors and conditions which we have indicated
already under Ziegler's carbonizing process.

6. — Wielandt's Peat-carbonizing Process

Dr. Wielandt, of Oldenburg, also regards peat carbonization
with recovery of the by-products as a suitable mode of utilizing
large quantities of peat. The peat-carbonizing factory at
Elisabethfehn, which belongs to the Peat Coke Co., Ltd.,
and which has worked apparently with success since 1907,1
contains three carbonizing ovens for the manufacture of about
10 m. tons of peat charcoal in twenty-four hours from approxi-
mately 34 m. tons of peat. It also contains the installations
necessary for winning and storing the peat, a peat-tar still for
working up the peat-tar to creosote oil, illuminating oil, paraffin
wax, and pitch, and an evaporating plant for recovering calcium
acetate and ammonium sulphate. The peculiarity of the process
is that by means of a connecting tube between the top portion of
the oven and the lower chamber in which the charcoal cools, and
by displacing at the same time the point where the gas is drawn
off towards the middle of the oven, connexion is made between
the places where the steam and the gases are respectively generated.
In this way it is only the considerable quantities of water vapour
formed by the drying of the peat in the upper part of the oven
which are drawn, as a natural consequence of the pressure relations,
into the funnel in which the charcoal collects, pass through the
middle portion of the oven in which the permanent gases and tar
vapours are developed, and leave the oven together with these.
This has valuable results, inasmuch as the glowing charcoal is
cooled inside the oven itself before it leaves the latter. Also more
ammonia is obtained by the action of the water vapour on the
peat to be carbonized, the tar vapours are protected from too
great a decomposition, and, finally, the temperature of the dis-
tillation is lowered. At the same time this results in an automatic
regulation of the working of the oven. It is, moreover, said to
be possible to carry out not only the heating of the ovens and

1 Especially since 1914, when electrical driving of the peat dredgers for
winning the peat was substituted for the driving with the benzine loco-
mobiles used earlier. This resulted in considerably greater outputs from
the peat machines and a saving in wages (cf. p. 155).

382 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

the recovery of the by-products by means of the gas itself, even
in the case of more or less moist peat, but also to supply electrical
power, cost free, for the peat machines on the bog.

Dr. Wielandt gives the costs of production for the charcoal
as follows : —

For a factory with a yearly output of 12,000 m. tons of peat
charcoal, including the writing off of the plant and deducting the
income from the by-products, 1 m. ton of the peat charcoal would
cost 18 to 20M., but if the factory had an output of 30,000 m. tons
the cost would be less than 10M. per metric ton. The installation
costs, excluding purchase of site, would amount to about
400.000M. for an annual output of 6,000 m. tons, to 700,000M. for
12,000 m. tons, and 1,500,000M. for 50,000 m. tons.

From the Elisabethfehn peat the yield is said to be 30 per cent,
charcoal, 2\ per cent, tar, 30 to 35 per cent, gas liquor. The tar
is said to give 60 per cent, of oil, 10 per cent, of paraffin wax, and
20 per cent, of good pitch. Most of the peat charcoal or peat coke
(in large pieces) is sold to coppersmiths, dockyards, and machine
factories at a price of 60 to 70M. per metric ton, excluding
freightage, medium-sized pieces of charcoal (about 20 to 50 mm.
in size) are disposed of as nut charcoal to foundries for drying
the moulds, &c, at 40M. to 60M. per metric ton, and the waste
charcoal (pieces under 20 mm. in size) fetches 25M. to 40M. per
metric ton when made into " smokeless press coal " for mixing
with tempering powder and for chemical purposes.

The demand for large quantities of peat charcoal for addition
(to the extent of 25 per cent.) to " wood charcoal " blast furnaces,
for use in cupola furnaces, reverberatory furnaces, &c, for which
purposes experiments show that peat charcoal is well suited, is
said to have increased so much from year to year that it could
not be met.

According to the locality the peat tar is either sold to large
tar distillation factories or is worked into crude intermediates
(illuminating oil, disinfectants). The pitch, it is said, is sold to
press coal factories, and the paraffin is sent into the market as
crude paraffin scales.

7. — Peat Carbonizing by means of Hot Rollers, Plates, Presses, &c.
{Fritz and Schoning's Process)

Schoning, of Stamsund (Norway), intended to compress air-dry
peat between iron rollers, plates, &c, under strong pressure, and
at the same time to heat it until it wTas carbonized, the volume
diminishing to about one-fifth that of the peat. This decrease in
volume is possible, but in addition to the effect of the partial
carbonization of the peat it is, as in the well-known dry-press
methods, mainly due to the strong compression. In the first
contrivances and experiments with a hand-press the development
of explosive gas mixtures during the heating of the peat contained
in the moulds of the press caused so much difficulty and danger

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL 383

that, notwithstanding the improvements effected by the engineer
Fritz, the process was unable to give a satisfactory result. The
German Peat Charcoal Company, Ltd., of Berlin, which adopted
this process, modified it as a result of further experiments. Air-dry
cut or lump peat, disintegrated in a tearing machine, was dried
and so far carbonized by heating to 200° C. in tubes, muffles, or
retorts, that in the carbonization of the peat or fibrous matter
which ensued, all the moisture and some of the combustible gases,
but not all the tarry substances, were driven off. The semi-
carbonized peat powder passed from the carbonizing muffle directly
to a stamp press, provided with heated compression moulds, in
which, when raised to a high temperature, it was converted by a
hydraulic pressure of 200 atmospheres into pieces which resembled
press brown coal and were 0-5 kilo in weight. The pieces
remained exposed to this pressure for twelve to fifteen seconds,
during which time, by the action of the pressure, the temperature
and the tarry cements produced or set free by these two agents,
the semi-carbonized peat cemented together so well that the
pressed pieces could not be broken apart by the hand, were very
resistant to moisture, and retained their shape in the fire. The
press peat charcoal made in this way, which somewhat resembled
Ziegler's peat semi-charcoal so far as its state of carbonization is
concerned, was not intended as a substitute for wood charcoal
or coke, as the carbonization had not proceeded far enough for
this, but was intended for competition with coal and press brown
coal for domestic and industrial firing.

The pieces, which were still glowing when leaving the press,
were allowed to cool with careful exclusion of air, since otherwise
they would ignite and burn away.

The yield of this press charcoal from the air-dry peat carbonized
amounted to 60 per cent., according to the tests made at the
Company's experimental factory at Halensee railway station, in
the suburbs of Berlin. The firing of the oven was said to require
about 10 per cent, of the fuel carbonized.1

The Company's hopes that the process could be applied
successfully on a commercial scale have not been fulfilled. The
Company has dissolved, with loss of its capital.

8. — Carbonization of Peat by Pressure or in Mounds

(a) A. Bom's "Mound-carbonizing" Process. — A. Born, of
Friedenau (Berlin), noticed that " half wet " crumbs or even sods
of slick or lowland peat, when piled in heaps or mounds 8 m. in
height, become very hot, cake together, and contract a good deal,
the water of the various peat layers becoming uniformly distri-
buted and much of it evaporating, and the product obtained after
about nine to twelve months being a much drier, black, granular
mass resembling coal. On this observation he bases the new

1 A more detailed account is contained in the second edition of this
book, 1904, p. 404.

384 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

peat-carbonizing process proposed by him, which he calls car-
bonization by pressure. He attributes1 this phenomenon to
fermentation of the peat due to piling in a high mound, the peat
cells bursting by the heat produced, so that the peat falls into
a powder, which then, as the humification proceeds, cakes firmly
together owing to the pressure of the mound.

This process, therefore, effects a considerable diminution in
the amount of water (i.e., a drying) of the mound peat and a
uniform distribution of the otherwise very heterogeneous mass of
peat fibres and peat grains, and, therefore, in conjunction with the
contraction and condensation of the mass already mentioned, gives
as a final product a uniformly dense fuel peat resembling coal,
sufficiently dry and suitable, without further trouble, for
gasification or for firing. If the freshly won peat sods be protected
from rain during the earlier weeks, as can easily be done by means
of movable hurdles, they become impervious to moisture, and
even in bad weather become so far dried that they can be brought
into mounds, where they contract to half to a quarter of their
original size in one to two years, and have then a calorific power
equal to that of good dense pieces of brown coal. In the case of
unformed, dredged, or pulped peat, the wet and dry portions must
be mixed together. Even in wet years a mound peat can be
obtained in this way very cheaply, and at the same time well
suited for gasification.

From the description itself, it follows that in this process there
is no question of a real " carbonization " of the peat and therefore
of the manufacture of peat charcoal such as are the objectives of
the processes described above and such as occur in the manufacture
of wood charcoal as well as in the carbonization (coking) of coal
and brown coal. The process cannot be regarded as other than
a further decay or humification of the various layers of the peat,
helped by the spontaneous heating of the mound, the product
from which within a reasonable interval of time can never be, or
become, real peat charcoal, and should therefore be simply called
" condensed mound peat."

But even if this process merely afforded a method of winning
half-dry peat, suitable for gasification or firing on a large scale,
that would be commercially sound and independent of human
labour and of the weather, it would be in the highest degree worth
attention for the winning and utilization of peat. The future must
show how far this is the case.

That this storing in mounds, when it is combined with the
other processes generally used for winning peat, offers advantages
in the case of large scale industries is apparent from the fact that
every autumn at the Aurich Wiesmoor raw peat is made into large
heaps and left there until the following summer, with a view to
ensuring a sufficient supply of peat for the working of the electric
power station. (See the description of the electric power station
at Wiesmoor, Part II, Section IV, 7.)

1 Mitteilungen, 1912, p. 429, and 1913, p. 227.

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAI. 385

A. Born hopes that by combining the winning of mound peat
with the use of his peat gasifier there will be a big extension in
the utilization of peat bogs. (See Part IT, Section III, 3 and 4.)
Works of this nature have not yet been constructed, but some
experiments which were instituted have either failed or have not
yet been concluded. He says that in the slick bog at Ludwigshof ,
the peat of which was worked for ammonium sulphate, the metric
ton of anhydrous " mound peat ' (containing 40 per cent, of
water) costs 5-50M., and that this cost could be reduced in the
case of a modern large scale industry to 4M. (including amortiz-
ation of the plant). A large scale industry winning plant
(including dredgers, field railways, platforms for mounds), with
an output of 100 to 300 m. tons of peat (anhydrous) per day and
with continuous working of the gasifying plant, would cost
200,000 to 500,000M.

(b) Heine's Carbonization in Mounds. — This process is an
extension of that just described, and is based on the assumption
that moist peat, being spread in the air, in layers on top of one
another, rapidly absorbs oxygen and becomes hot. This spon-
taneous heating promotes the decomposition of the vegetable
fibres, and at the same time the absorption of oxygen and the
heating assist each other. Ozonized air exerts a peculiarly good
effect on the decomposition of the piled peat. While in the case
of ordinarv pressure or mound carbonization of peat the time of
storage to be reckoned upon is from one to two years, it is claimed
that the new process keeps the internal carbonization completely
under control, so that even after a few weeks a considerable amount
of drying is attained without spontaneous ignition occurring. In
this process peat, dehydrated by pressure until it contains 60 per
cent, of moisture, is to be used. This is to be made into mounds,
and to be converted by ozonized air into a fuel richer in carbon
(therefore not a real peat charcoal), the ozonized air being
introduced at the base of the mound through tubes which can be
closed when desired. (Compare the extract from the patent in
Section IX.)

We are not aware that this process has been carried out
with commercial success.

9. — The so-called Wet Carbonization

Details have already been given on p. 87, in the section on
wet press processes, of the Ekenberg-Larson method of the Wet
Carbonizing Company, Ltd., of London, in which also no real
carbonization occurs.

More or less detailed experiments on " wet carbonization '
were made by E. W. Paulson at the Norwegian Technical High
School.1 These experiments establish the influence of the process
•on the advantageous alteration of the properties of the peat (due

1 Cf. Mitteilungen, 1915, p. 430.

386 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

to the more or less great heating) with regard to the pressing out
of the water, the increase of the calorific power to 7,600 c, the
compressibility, and in some cases the greater strength of the
carbonized press peat. They also show that all the peat produced
by wet pressing gave, when carbonized, only a loose, pulverulent
coke, and that at best the process could only be regarded as
technically possible. They do not, however, alter in any way the
improbability of the commercial success of the process due to its
great inconvenience in comparison with the small increase in
calorific power or value of the peat.

3, — Best kind of Raw Peat for Carbonization ; Economic Value
of Carbonization; Calorific Power and Properties of
Peat Charcoal

That quantity of fuel which is wasted in evaporating moisture
during the combustion of air-dry peat is also required for the same
purpose during the carbonization of peat unless the charge has been
previously kiln dried. In the carbonization of moist peat, a more
or less large loss of carbon can also occur in so far as during the
passage of water vapour over the glowing charcoal, which cannot
be avoided in piles and muffle ovens, the water vapour reacts with
a corresponding amount of carbon, forming carbon monoxide and
hydrogen, which are evolved.

Hence if the peat is not sufficiently air-dry, the yield of
charcoal is subjected to a twofold diminution, and in any event it
is advisable to employ only good dry peat for carbonization, so as
to avoid these losses and to work in as advantageous a manner
as possible.

In order that peat charcoal may compete with wood charcoal
and coke from the point of view of general utility in the iron
industry, it is necessary in the first place that, apart from the
cost of production, it should be manufactured in large pieces as
dense and as strong as possible, and with a maximum of calorific
power. Although the construction of the ovens and the attendance
on the piles to some extent affect the nature of the charcoal won,
this depends most of all on the properties of the raw peat employed
for the carbonization.

The denser the raw peat is, the denser the charcoal obtained
from it will be. If the charcoal hitherto manufactured could not
be used in smelting because it did not offer sufficient resistance to
the force of the blast, the pressure of the ores to be smelted, &c,
i.e., because it was too brittle, the main cause of this was that the
peat employed for carbonization was ordinary air-dry cut peat.
In rare cases trodden or dredged peat, and only in a few exceptional
cases condensed machine peat, was used for carbonization.

Cut peat is by no means firm, and, moreover, has a low density.
It contains on an average 25 per cent, of moisture, which has to be
removed completely during the carbonization, and has a further
25 per cent, of oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, most of which must

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL 387

also be expelled. It follows, therefore, that even when the peat
is very good or very rich in carbon it must give a light, porous,
and therefore a loose, charcoal ill adapted for the iron industry.
Better results are obtained from the denser, stroked and dredged
peat, but a good strong charcoal, capable of being used for most of
the operations of the iron industry even without admixture of
wood charcoal or coke, can only be obtained from machine peat,
and, indeed, this charcoal is all the better the greater the con-
densing action of the peat machine by which it has been made.

This is another reason for paying special attention, when
selecting a peat machine, not only to the forming power, but still
more to the condensing power of the machine, and for giving the
preference unreservedly to those machines which, other circum-
stances being equal, give the densest dry peat, i.e., which have
the greatest mixing and tearing action.

Real press peat (press peat or peat briquettes formed from peat
powder by strong mechanical pressure) , which may have the same
or even a greater density than machine peat, is nevertheless not
suitable for carbonization, since the cohesion between its com-
ponents is completely destroyed by the action of heat, and this
results in the formation of small pieces of a very loose charcoal.

In order to avoid as far as possible the irregular settling and
the falling in of the piles as well as the slipping in ovens, which
occur when cut peat is carbonized, and the decrease in yield
connected with these, it is necessary to keep the peat from the
various layers of the bog separate during its winning and to
charge a pile or oven at a given time only with peat of the same
character.

The percentage and the nature of the ash in the peat to be

carbonized has a great effect on the calorific power of the charcoal

won, and therefore on its utility. If we bear in mind that the yield

of charcoal is only 30 to 40 per cent, of the charge, that all the ash

of the latter remains in the former, that the charcoal therefore

100 100
contains -zrr~ to ~rz-, i.e., 3i to 2 A- times as much ash as the same
30 40 *

weight of the peat from which it is formed, and that the ash lowers

the calorific power of a fuel considerably, it will be evident that it

is very necessary that only peat poor in ash, i.e., containing 8 per

cent, of ash as a maximum, should be used for the manufacture of

charcoal of good quality.

Peat containing 10 per cent, of ash is not suited for the
manufacture of charcoal, as this will contain 30 per cent, of ash
when the yield of charcoal from the peat is 33 per cent., and
therefore the percentage of carbon in it may be lowered to 60 if
we assume the peat contains, in addition to the ash, 10 per cent,
of other constituents (hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, &c).

The high temperature required in the iron industry depends
solely on the percentage of carbon in the charcoal. Scheerer has
observed that by the combustion of a good charcoal which
contained 86 per cent, of carbon, 10 per cent, of hydrogen and

388

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

oxygen, and 4 per cent, of ash, a combustion temperature of
2,380° C. was obtained, while kiln-dried peat free from ash and
moisture gave 2,210° C, and the same peat in the air-dry state
(i.e., with 25 per cent, of moisture) gave only 2,000° C.

A peat charcoal from Upper Franconia examined by Fikent-

id the toliov

nng compos

ltion : —

Per cent

Carbon

.. 89-91

Nitrogen

2-4

Hydrogen
Ash . .

1-7

4-2

Loss . .

1-8

100-0

while a wood charcoal made at a temperature of about 400° C.
(i.e., at a temperature favouring the percentage of carbon)
contained : —

(b) With 13 p.c

(a) Anhydrous.

of moisture.

Carbon

.. 81-64

70-45

Hydrogen . .

1-96

1-68

Oxygen

.. 15-24

13-10

Ash

1-16

1-00

Moisture

—

13 • 76

100-0

99-99

Generally, the heating effects of the fuels used for smelting
purposes in the iron industry vary within the following limits : —

Peat charcoal
Wood charcoal
Coke, with not more than
5 per cent, of ash

Calorific power.
0-83-0-85*
0-64-0-97
0-84-0-97

Calorific intensity.
2,050-2,400° C.
2.100-2,450° C.
2,350-2,450° C.

* The calorific power of pure carbon (8,080° C.) is taken as 1.

From this it can be seen that peat charcoal, which can be made
more cheaply than wood charcoal, has a heating effect at least as
good as that of the latter and little inferior to that of coke. The
lower limits give, indeed, lower figures for peat charcoal since
peat with medium ash content gives, after carbonization, a char-
coal rich in ash, while wood charcoal on an average contains
only 2 to 3 per cent, of ash and the coke is assumed here to have a
maximum value of 5 per cent, of ash. If, however, only peats poor
in ash be selected for carbonization for smelting purposes, the

1 Note by Translator: According to K. Birnbaum, "Die Torf-
Industrie," p. 237, the results obtained by Fikentscher were : —

Per cent.
Carbon . . . . . . . . . . . . 79-9

Hydrogen
Nitrogen
Ash ..
Oxygen, &c.

1-7

2-4

4-2

11-8

100-0

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL 389

charcoals from them will give the figures mentioned above, and by
paying attention to the directions given for the manufacture of
a peat charcoal, which can be utilized for most purposes, we shall
obtain a product which will in every respect be saleable for
smelting and forge purposes.

The constituents of the ash are important for the utilization of
the peat charcoal for smelting and forge operations in so far as the
ash sometimes contains admixtures of sulphur and phosphorus —
compounds which may prejudicially affect the quality of the iron.
According to the investigations of peat ashes given on p. 15,
these injurious substances are present in such small quantities that
the utilization of peat charcoal for smelting iron need cause us
little concern on this head, provided, however, that in every case
where the charcoal is to be used for more or less larger and im-
portant operations we subject it to a chemical analysis in order to
be quite certain that it is not injurious. In most cases where peat
charcoal is employed for smelting iron the nature of the ash indeed
facilitates the formation of an easily fusible slag, and, so far as its
advantageous action on the iron is concerned, the ash is more
closely related to that of wood charcoal than to that of coke. This
property has made peat charcoal highly esteemed by the workmen
and the owners of iron factories and would, undoubtedly, have
very quickly extended its use had the ovens for manufacturing it
been properly chosen and had the requisite attention in selecting
the peat for carbonization been paid in the past to the above-
mentioned conditions which are essential for the manufacture of
a cheap and good peat charcoal, and this result might still be
attained with the necessary attention. One such essential con-
dition is always to employ for carbonization only a dry machine
peat as poor in ash and as dense as possible.

Peat charcoal alone is but little employed for smelting iron in
Germany. Although its use has often been tried, it has generally
been given up again for the reasons just stated. On the other
hand, peat charcoal mixed with wood charcoal or coke is used
more frequently and with advantage for the quality of the
product, since peat charcoal, when the industry is properly
conducted, can be made at a smaller expense and of a more
uniform character than wood charcoal.

In Clumetz, near Wittingau, some time ago, two-thirds of
the charcoal charge in the blast furnace was peat charcoal (from
Lottmann's ovens), very satisfactory results being obtained with
it. The works were closed later on, as the crude iron, obtained
from the poor ores which occur there, was found to be too dear
when compared with Styrian refined iron or English foundry
pig-iron.

In Bleymiiller's blast furnaces, near Schmalkalden, peat
charcoal, prepared from good machine peat, together with wood
charcoal, has been employed for several years past. Further
particulars with regard to this are given in the section dealing
with the results obtained in iron and steel works.

Heating Charcoal. — For heating railway carriages, hot pipes,.

390 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

smoothing irons, &c, a heating substance is made by mixing
peat charcoal powder with a cement consisting of tar, pitch and
brown dextrine, adding a 5 per cent, solution of saltpetre and
pressing the mixture.

Carbonization of peat for use in ordinary fires, with a view
to utilizing air-dry peat economically, can never — when the
income from the by-products obtained during the carbonization
is not taken into account — give a commercially favourable
result even when the expenses of the carbonization are left out
of the reckoning.

The charcoal formed from 110 kilos of air-dry peat can under
no circumstances have a higher heating value than the 100 kilos
of peat from which it is obtained. The carbonization is attended
by a consumption, and therefore by a loss, of heat.

If we consider, for instance, an air-dry peat containing 20 per
cent, of water and 5 per cent, of ash, 100 kilos of it, if the
pure peat in it has the average composition— carbon 60, "free
hydrogen" 2, "chemically bound water" 38 — will contain
45 kilos of carbon, 1-5 kilos of " free hydrogen," 28-5 kilos of
" chemically bound water," 20 kilos of moisture, and 5 kilos
of ash.

The heat obtainable from it will be : 45 x 8,080 + 1 -5 x 34,462
= 415,293 kilo-calories, of which (28-5 + 20) x (640 — 15)
= 30,312-5 kilo-calories will be required for the evaporation of
the total water present in the products. The useful heating
effect will, therefore, be 415,293 - 30,312-5 = 384,980-5 kilo-
calories.

If the same 100 kilos of peat were converted into charcoal
the yield in the most favourable case would be 40 kilos, of
which, however, 5 kilos would be ash, as the peat charcoal would
contain all the ash present in the charge from which it was
made. The remainder of the 35 kilos is assumed to consist of
pure carbon, although complete carbonization is never actually
obtained, a small amount of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen
always being left, the latter two of which decrease the calorific
power of the fuel.

The charcoal from the above amount of peat would, therefore,
in the most favourable case give a heating effect of (40 — 5)
8,080 = 282,800 kilo-calories, that is 384,980-5 - 282,800
= 102,180-5 kilo-calories less than would be obtained from the
corresponding amount of peat. The fuel value of the peat,
therefore, suffers a loss of about 30 per cent, owing to the
carbonization.

It has already been pointed out above that the relation is
otherwise, and, in fact, in favour of carbonization, if the calorific
intensity only is taken into consideration, as happens when the
peat charcoal is in competition with wood charcoal, coal and coke
for smelting, welding and forge purposes.

In addition to its use as fuel, peat charcoal, like wood charcoal,
can be employed in another way, and one in which it can also
compete with wood charcoal. Peat charcoal has in a high

MANUFACTURE OF PEAT CHARCOAL

391

degree the property of absorbing dyes, of removing fusel oil from
brandy, and of absorbing ammonia formed by putrefaction ;
on account of the last property peat mould may with advantage
be added to manure.

Comparative experiments, instituted by Stenhouse, have
given the following results for the absorptive powers of different
charcoals : —

Ammonia.

Hydro-
chloric
acid.

Sul-
phuretted
hydrogen.

Carbon
dioxide.

Oxygen.

Sulphur
dioxide.

Wood charcoal
Peat charcoal
Tar coke . .

98-5
96-0
43-5

45-0
60-0

30-0

28-5

9-0

14-0

10-0

5-0

0-8
0-6

0-5

32-5
27-5

27-5

Section III

GASIFICATION OF PEAT FOR FUEL AND

POWER PURPOSES

1. — General Remarks on the Gasification of Fuel and on

Gas Furnaces1

The following principle, which has been derived from experi-
ence and has, moreover, a scientific basis, is applicable to all good
furnace installations : A heating contrivance is all the better the
more completely the combustion of the fuel takes place in a minimum
excess of air.

In order to attain this the contact of the fuel with the oxygen
of the air supporting the combustion must be made as intimate as
possible. We must also be always able to keep the temperature so
uniformly high that the combustion will be as complete as possible,
and the entrance of air must be so regulated that, after its admix-
ture with the gases formed in the fire and the combustion of these,
the escaping combustion gases will not contain excess of air.

Hence the object of all gas furnaces is to convert all the fuel
into combustible gases at a place distinct from that at which the
gases are finally burnt. These gases are then led to the heating
chamber where they are burnt, after being mixed with the air neces-
sary for their combustion. We are thus in a position to add to the
gases, developed quantitatively from the fuel, only that amount of
air which is theoretically required for their complete combustion.
The loss of heat (owing to the heat carried away by the excess of
air) due to the addition of double the theoretical quantity of air,
which is necessary when the fuel is burnt in ordinary fireplaces,
does not occur under these circumstances.

The contrivance in which gasification of the fuel occurs is called

1 The construction of independent gas furnaces arose from the use of
blast furnace gases for smelting purposes. The gases escaping at the top
of blast furnaces were used in France in 1814 in re-heating and puddling
furnaces. In Germany the earliest experiments in this direction were
made at Wasseralfingen in 1835 by the Wiirtemberg Mining Councillor
Fabre du Faur.

The defects of the system, especially the dependence of two important
heating installations on one another, induced the Royal Ironworks at
Jenbach, in the Tyrol, in 1839-40, to experiment with independent gas
furnaces. These, which must be regarded as the first of their kind, were
quickly abandoned, as explosive combustion of the gas could not be
prevented. They were, however, resumed again, and also with more
success, at the St. Stephan Royal Foundry in Styria.

About the same period (1839) Bischoff, the manager of an ironworks at
Magdeburg, greatly improved gas furnaces, and these were still further
improved later by Thoma, Schinz, and recently by Siemens (see Stein-
mann's "Compendium der Gasfeuerung").

GASIFICATION OF PEAT FOR FUEL PURPOSES

393

a gas producer or gas developer (generator), and the gas developed
therein which is to be burnt later is called power gas or fuel gas
(generator gas).

In making the gas, the fuel is always filled into the generator to
such a height over the grate that the air passing through it from
below is not sufficient for the complete combustion of the fuel, and
the flame itself does not actually pass through the layer of fuel.
In this way it is only the fuel lying directly on the grate which
glows brightly, burning completely into ashes, carbon dioxide, and
water. Owing to the heat thus developed, the upper layers of fuel
are subjected to a dry gasification, the constituents of the fuel being
mainly converted into combustible gases and escaping as such. The
reactions which occur may be represented as follows : —

At the points where the air comes into immediate contact with
the fuel on the grate, carbon dioxide, water, and ash are formed.
The carbon dioxide, the nitrogen of the combustion gases and the
unused oxygen of the added air press their way up into the glow-
ing layers, where the remainder of the oxygen is used up and
the carbon dioxide is reduced to carbon monoxide. As the carbon
dioxide is in this way converted into carbon monoxide, the volume
of the latter is double the volume of the former. The carbon
monoxide passes through the upper layers of fuel, and there
becomes mixed with the gases, light and heavy hydrocarbons,
formed by the action of heat on the fuel. The mixture of gases is
then led away to the gas furnace.

According to Ebelmen, who, from 1842 onwards, carried out
much valuable work in France on independent gas furnaces, the
figures given below show the composition of gases, such as these,
from various fuels : —

Gases from

Wood
char-
coal.

Wood.

Doot

Coke.

Wood
char-
coal.

Wood.

Peat.

Coke.

I.

II.

I.

II.

Nitrogen

Carbon monoxide
Carbon dioxide
Hydrogen

63-4
33-3

0-5
2-8

50-1

32-5

7-2

10-2

50-0
19-0
13-2

17-8

61-5

21-8

9-1

7-6

64 -l
33-5

0-8
1-5

64-9

34- 1

0-8

0-2

53-2
ll -6
34-5

0-7

55-5

22-0

21-2

1-3

63 -l

22-4

14-0

0-5

64-8

33-8

1-3

0-1

Bv volume.

~v~

By weight.

These gas furnaces have a further advantage, inasmuch as it
is possible to gasify a peat in them having so high a percentage of
ash that it could not be used at all for carbonization or used only
with difficulty in an ordinary fire. Even from peats rich in ash
good fuel gas can be produced in a suitable generator with an
economic efficiency of 80 per cent., provided the ashes be removed
from the grate at intervals, which can be done, without stopping
the generation of the gases and without letting in too much air,
more easily than when grate-firing is employed.

(-2595)

2 D

394

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

While in ordinary, and even in the better class, grate-firing the
loss of heat is 25 to 30 per cent., in the case of gas-firing it is only
15 to 25 per cent.

Good fuel gas contains approximately 25 per cent, of carbon
monoxide (CO), 8 per cent, of hydrogen (H2), 2 per cent, of
hydrocarbons (CH4 and C2H4), 59 per cent, of nitrogen (N2),
and 6 per cent, of carbon dioxide (C02), and has a calorific power
of 1,100 to 1,300 kilo-calories per cubic metre.

When peat, brown coal and coal are gasified in the anhydrous
condition, the results generally obtained are : —

Peat.

Brown coal.

Coal.

Carbon monoxide
Hydrogen
Hydrocarbons
Nitrogen
Carbon dioxide

21
8
2

60
9

22
8
2

62
6

22
9
2

61
6

100

100

100

Hence it follows that by gasifying peat a gas can be obtained
as good as that from brown coal and coal. When gasifying ordinary
air-dry peat containing 25 to 30 per cent, of moisture we must,
however, cool the generated gas in order to remove (as ammonia
water) the water vapour which, if left in it, would affect its
combustion prejudicially. While in the case of brown coal
and coal the height of the layer of fuel in the generator is
60 to 120 cm., in the case of peat gasifiers it is 150 to 200 cm.

The gases evolved collect in the upper portion of the generator
and are led thence, by means of tubes or pipes, to the furnace.

In order to be able to stop or adjust the current of gas almost
every gas generator is provided with a tightly closing cut-out at
the beginning of the gas-pipe. Sand-sealed or water-sealed valves
are generally preferred for this purpose as they give a tight seal,
which in the case of flap-valves or slide-valves is very quickly
affected by tar settling on the surfaces of the seal.

Next in importance for the installation, especially when the
furnace is at some distance from the generator, is the piping
for the gas, which should have a suitable cross-section, be always
inclined upwards whenever possible, and have no contractions
or bends worth mentioning. Just at the entrance to the furnace
the necessary amount of air should be added to, and intimately
mixed with, the generator gas. The gas and the air enter the
mixing chamber either by pipes which lie opposite, behind, or
alongside one another, or through several nozzles surrounding one
another, according to the place where it is being used and the
possibilities existing there. In their arrangement, however, the
main thing is to see that an intimate mixture of the gas with
the air is obtained.

GASIFICATION OF PEAT FOR FUEL PURPOSES 395

In order to obtain the best possible effect, it is also necessary
to be able to regulate the addition of the air, as, for instance, by
means of a slide valve in the air-duct. Since combination of
the oxygen with the carbon takes place more rapidly and more
completely the higher the temperature, it is necessary to
heat the air beforehand. This can be done by letting the waste
combustion gases play round the air-duct or by letting the air-duct
take a spiral course through the combustion gases.

Directly after or at the moment when the heated air meets
the gases, complete combustion sets in with the development
of a bright flame and great heat, so that the furnace therefore
becomes a working place, where the heat developed can be
utilized for commercial purposes.

Such furnace installations, the chief characteristics of which
are the generation of the gases in a furnace shaft and as direct as
possible a transmission of these with the air necessary to support
their combustion to the fireplace, are called simple gas furnaces.
The air draught required for the incomplete combustion (dry
gasification) in the gas generator is produced, according to
the situation and the purpose of the installation, sometimes by
a natural chimney flue draught, and at other times by tuyeres
(compressed air, under-grate blast). The latter mode is chiefly
employed in simple gas-firing when large amounts of gas are to
be burnt at the highest possible temperature, which can be realized
in the case of ordinary shaft furnaces only by very careful pre-
heating of the air required for the combustion.

In these simple gas furnaces a part of the heat contained in
the escaping combustion gases is utilized for the pre-heating
of the air supporting the combustion, and this has a very great
effect on the commercial success of the whole installation.
Complete utilization of the " waste heat " of the escaping gases
is, however, only possible by means of " alternate draught " gas
furnaces (regenerators), the peculiarity of which is that all the
heat developed from the fuel remains at the place where it was
generated, or returns there, inasmuch as all the heat of the
combustion gases escaping from the furnace with the exception
of the amount of heat required to produce the flue draught serves
to pre-heat the new currents of air and gas introduced into the
fireplace. The heat contained in them is first taken up in chambers,
the pre-heaters (regenerators), which are formed of heat-absorbing
surfaces, as large as possible, and usually consist of arched rooms
fitted with a large number of refractory stoves arranged trellis-
wise, the incoming air and combustible gas being led through
these chambers. As the gas and the air are to be heated simul-
taneously, but separately, it follows that both air and gas
pre-heaters must be installed, and as the same chambers must
serve during one interval for removing the combustion gases and
absorbing the heat contained in them, and during the next for
introducing and pre-heating the currents of gas and air going to
the fireplace, the whole installation must consist of two similar
sections (each having one air heater and one gas heater) with the

2 D 2

396

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

fireplace in the centre. Also for changing the mode of action of the
two air or gas pre-heaters (as each of these must be used in turn
for the escaping combustion gases) it is necessary to provide two
similar pre-heaters with adjustable flaps or valves (the air and gas
flaps or valves).

The essence of regenerative gas-firing may be easily understood
from Fig. 140. In this illustration lx l2 are the two air pre-heaters,
gx g2 the two gas pre-heaters, v the air valve, w the gas valve,
a the gas-duct from the generator, b the air-duct, and d the exit to
the chimney flue. The arrows indicate the directions of the currents
of air and gas, which, after their passage through the pre-heaters
gx and lx unite in the flue over fx, and then in the form of a flame
strike through the fireplace over d, escaping on the right through
the flue/2 into the two compartments l2 and g2, and from these to

Fig. 140. — Regenerative gas furnace of Siemens.

the chimney flue d. When the pre-heating compartments l2 and g2
have been made hot enough by the escaping gases, the valves are
reversed so that the new currents of gas and air pass through the
compartments l2 and g9, where they become heated before they
enter the fireplace, while the escaping combustion gases once more
heat the compartments lx and gx, and so on alternately at definite
intervals.

The possibility of fulfilling approximately the conditions
theoretically required for complete combustion in the case of
gas fires and of realizing this without an excess of air constitutes
the great advantage of gas furnaces. Even with fuel which is
otherwise poor, good results can be obtained, so that in these
installations dusty, wet, earthy substances can be burnt with a
degree of success far greater than that obtained by utilizing the
same fuel in ordinary furnaces.

GASIFICATION OF PEAT FOR FUEL PURPOSES

397

2.— Production of Fuel Gas and Power Gas from Peat

(a) Fuel Gas

The production of fuel gas from peat and its combustion in
suitable ovens led, for the reasons given above, to the use of peat
as a fuel in a number of large scale industries into which its
introduction had previously been attempted in vain, notwith-
standing the many attempts made and the expenditure of much
money for the manufacture of a suitable fuel from a given raw peat.

Amongst these industries are all installations with continuous
firing and those in which the temperature of the combustion gases
is the main concern, as, for instance, soda factories, lime works,
pottery factories, as well as iron, steel, and glass industries.

Statements with regard to the installation and the size of the
gas furnaces applicable to the various cases of the individual
industries cannot be made here. These gas furnaces have in

fa nat. size.
Fig. 141. — Gas generator.

fa nat. size.
Fig. 142. — Gas generator.

recent years been much improved and simplified. It must be
left to experts to devise installations in accordance with the laws
of science and experience, while taking into account the many
details which must be considered in any particular case.
For our purpose it will be sufficient to explain these installations
more fully only in so far as the peculiarity of the peat to be
employed as fuel may affect them, and this really occurs only in
the case of the generator. We shall then proceed to draw atten-
tion to the advantage of this mode of utilizing peat by indicating
the results obtained with it in various branches of industry.

The arrangement of the gas generator, more especially the
depth and the character of the hearth, depends, as in ordinary
furnaces, on the form and the quality of the peat intended for
gasification. This refers, however, less to the heating effect to be
attained than to ensuring a continuously uniform and good genera-
tion of gas without special attention from a workman being
ne cessary.

398

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

Figs. 141 to 145 show a number of gas generators which have
proved successful with various peats, and, as a matter of fact, the
arrangement in Figs. 141, 144, and 145, with fiat or slightly
inclined grates and a fairly deep position of the grate or height of

^ nat. size.
Fig. 143. — Gas generator.

fuel layer, is intended for dense cut peat or machine peat. The
arrangement in Fig. 144 with a deep position of the grate can
be recommended for more or less light cut peat, while that in
Figs. 142 and 143 is for peat mould or crumb peat. The grate

£j nat. size.

Fig. 144. — Gas generator, with valve in gas main.

dimensions will depend on the richness or poorness of the peat
in ash, and the cross-section of the shaft on the amount of fuel
used in unit time.

GASIFICATION OF PEAT FOR FUEL PURPOSES

399

The different methods of sealing the charging holes B may also
be understood from the figures. Figs. 141 and 143 show a cap
and sand seal, Fig. 142 a flap seal, and Fig. 144 a conical seal.

It is advisable to provide every gas generator with a spy-hole a,
which can be closed when not in use, and which, when arranged as
in Fig. 143, can be utilized when the fire is being stirred.

The dotted lines denote the approximate height and the posi-
tion of the fuel in the generator. The gas collecting above the
layer of fuel is led through the ducts G to the fireplace (in the
case of simple gas furnaces), or to the pre-heater (in the case
of regenerator furnaces). For regulating the current of gas,
and also for cutting it off when several gas generators belong to
a common fireplace, a valve D is shown in Fig. 144. In the case
of simple gas furnaces, the generators of which are usually directly
in front of the working hearth (the fireplace), adjusting and
cutting-out valves are rarely employed.

If in such a case hot air be let into the gases, formed by the
incomplete combustion (gasification), through a slit k (indicated
in Fig. 142) suitably placed in each of the two sides of the shaft
combustion immediately sets in with production of a bright
flame and much heat, which can be utilized for commercial
purposes, development of steam in boilers, heating evaporating
pans, burning lime in kilns, &c.
Simple installations of this kind are
also called semi-gas furnaces.

Ziegler's peat gasifier (Fig. 146)
consists of a fire-brick shaft sur-
rounded by brickwork in which the
layer of peat, resting on the grate, has
a height of about 2 m. The roof of
the shaft is arched and provided
with a hopper h, while the base con-
sists of two or more grates c d and
cx d1} each formed of a flat grate c and
a vertical auxiliary grate d. The
grates are arranged step-wise, with
intervening partitions, and access to
them may be had through the door b.
In order that no unreduced or so-
called " wild " gas (carbon dioxide)
may take the more convenient path
along the sides of the shaft and thus
escape reduction, the shaft a is con-
tracted somewhat in the centre so
that the gas must pass through the
peat, where its carbon dioxide will be

reduced by the glowing charcoal to carbon monoxide. Under
each grate there is an air inlet / through which the air is forced,
most conveniently by means of a water-blast. When charging
the generator the lid i is lifted off, the hopper h is filled with peat,
the lid is again replaced, the cylinder I is raised, and the peat falls
into the shaft.

Fig. 145. — Gas generator.

400

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

The gas is led through a bent tube n into the condenser o,
where it is freed from ammonia water and tar.

A gasifier with 9 sq. m. grate area will produce in an hour
2,500 cb. m. of gas from 900 kilos of peat, i.e., 2-8 cb. m. of gas
from 1 kilo of peat. The calorific power of the gas is 1,200
kilo-calories per cubic metre.

It is evident from the illustration that the gas developed in
this gasifier does not pass through the glowing layer of peat
charcoal, but escapes at the top in a tarry condition. The
Ziegler gasifiers are provided with special tar condensers and
purifiers p when it is required to separate the tarry substances
from the gas, as, for instance, in the manufacture of power gas.
In addition to one of these gasifiers on the Fleiss Bog in Scheleken,

Fig. 146. — Ziegler's peat gas generator.

two have been at work since 1909 in the factory of Lapp Bros,
at Rottenmann (Styria). The peat gas is used there in the
manufacture of refined sheet metal.

(b) Power Gas and the Gasifiers of the Deutz Gas Motor Factory,
Korting Bros, and Co., Gorlitz Machine Factory, S-c.

The available energy of a fuel is much better utilized (about
25 to 30 per cent, of the thermal energy in the fuel being converted
into work) in gas engines than in the power machine hitherto most
widely used — the steam engine and boiler (the maximum efficiency
of which is 12 per cent.). Fuel gas of a definite composition or
produced in a suitable manner is called power gas, " mixed gas,"
or " Dowson gas," and can be used for developing power in gas

GASIFICATION OF PEAT FOR FUEL PURPOSES 401

engines quite as successfully as the illuminating gas hitherto
employed for this purpose. These facts have opened up a wide
field for the utilization of fuels by or in the generation of power
gas. In the case of small single cylinder steam engines the
utilization of the thermal energy by the boiler and engine is far
from being as good as that given above, and frequently amounts
to scarcely 5 per cent, of the thermal energy of the coal, while
in the case of gas engines the amount of the heat transformed
into energy varies little with the size of the engine.

Fuel gas for power purposes is won in shaft-like gas producers
by blowing air and water vapour continuously through a layer of
glowing coal. The oxygen of the air combines with the carbon
of the coal, forming carbon monoxide, and the steam is decom-
posed at the glowing surface of the coal into its constituents,
oxygen and hydrogen ; the latter remains in the free state, and
the former is converted by the carbon into carbon monoxide.
The " run " of the furnace and the production of gas may without
difficulty be adapted almost exactly to the gas consumption, so
that large gasometers, as in the case of coal gas or " water gas,"
are not essential. While in the older power gas installations,
the so-called " pressure power gas producers," the steam required
had to be generated in a separate boiler and the air and steam
mixture to be introduced under the grate of the gasifier by a blower,
the process is much simplified, and therefore the cost of the plant
is decreased by the replacement of these by suction gas plants.
The latter require neither a separate boiler for the generation
of steam nor a blower. As a rule, an evaporator filled with water
is connected to the gasifier and is heated by radiation from the
glowing coal and the escaping gases. One side of the evaporator
is connected with the external air and the other connected by
means of a tube with the grate of the gasifier, the latter being
similarly connected with the gas washer and the engine. The
suction of the engine draws the air and steam through the layer
of glowing coal, the amount of gas formed at any time being
therefore exactly that required by the engine at the moment.
Installations such as this are subject neither to restrictions nor
to official supervision. These facts, together with constant
attendance on the plant being unnecessary, make it well adapted
for small industries. Even when the power is as low as 6 h.p.,
the consumption of coal may be kept under 0 • 5 kilo per effective
hour, for which one would otherwise require two or three times
the amount of coal in an ordinary steam engine plant.

In the older of these installations, of which there are now
a good many, only certain expensive kinds of fuel, especially
anthracite and coke, were used. However, the experiments
carried out by the more important factories — Deutz Gas Motor
Factory of Deutz, Julius Pintsch and Co., of Berlin, Korting
Bros, and Co., of Hanover, Gorlitz Machine Building and Iron-
foundry Company, Gorlitz, and others, with a view to making
peat available for this purpose, show that an efficient power gas
can be obtained in a commercially satisfactory manner from more

402

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

or less air-dry peat without making the plant much more
inconvenient.

The unavoidable losses of heat in the production of power
gas consist only of the heat radiated from the gasifier and the
sensible heat of the power gas itself, which becomes lost, since
the gas must be as cold as possible when it is sent into the engine.
These losses of heat amount to 15 to 20 per cent, of the total heat
of the fuel, so that 80 to 85 per cent, of the heating power of the
fuel is therefore contained in the gas. As the gas engine trans-
forms 25 to 27 per cent, of this into external work, 20 to 23 per
cent, of the heating power is actually made available in the form
of energy. In the case of anthracite and coke it was sufficient to
subject the gas coming from an ordinary shaft furnace gasifier
to a good purification. In the gasification of friable, tarry fuels,
such as peat, in ordinary gasifiers, a good deal of tar vapours
passed into the purifier, and these, later, settled as tar and

Fig. 147. — Suction gas plan]; for peat. Korting Bros, and Co.

paraffin in the pipes, blocking the latter so that the plant had to
be cleaned very frequently. The main problem of a good gasifier
is, therefore, to convert these tar vapours into permanent,
non-condensable gases, and this problem is to be regarded as
now solved.

It is a very important fact that peat containing 40 to 50 per
cent, of moisture can be used with good results in these gasifiers,
and we are not therefore obliged, as in the case of ordinary peat
furnaces, to use peat as air-dry as possible, the procuring of
which, as is well known, causes considerable trouble in large
scale industries.

Fig. 147 illustrates one of these gasifiers of Korting Bros,
and Co., and at the same time shows the whole arrangement of
one of these suction plants.

GASIFICATION OF PEAT FOR FUEL PURPOSES

403

The air required for the combusion passes into the fuel A
through the ante-chamber P, the grate R, and the opening T.
The peat is filled at the top into the hopper D and gradually
slides downwards as it burns away below. The distillation
gases, formed on top, in order to get into the gas main, must
pass through the glowing lower layers of charcoal, where the tarry
vapours are decomposed and converted into permanent gases.
The gas coming from the gasifier escapes through the valve E,
and, as soon as good gas is present, it is sent through the tube B
into the purifier (scrubber) G, the pipe L, the water-pot M, the
sawdust scrubber 5, and from this through another water-pot
to the gasometer or the engine.

These plants have recently been improved by converting
them into " double-fire " producers. In the latter, as shown in
Fig. 148, the fuel issuing from one or more feeding shafts d is
not allowed to go directly to the fire on the grate r, but passes
through an upper fire o, where all the tarry distillation gases are
expelled from it, and therefore only pure peat charcoal or coke,
free from gas and tar, is fed to the lower fire. The distillation
gases formed in the upper fire are introduced, while still hot, by
means of the connecting pipe u into the lower
fire, where they are completely decomposed
and converted into a permanent gas such as is
required for the smooth working of a gas
engine. After passing through the lower
fire the gases are brought through the exits a
to the purifiers. A pure gas, suitable for
driving engines, can be made from peat
containing 30 per cent, of moisture by means
of these gasifiers. According to statements
made by Korting Bros, and Co., these plants
work continuously and smoothly even with
peat containing 40 to 50 per cent, of moisture.
In the case of a peat containing 45 per cent.
of moisture, the gas had a heating effect of
1,029 kilo-calories per cubic metre and gave
the following results1 on analysis : —
Carbon dioxide (CO,) .. .. 13-3

Carbon monoxide (CO)
Hydrogen (H,)
Methane (CH \)
Nitrogen (N2) . .

17-6

10-9

2-5

55-7

100-0

Fig. 148. — A double-
fire producer.

1 The average composition of fuel gas or power gas made from anthracite

is generally as follows : —
Carbon monoxide (CO)
Hydrogen (H2)
Methane (CH4)
Carbon dioxide (CO.,)
Nitrogen (N2)

23
17

2

6
52

100

With a heating effect of 1,300
kilo-calories per cb. m. The heat-
ing effect of ordinary power gas is
900 to 1,200 kilo-calories, that of
coke oven gas is 4,000 kilo-calories,
and that of illuminating gas is
5,000 kilo-calories per cb. m.

404

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

In another plant a peat having the following composition :-

Heating effect, 3,065 kilo-calories
per kilogram,

Moisture

29 ■ <n

Ash

6-1

Carbon

37-5

Hydrogen

Oxygen and nitrogen

3-7
23-7

100-0 _

gave on gasification a

power gas

Carbon dioxide (C02)

Oxygen (O,)

Carbon monoxide (CO) .

11-21
0-3
17-0

Methane (CH,) . '.
Hydrogen (H2)
Nitrogen (N2)

6-2

5-9

59-4

100-0

Heating effect, 1,187 kilo-calories
per cb. m.

Several plants of this type have been erected in Denmark,
Sweden, and Canada, and are said to have proved successful.
According to the manufacturers, they require approximately
1 kilo of a peat having the rather low calorific power of 3,000 to
3,200 c. for 1 h.p.-hour.

The Deutz Gas Motor Factory obtained similar results with
their shaft-gasifiers for peat (see Patents 157729, 169088, 169378,
198295, in the section on Patents). These results may be
summarized as follows : —

Cut peat from Hanover Peat from Giengen (Wurtemberg)

having the following composition : — •

Carbon

.. 41-46

Carbon

. 30-30

Hydrogen

3-88

Hydrogen

2-71

Oxygen and nitrogen

.. 18-85

Oxygen and nitrogen

. 17-63

Sulphur

0-25

Sulphur

0-16

Ash

3-26

Ash

4-78

Moisture

.. 32-30

Moisture . .

. 44-42

100-00

100-00

Per cent.

Per cent.

30-6

Carbon monoxide (CO) .

30

6-1

Hydrogen (H2)

10

5-7

Carbon dioxide (CO,)

6

5-1

Methane (CH4)

2

Olefines (CnH2n) . .

0-4

on gasification gave a power gas consisting of : —

Carbon monoxide (CO)
Hydrogen (H2)
Carbon dioxide (CO.,)
Methane (CH4)

From 1 kilo of peat the volume of gas was : —

l-9cb.m. |. 1-3 cb. m.

and the consumption of peat for an effective h.p.-hour was
1-2 kilos. | 1-1 kilos.

Gas engines and peat gasifiers made by the Deutz Company
are at work in Sweden and Russia. The maker states that the
moisture of the peat may be as high as 60 per cent. (?) without

GASIFICATION OF PEAT FOR FUEL PURPOSES

405

injuriously affecting the production of the gas or its purity, and,
therefore, the working of the gas engines.1

The Gorlitz Machine Factory and Iron Foundry construct
a suction gas producer which, together with their gas engines, is
to serve for the utilization of peat in power stations. They state
that good results are to be obtained with it even when peat
containing up to 50 per cent, of moisture is employed. The drier
the peat is, however, the better the return from its use. The
consumption of peat for the h.p.-hour is again given as averaging
1 kilo. The grateless producer (Fig. 149) has a double-walled

Fig. 149. — Peat gasifier with central gas exit, as constructed by the'Gorlitz
Machine Factory and Iron Foundry.

cover made of steel plates and lined with fire-brick. It is closed
at the top by an adjutage with a reversing contrivance A and
a hopper F, which can be opened by means of a counterpoise lever;

1 Further experiments made with a Dutch peat from Venlo, Helenaveen,
have shown that even with a peat containing 59 to 60 per cent, of moisture,
and having the extraordinary low calorific power of 1,800 c, the con-
sumption of peat for the effective h.p.-hour is 2-35 kilos, corresponding to
3,725 kilo-calories, the gas being well purified in a very small space, and
with low capital costs. For a more detailed report, see the Dutch journal
De Ingenieur, 1912, p. 42.

406 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

and is sealed at the bottom by a water pan. The exit tube for
the gas, the pre-heater for the air and the inner air pipe are all
placed in the centre of the shaft.

The combustion proceeds from below upwards, the peat and
air are admitted from the top, and the gas is sucked out from the
centre of the shaft. The peat filled in at the top is heated strongly,
and, therefore, deprived of its volatile matter by the combustion
occurring farther down. The distillation gases or tarry vapours
thus formed pass down with the air and are converted into
permanent gases by the high temperature existing below. The
carbon first burns in the oxygen of the air to carbon dioxide, but
the latter, on passing through the layer of glowing charcoal,
combines with more carbon, forming carbon monoxide. The
conservation of the heat set free in the gasification is of great
importance, as on it the successful gasification of moist peat
mainly depends. With this object all the air required for the
combustion is at first taken from the lower duct, in which the
gas-delivering tube lies and by which it is pre-heated. Then one
portion is led by means of a tube through the water seal at the
bottom and up through the middle of the gas-delivering tube.
The air tube, which is surrounded on all sides by the hot gases,
absorbs the heat contained in the latter. This portion of the
air then passes through the so-called pre-heater and then, when
heated to a high temperature passes into the' fuel in the upper
portion of the gasifying shaft. The heat contained in the gas
is, therefore, fairly completely returned to the gasifier. The
other portion of the air required for the combustion passes from
the lower duct through the double-walled cover up into the shaft,
over the whole of which it becomes distributed. In this way the
heat, which would otherwise become lost by radiation, is also
returned to the gasifier. By this arrangement it is possible
to work continuously and successfully even with very wet
earthy fuels.

Whenever, owing to special circumstances, e.g., charging the
furnace with a very wet peat, the fire drops off in the shaft, the
stoker connects the flue with the interior of the shaft by opening
the reversing valve A. The entrance of air at the top is then
cut off, the hot air in the double-walled cover passes directly
into the shaft when the valve B is opened, and a very energetic
combustion sets in. When the fire is once more burning well
the valve is again reversed. Ashes and slack can be removed by
means of shovels from the water seal St without any development
of dust. The water seal also acts as a dust-catcher for the out-
going gas. The washer S is filled with pieces of coke decreasing
in size from below upwards and has a water sprayer at the top.
W is a water separator, and finally T is a saw-dust scrubber from
which the gas, which is by this time washed, purified, and dried,
flows into the gasometer, from which it is drawn off for driving
the power machine or for other purposes.

The peat gas plant is always so arranged that the hopper of
the producer is level with the surface of the ground, the shaft

GASIFICATION OF PEAT FOR FUEL PURPOSES

407

itself being, on the other hand, in a basement or cellar. This has
the great advantage that the peat, which has to be charged in
large quantities, can be brought in and unloaded on the level
without requiring to be elevated, as otherwise happens, to shaft
hoppers at a considerable height above the surface of the
ground.

The thorough experiments carried out by Professor Baer, of
Breslau, with one of these 300 h.p. peat gas installations, which
was set up at the Posen Exhibition of 1911, and was used there
for continuously generating electricity, showed that with a double-
acting, quadruple cycle gas engine having an actual efficiency of
82-9 per cent, and 260 effective h.p. the peat consumption was
258 kilos per hour or 1-55 kilos per kilowatt-hour on the switch-
board, or 0-99 kilo for 1 effective h.p. -hour or 0-82 for the piston
h.p. -hour.1

The analysis of the gas gave the following results : —

Experiment I.

Experiment II

Per cent.

Per cent.

1-35

1-74

0-11

0-15

17-13

17-00

15-85

12-80

1-02

1-31

12-34

14-00

52-20

53-00

Methane

Heavy hydrocarbons

Hydrogen

Carbon monoxide

Oxygen

Carbon dioxide

Nitrogen

Power gas plants of this type are working successfully for
S. G. Gratschoff and A. C. Bortschaninoff and Co., at Ekaterin-
burg (Russia), amongst others. The plant at Ekaterinburg is of
450 to 500 h.p.

The gasifier of the Julius Pintsch Company, of Berlin, has a
tube which is suspended in the centre of the oven shaft and into
which the peat passes from the hopper. The tube is open at the
bottom and serves for the distillation and carbonization of
the peat. In this case also the distillation gases are burnt in
the gasification zone. The freshly charged peat is heated by the
finished power gas, which flows round the outside of the suspended
tube, and then, when fully carbonized, passes down into the gasifier
where power gas formation is effected by means of the mixture
of air and steam passed up through the grate. While this gas
is led away through a tube, separated as well as possible from the
centre of the gasifier, the distillation gases formed in the gasifier
are drawn out through a tube intended specially for them, and,
after addition to them of the quantity of air necessary for their
combustion, they are again introduced into the gasifier by means
of a by-pass tube, ending under the grate.

1 Maschinen-Zeitung, 1911, No. 24.

408 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

3, — The Frank-Caro-Mond Process for Gasifying Peat with
Recovery of Nitrogen; and the Gasifiers of Hoering—
Wielandt, A. Born, &c.

The ordinary method of utilizing peat is beset with difficulties
which everyone knows, and the economic working of large peat
factories, the satisfactory disposal of fuel peat or peat charcoal,
and, therefore, the successful utilization of large bogs are specially
affected by : — -

(1) The inconvenience associated with the winning and drying
of peat, lack of labour, &c.

(2) The low heating power of ordinary air-dry hand peat, or
machine peat, in relation to its volume.

(3) The non-utilization of the nitrogen of the peat which,
though valuable in itself, does not increase the calorific power
of the peat.

These facts led Professors Frank and Caro, of Charlottenburg,
near Berlin, to work out a special gasification process based on
that of Mond,1 the object of which2 is to recover the valuable
nitrogen in the form of ammonia, in addition to producing a
cheap power gas from (crumb, cut, or dredged) peat even when
the latter is only " half dry."

High bog peats contain 0-8 to 1-5 per cent, of nitrogen and
low bog peats up to 3 to 4 per cent, of this element. If, in the
well-known shaft gasifiers or gasification ovens for the production
of power gas from peat, care be taken to keep the temperature of
the gasifier as low as possible and to remove the gases from it
as rapidly as possible, the ammonia, which is formed from the
nitrogen of the peat during the combustion, can be prevented
from decomposing owing to increase of temperature and won
in the undecomposed state, provided little air, but much steam,
be let into the gasifier. Under these conditions about 70 per
cent, of the nitrogen contained in the peat can be won in the form
of ammonia. If the peat is more or less rich in nitrogen the yield
of ammonia, and the profit arising from this, are so considerable
that the power gas won at the same time becomes an extra-
ordinarily cheap fuel. This power gas is to be used in electrical
power stations for local factories or in overland power stations
for generating an electrical current, which can be transmitted and
distributed over long distances (without great loss) by cables in
the well-known manner. In this way the utilization of peat is to
be made feasible in the bog itself without incurring heavy expenses
for drying and freightage. The heating value of the gas thus
obtained varies from 1,100 to 1,300 kilo-calories per cubic metre.
It is said that peat containing 50 to 60 per cent, (and even
70 per cent.) of moisture can be employed with advantage in
this process and also even when it is in the form of mould (i.e.,
sods are not necessary). It is claimed that this peat can be

1 See Patent 130884 in the section on Patents.

2 See Patents 238829 and 255291 in the section on Patents.

GASIFICATION OF PEAT FOR FUEL PURPOSES 409

won cheaply, and that the industry can be carried on during at
least nine months of the year.

According to the improved process the peat is filled into the
shaft gasifier, which is sealed underneath from the air by means of
water. Hot air, saturated with water vapour, is forced under
pressure into the charge, which has been ignited from below.
The peat above the glowing layer then undergoes gasification.
The gas is washed and freed from tar, and then the ammonia
contained in it is absorbed by sulphuric acid. The lye thus
obtained is evaporated and the ammonium sulphate, which is
separated by centrifuging, has a high value as a fertilizer. The
gas is further purified in the ordinary way, cooled by imparting
its heat to the air-blast required for the gasification, and is then
capable of being used in gas engines. The essential part of the
Frank-Caro improvement in the " Mond gas " process is the very
high temperature (400° to 450° C.) of the air-blast blown into the
gasifier, owing to which temperature the drying layer is brought
as near as possible in the furnace to the burning layer, and the
yield of ammonia, therefore, increased.

The German Mond Gas Company, which was founded in
conjunction with leaders of industry and financiers of the Rhine-
land for the utilization of the process improved by Frank and
Caro, erected at considerable expense a big experimental plant
at Sodingen, in Westphalia, and then formed the Hanoverian
Colonization and Bog Utilization Company at Osnabruck, which
acquired 1,000 ha. of the Schweger Moor, near Osnabruck, in
addition to extensive bog areas near Papenburg. In 1910 this
Company built a 3,000 h.p. power gas and electricity station in
the Schweger Moor, which began work in October, 1911, after
initial difficulties of various kinds had been experienced. In
addition to utilizing the bogs, which had previously been more or
less derelict, and supplying electricity to the town of Osnabruck
and the surrounding districts, they hoped that by means of this
factory they would have given an incentive for extensive coloniza-
tion of the bogs by agricultural labourers and for the installation
in the district of large chemical and other industrial works.

According to Frank the average composition of the power gas
obtained from peat containing 50 to 55 per cent, of moisture
was : —

Per cent, by
volume.
17-4-18-8

9-4- 11-0
22-4-25-6

2-4- 3-6
42-6-46-6

Traces

Carbon dioxide . .
Carbon monoxide
Hydrogen
Methane
Nitrogen
Oxygen . .

J

The total combustible con-
stituents were therefore 36 to
39 per cent, (by volume), and
their heating value was, on an
average, 1,300 to 1,400 kilo-
calories per cubic metre.

Each effective horse-power of a gas engine required 2 • 4 cb. m.
of the gas. The peats gasified at Sodingen, which on the average
contained 1-15 per cent, of nitrogen, gave up to 40 kilos of
ammonium sulphate per metric ton of dry peat. A deduction

(2595) ~ E

410 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

must be made in the case of large installations by taking into
account the amount of gas necessary for generating the steam
required for the gasifier, so that for the metric ton of dry peat,
corresponding to 2 m. tons of peat containing 50 per cent, of
moisture, the power produced should be assumed as only 650 to
700 h. p. -hours. For every 1,000 h. p. -years, of 8,000 h. p. -hours
each, then at 650 to 700 h. p. -hours, or with continuous working
900 h. p. -hours, for the metric ton of dry peat, the fuel consumption
would require each year the cutting out of 4 ha. of bog 3 m. in
depth. The cost of winning 1 m. ton of peat containing 50 to
55 per cent, of moisture is assumed to be 3M. For the 3,000 h.p.
station in the Schweger Moor 12 ha. of bog would require to
be cut away every year, and the subsoil, made available for tillage
by the Dutch method, could be handed over to colonists for
agricultural purposes. Special importance was attached to the
winning of the nitrogen of the peat in the form of ammonium
sulphate (33 to 35 kilos per metric ton of dry peat), both from
the point of view of the shareholder and also to meet, as far as
possible by home manufacture, the German agriculturists' require-
ments of nitrogenous fertilizers. It was also expected that with
the cheap power gas thus won the utilization of atmospheric
nitrogen for the production of fertilizers (calcium cyanamide, &c.)
by the process discovered by Frank and Caro would be greatly
facilitated. About 800,000 to 1,000,000 h.p. would be required
in the case of the calcium cyanamide process to meet Germany's
ever-growing requirements of combined nitrogen.

In this process for gasifying peat with recovery of by-products
the consumption of dry peat necessary to produce, electrically,
1,000 h. p. -hours is 1-25 m. tons, while in the other processes
without by-product recovery (Deutz, Korting, Gorlitz) it is
0-6 to 0-75 m. tons, or with peat containing 50 per cent, of mois-
ture it is 2-5 as against 1 • 2 to 1 • 5 m. tons. Counterbalancing
the increased consumption of 1 to 1-3 m. tons of ''half-dry'
peat (costing 3M. to 4M.) for 1,000 h.p.-hours, 10 kilos of nitrogen
in the form of ammonium sulphate (worth 10M.) are obtained.
This profit from the ammonium sulphate; which is, however,
subject to a deduction due to the higher interest and amortization
of the higher capital required, serves, therefore, for decreasing
the cost of the power obtained.

As far as is known, the carrying out of this process on the
large scale of the Schweger Moor power station met with consider-
able difficulties, so that the peat gasification plant had to be
shut down. The estimates of the probable working results based
on the very complete experiments made in the -bog and the
hopes for the commercial success of the installation, entertained
even by the world of experts, have not as yet been fulfilled. With
regard to the reasons for this, the public is not clear whether it
is due to the "half-dry" peat (containing 50 to 60 per cent, of
moisture) being too dear and also insufficient in amount for
the yearly requirements of the station, or to the character of
the Schweger Bog, inadequacy of the peat-winning machines,

GASIFICATION OF PEAT FOR FUEL PURPOSES 411

unfavourable utilization of the steam and heat in the gasification
of the by-products, or to an unsatisfactory yield and utilization
of these by-products, or, what is most probably the case, to the
co-operation of several of these causes.1

In addition to the experimental installation near Osnabruck
two more or less large plants of this type are said to be working,
and indeed satisfactorily, at Orentano and Codigoro, both of
which belong to the Societa per l'utilizzazione dei combistibite
Italiani. The latter plant is said to be able to produce 10 to 12
m. tons of ammonium sulphate per day from 150 m. tons of
artificially (?) dried peat. The total expenditure of the Company
at Orentano and Codigoro is said to have been 4,859,400M. and
the cost of production of 100 kilos of ammonium sulphate to have
been only 10M. to 11-50M., as against a selling price of 24M.2

The purpose of the peat gasifiers which we are now about to
mention is essentially the same as that of the gasifier just described.

The Hoering-Wielandt Gasifier3 consists of a combination of
the Hoering carbonizing muffle4 with a gasifier in which the
destructive distillation occurs at a different place from that at
which the gasification is carried out. It is claimed that it is
possible in this way to win all the by-products of the coking or
carbonizing process without destroying the tarry constituents by
burning them. The heat contained in the glowing charcoal is
absorbed by the steam, which is forced through the oven to cool
the charcoal, and is then employed for the recovery of the by-
products and the pre-heating of the air required for the
combustion.

A . Bom's Peat Gasifier. — In this shaft producer the peat is to
be gasified in the crumb instead of in the sod form. The air is
led in all directions through the peat, while this is gradually
sinking during the gasification, so as to avoid the great resistance
offered by a high column of crumby peat to the passage of air
and fuel gas through it. With this object the air supply chambers
are displaced to the side of the shaft, separated by greater
intervals than usual, and are provided with inlets and outlets so
that the air is compelled to pass through the crumby mass of
peat instead of Up the side of the latter. Also in the case of this
gasifier, in addition to the production of gas for fuel or power
purposes, the main object is the recovery of as much as possible
of the by-products (up to 90 per cent, of the nitrogen of the fuel
and 10 per cent, of the tar) and at the same time the commercial
solution (?) of the problem of the utilization of peat even when
this contains 40 per cent, of moisture. One of these gasifiers
is at present set up at the State Mine Works at Glodbeck.

The same remarks apply to the gasifier of the Upper Bavarian

1 Cf. also Mitteilungen, 1913, p. 209 et sqq. ; also p. 231 or pp. 320-328
and 371-372 for A. Bom's statements and the reply thereto of the
Hanoverian Colonization and Bog Utilization Company.

2 Mitteilungen, 1914, p. 376.

3 See Patent 176231 in the section on Patents.

4 See Patents 158032, 176364, and 176365 in the section on Patents.

2 E 2

412 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

Coke Works and Chemical Products Factory at Beuerberg. This
gasifier is mentioned in more detail under Patent 213852 in
Section IX, 3.

4, — Economic Value of the various Peat Gasifying Installations

The question has often been asked in reference to the technical
utilization of peat by gasification for power purposes whether
a down-draught or an up-draught producer, and also whether
simple generation of power gas, according to the method described
on p. 400, or gas generation with recovery of by-products according
to the process of Mond, Frank, and Caro, is the more economical
and, therefore, the more correct. This question cannot be
answered in general. The size of the power station projected or
intended to be used, as well as the nature of the peat to be
employed, especially its percentage of nitrogen, have important
bearings on these points. Well-purified gas, which will not clog
the gas pipes or the engine, is absolutely necessary if the power
machines are to work without interruptions. In an up-draught
producer, the gas exit of which is above the layer of fuel, the tarry
vapours, formed in all cases, pass with the gas to the purifier in
which they must be subjected to a thorough mechanical purifica-
tion which necessitates a corresponding expenditure of power.
In the " Mond gas " manufacture the purification of the gas is
effected during the recovery of the by-products, and this in itself
requires a more or less large expenditure of power and capital.
The down-draught producers, amongst which that described on
p. 405 may be mentioned, aim at the production of gas which
can be used without further purification in engines. The tarry
vapours, formed also in this case from the freshly charged peat
at the top of the producer and not being able to escape there,
are obliged to pass with the air necessary for the gasification
through the underlying layers of glowing peat, where they are
converted into permanent gases suitable for engines, and from
which they escape with the power gas itself. The recuperation
of the more or less large amount of heat contained in the gases
formed in this process is effected by utilizing it in a suitable
manner to pre-heat the air required for the gasification. In
comparing the different power gas installations with one another
it is not the quantity of gas produced in the plant and its content
of carbon which are the deciding factors, but rather that quantity
which is available as power for use outside the factory together
with the simplicity, the ease of supervision, the purpose and the
cost of the installation. ' Mond gas ,; plants require a larger
capital on account of their wider scope and more workmen and
officials for the recovery of the by-products (ammonia, &c).
As the "Mond gas ' installation also requires more peat for
the development of unit power than the simple power gas plant,
a bigger installation and working capital is necessary for the larger
amount of peat to be won, and the interest and amortization of
this must be taken into account in the estimate. More or less

GASIFICATION OF PEAT FOR FUEL PURPOSES. 413

small " Mond gas " plants could, therefore, scarcely prove com-
mercially successful. For such installations it will, as a rule, be
a matter of several hundred thousand Marks capital which, when
the peat is cheap and rich in nitrogen and when there is an
assured market for the by-products, should yield a good interest.

The statement that in one or other plant more or less wet
peat (containing up to 70 per cent, of moisture) can be gasified
successfully without interfering with the continuity of the
working can only be accepted with reserve. Too high a moisture
content requires a large expenditure of heat for its evaporation,
and in any event makes the gasification more difficult to effect,
the gas won having at the same time a lower heating power.
The larger amount of heat thus lost and the increased consumption
of fuel necessary for the recovery of the by-products are partly
compensated by the greater yield of ammonia, &c, the value of
which, and, therefore, the final economic verdict on the possibility
of working a more or less wet peat, will depend on the market
price of the by-products.

Regarding the question whether it is better to use power gas
or fuel gas for a plant, especially when the load is variable, as,
for instance, in the case of electric lighting and power stations,
it must be observed that gas engines have their full and maximum
efficiency only when working at full load, while steam engines
and steam turbines are able to adapt themselves to a varying
load without considerable loss of efficiency.

In large installations it will be well, therefore, to combine
the two methods in such a way that the probable constant load
will be provided for by gas engines and power gas producers
and the variable excess load by steam engines and steam turbines,
developing the steam necessary for the latter in boilers heated
by fuel gas furnaces.

Section IV

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN
VARIOUS BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY

RESULTS

1. — General Heating Installations and Domestic Fires

In North and South Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Sweden,
and Norway, as well as in Russia, peat is used extensively as a
fuel, both for sitting-room fires and kitchen fires, as well as for
industrial purposes — for instance, for boilers in breweries and salt-
works, for furnaces in glass-works and potteries, and also for the
manufacture of peat charcoal. In Austria, on the other hand, it is
mainly used in factories, expecially ironworks, glass factories, and
potteries. The use of peat for firing locomotives and smelting iron,
with regard to which details are given later, is everywhere on the
decline. The construction of domestic fireplaces for peat has been
recently improved in South and North Germany, as well as in
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. These are either grate fireplaces
with doors, capable of being made air-tight, for the fire itself as
well as for the opening through which the ashes fall, or else inter-
mediate shell fireplaces for continuous firing. We must once more
point out that a stove suitable for other fuels cannot, without
further trouble, be employed with advantage for peat-firing, and
that this can be done only when the stove, having a sufficient
heating surface and a suitable draught with air regulators, is able
to separate the ashes easily from the still burning fuel and to allow
just the right amount of air to pass freely to every part of the
burning peat. In these peat stoves for living rooms the heating
is generally conducted so that all the fuel required to warm the
room in question is put in one batch into the stove and ignited.
When it is burning freely the fire-door and the ash-door are closed
tight. The charge then burns out gradually, and the retention of
the heat thus developed makes it possible for a single firing to
suffice for the whole of a cold winter's day.

The modern intermediate shell and continuous combustion
stoves, well known for coal-firing, have been suitably modified for
peat-firing. In the absence of a grate they have been provided
with two air inlets on the front and rear sides of a box-shaped layer
of fuel, and we are thus enabled to keep the firing going well for
several days with peat, just as in the case of coal or coke. Amongst
good stoves, constructed specially for peat, may be mentioned
the " Danish continuous combustion stoves for peat-firing," of
Gienanth Bros., of Hochstein and Eisenberg (Palatinate), of
Christensen and Co., of Nykjobing, of Lange Jensen and Co.,

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY 415

of Svenborg, of A. B. Recks, Opvarmings Co., of Copenhagen, of
H. Andersson, of Laholm, and the new peat continuous combustion
stoves of Winter and Co., of Hanover, as well as the peat stoves
of Alfred Christensen, of Munich.

For central heating the Strebel Works of Mannheim provide
their well-known hot-water and steam-heating boilers with special
firing and draught contrivances for those cases where brown coal
and peat are used as the fuel. These appliances have proved
successful. The trials gave, for instance, with the so-called " Brico
boiler " of the factory, using machine peat in sods of the ordinary
size and quality, a nearly complete combustion and a heat develop-
ment of 7,000 to 8,000 kilo-calories per square metre of the heating
surface. A good draught in the chimney (which should be at least
10 m. in height and have a draught of at least 3-5 mm. of water)
is, however, absolutely necessary, as the moisture content of the
peat is generally high.

The following results have been obtained in the different
industries : —

2. — Iron and Steel Industry

The use of peat for the manufacture of iron and steel progressed
to an extraordinary extent pari passu with the development of gas-
firing in the middle of the last century, and the ironworks, erected
mainly with a view to utilizing large peat bogs, in Oldenburg,
Styria, Carinthia, and the Tyrol, for instance, showed during the
seventies and eighties in regard to peat utilization almost entirely
satisfactory, in some cases indeed very good, results. By employ-
ing the improved Siemens gas furnaces a temperature sufficient
for smelting steel was attained, and in forging, welding and
puddling operations, as well as in the Martin process, peat could,
in bog districts, compete favourably with any other form of fuel.

In the first edition of this book, as well as in the report on
visits made by the author, which appeared in 1878 under the title
" Die Torfwirtschaft Siiddeutschlands und Osterreichs," Berlin,
Paul Parey, and in the Landw. Jahrbiicher, vol. vii, Nos. 4 and 5,
detailed accounts are given of the plants employed and the results
obtained.

The fuel consumption for 100 kilos of the finished product,
e.g., in the Siemens regenerating furnaces of the Josef sthal Iron-
works, near Chlumetz, amounted to 120 kilos of peat in the case
of re-heated plate-iron, wire, or refined iron. In the Siemens
re-heating furnaces of the Buchscheiden Ironworks, in Carinthia,
the fuel required was 58 kilos. In a double furnace, indeed, only
36-3 kilos of cut peat were required for every 100 kilos of twice-
heated rolled steel rails. This double furnace gave 93,000 kilos
per week, corresponding to 4 to 4| heatings in twelve hours for
eight ingots of 240 kilos each.

In the peat gas re-heating furnaces of the Marien Ironworks, at
Dantzig, the peat required per 100 kilos of twice re-heated iron was
estimated at 90 kilos, similar results being obtained about that

416 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

time in the re-heating and steam-hammer operations of the Berlin
Machine Co., formerly owned by L. Schwartzkopff.

In the Nothburga Ironworks, near Klagenfurt, where approxi-
mately 18,000 cb. m. of peat were consumed annually, but which
ceased operations several years ago, the output of a double puddling
furnace charged with 450 kilos of ' ' white Carinthian wood charcoal
cast-iron " was 405 kilos, the peat consumption being 165 kilos per
100 kilos of iron. At the Rottenmann Ironworks, in the Enns
valley, for every 100 kilos of finished sheet metal, 150 kilos of peat
were required for puddling, 45 kilos for re-heating to mill-bar, and
90 kilos in the reverberatory furnace.

The best results of the period were obtained at the Oldenburg
Ironworks, at Augustfehn, which at the beginning of the eighties
had in addition to 3 coal puddling furnaces and 1 coal re-heating
furnace, 11 peat gas puddling furnaces and 4 peat gas re-heating
furnaces (Siemens furnaces), together with 9 steam boilers fired
with peat. The fuel burnt consisted of 4,750,000 kilos of coal and
18,300,000 kilos of peat, of which 14,300,000 kilos were cut by the
Company itself and the remainder purchased from neighbouring
bog-owners. The annual net profit of the Company at the time
amounted to 38 per cent., but on the average was 20 per cent.
It was found that in the puddling furnaces every 100 kilos of
unfinished rails required 120 to 130 kilos of coal in the coal furnaces,
and 190 to 230 kilos of peat in the peat gas furnaces (including the
steam generation), which in the years 1873-1874, when the price of
coal, free at the factory, was 2-24M. per 100 kilos and that of cut
peat was 0-57M. per 100 kilos, made a difference in the cost of
production of 1-50M. per 100 kilos of the finished product in
favour of the peat gas furnaces.1

Since then, however, partly owing to extensions in railways and
waterways, partly owing to better utilization for metallurgical
purposes of the waste gases from carbonizing and coking ovens,
partly because the smelting of poor bog-iron ores became unremu-
nerative in the face of pig-iron from England, Alsace and Lorraine,
Spain, or Sweden, the circumstances of the iron and steel industry
so altered that, quite apart from the fuel question, the continued
existence of all the smaller ironworks became endangered. These,
owing either to remoteness from trade centres or to difficulty in
obtaining the raw or semi-raw materials, or to distance from the
market for their products, or to labour difficulties, &c, were much
less favourably situated than the many factories in the centre of
the well-known iron and coal districts which were well capitalized
and equipped with the best technical contrivances for the work.
Hence the ironworks erected at that time for the utilization of
peat in the larger bog districts which are generally at a consider-
able distance from commercial centres were gradually abandoned,
as, for instance, the Neustadt Works in Hanover, the Josefsthal

1 All the working results as well as the details with regard to the con-
trivances at the ironworks are given in the first edition of this book
" Industrielle Torfgewinnung und Torfverwertung," Berlin, 1877.

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY 417

Ironworks near Chlumetz, the ironworks of the Vordernberger-
Radmeister community in the Enns valley, the Buchscheiden
Ironworks in Carinthia, &c. ; and even the Augustfehn Ironworks,
which had considerably better results in the eighties with its
peat gas re-heating and puddling furnaces than it did with coal
furnaces and which gave rise to great hopes for peat utilization
in the future, has in the interval given up the peat industry.
The directors were obliged to adopt this course owing to the
nature of the peat and to the shutting down of their puddling
industry. Their own peat became every year less dense, and
for several successive years it was not sufficiently dry ; dry peat
from outside sources was offered at too high a price and in too
small a quantity ; the puddling became therefore no longer
remunerative, the pig-iron having become too dear. Re-heating
with peat gas was given up, as the manufacture of re-heated
iron in the new coal gas re-heating furnaces proved more
economical than in the peat furnaces ; the steam for the rolling
mill engine was obtained, moreover, without any special
expenditure of fuel.

The neighbouring Augustfehn Steelworks, on the other hand,
now, as heretofore, uses peat for firing its boilers.

The peat industry itself in these factories, notwithstanding the
shutting down of the ironworks, has not been given up nor has
it decreased in extent. The peat won there is used in dwelling
houses or in the furnaces of neighbouring potteries and glass-
works.

The bogs of the earlier Josefsthal Ironworks, for instance, have
passed into the possession of the glass-manufacturing Company of
C. Stolzle and Sons, of Nagelberg, which also carries on a machine
factory, an iron foundry, a wire-mill, and a wire-tack industry
at Chlumetz, near Wittingau. This Company uses in its various
industries, including the glass-works, 50 to 60 million sods of peat
per annum, in addition to 800 double wagons of brown coal and
40,000 cb. m. of wood. According to the quality of the peat, i.e.,
whether fibrous or bituminous, 1,000 sods weigh 220 to 400 kilos,
so that the annual consumption of peat amounts to about 1,700
double wagons. In Bohemia their works are in the Oberplan,
Wittingau, Schweinitz region, and in Lower Austria in that of
Gmund, Weitra, Schrems. The combustion is carried out in gas
furnaces with flat grates and also on step grates.

In other works peat-firing has maintained itself to some extent,
e.g., in the Untersberg Iron Refinery, near Salzberg, and in the iron-
works at Rottenmann (Styria) of Lapp Bros., formerly belonging
to the Pesendorf representatives. The latter uses annually, in
addition to 200 to 240 m. tons of " smiths' coal" in the forge
fires and about the same amount of brown coal in reverberatory
fires for the manufacture of 1,500 to 2,000 m. tons of axle-trees,
1,400 m. tons of brown coal in tempering furnaces, 360 m. tons
of coke in cupola furnaces, and 45,000 to 48,000 hi. of wood
charcoal, 10,000 to 12,000m. tons of brown coal, and 450,000 hi.,
or 9,000 m. tons, of peat from Gamper and Worschach moors

418 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

(in the Enns valley), in re-heating furnaces with flat grates and
in gasifiers for the manufacture of 8,500 m. tons of refined sheet
metal, cold-rolled band-iron, and ordinary sheet metal. Accord-
ing to the thickness of the sheet metal, 150 to 200 kilos of cut peat
are required for 100 kilos of the refined plate. All the cut peat
is dried in the sheds described on p. 47 ; the cost of winning is
0-50 kr. per 100 kilos of dry peat, to which 0-50 kr. must be added
for the construction and repair of the drying sheds, transport,
&C.1 Fohnsdorf coal costs 2-80 kr. and Lankowitz brown coal
2-00 kr. per 100 kilos, delivered free at Rottenmann railway
station.

Industrially, peat charcoal, made from good machine peat, is
in ready demand as a substitute for wood charcoal for copper-
smiths, machine manufacturers, locksmiths, &c, and also even
for the blast furnace industry. The proprietor of the Schmal-
kalden blast furnace works (Bleymuller) reported, as the result
of many years' experience of peat charcoal and wood charcoal in
his blast furnaces, that a good, dense, and firm peat charcoal, when
obtained from layers of pure peat and free from sulphur and
phosphorus, as is generally the case with the East Frisian peat
charcoal, is very well adapted for the replacement of beech char-
coal in blast furnaces, and that it has a crushing strength equal
to that of the latter. So far from the iron being in any way
prejudicially affected, it is rather of a more uniform character
when made with peat charcoal than with wood charcoal, which
frequently, owing to rainy weather, is brought in wet, and
therefore in an unreliable condition.

Whether peat charcoal can be used successfully for blast fur-
nace purposes depends entirely on the price and the strength of
the charcoal. While some are of opinion that the height of the
furnace, when peat charcoal is used, should not exceed 12 to 13 m.,
experiments in Bosnia have shown that Ziegler's peat charcoal
can stand the pressure in furnaces up to 18 m. in height. After
each " running-orf " the hearth must be carefully freed from dust,
but a special form of furnace is not necessary.

According to the experiments of Professor Odelstierna, the
peat powder of Ekelund is said to have worked very well in
Swedish iron and steel smelting furnaces. Thus, for instance,
the melting of 1 kilo of crucible steel required only 0-8 kilo of
peat powder as against 1 kilo of coal.

3. — Glass-works Industry

Peat-firing has maintained itself better in glass-works than
it has in the iron industry. With the introduction of peat gas
firing into the glass industry, the two following conditions,
important for good working, were simultaneously fulfilled : —

1 The factory reckons that a 3 hi. barrel = 60 to 65 kilos of air-dry
fuel peat, costs 55 heller (hence 100 kilos cost approximately 1 kr.),
including all charges, interest, &c.

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY 419

(1) The production of a sufficiently high temperature even
when a comparatively poor fuel was employed.

(2) The preservation of the glass from attack by injurious
fumes, which is made possible in the case of ordinary firing by
employing only closed melting pots and by using only wood or coal
of a good quality to attain the high temperature required for these.

With the aid of ordinary grates and peat-firing common and
semi-white glass were manufactured in a few cases when the fuel
was of specially good quality. The glass had, however, to be
made 20 to 30 per cent, softer than that made in wood charcoal,
coal, or gas furnaces. This placed the manufacturer at a disadvan-
tage, and, moreover, the glass was less brilliant and less resistant
to chemical agents than that obtained in the ordinary furnaces.

The window glass made in this way very quickly becomes dull
and is not much sought after. On the other hand, gasification of
the peat, for which purpose even a peat of little value may be
used on account of the purity of the flame, which is of very
great value in the manufacture of glass, enables us to smelt
extra-fine glass without any special difficulty and helps to
impart a beautiful brilliancy to the product, thus increasing its
market value.

The possibility of using peat for this industry allows of the
latter being introduced into countries containing all the necessary
raw materials — sand, ashes, spar, and lime — and in which the
establishment of glass factories has hitherto been impossible owing
to lack of wood or too great distance from coal districts, while
at the same time peat is present there in almost inexhaustible
quantities, as, for instance, in the Baltic provinces, Posen, Poland,
Bohemia, Styria, West Russia, &c.

The advantage which peat gas firing has over ordinary firing
with wood charcoal or coal is considerable and amounts to a
saving of at least 30 to 40 per cent, in fuel costs, as may be seen
from the following particulars.

According to statements made many years ago by the
Neufriedrichstal Glassworks, near Uscz, a glass-smelting furnace
fired with peat gas, having 8 glass-smelting pots and giving
3,200 kilos of glass in each batch required in 7 days or 7 x 24
hours : —

77 cords1 of light peat at 6M 462M.

7 cords of faggots at 9 • 0M 63M.

Total 525M.

On the other hand, a glass-smelting furnace of the same dimen-
sions fired with wood, therefore, with 8 pots, each giving 800 kilos
of bottle glass in 7 x 24 hours or 1 week, required : —

56 cords of logs at 13- 50M. 756M.

7 cords of faggots at 9 • 0M 63M.

Total 819M.

1 A cord of peat is 108 cubic feet (German) == 3i cb. m., and contains
2,000 sods of peat, weighing altogether 1,500 to 2,000 pounds (German) =
750 to 1,000 kilos of cut peat.

420 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

and therefore the fuel for the latter furnace cost an extra 294M.
per week for the same output.

According to Steinmann,1 a furnace such as this, with a fuel
consumption of 180,960 sods of light peat per week, in six batches
gave 18 m. tons = 18,000 kilos of glass, so that with the cheaper
charge (the thousand of peat sods is estimated at 2M.) the fuel
per 50 kilos of glass was 1-01M., or for 100 kilos 2-02M., while
in a wood furnace with ordinary firing the fuel cost for 50 kilos of
glass amounted to 2- 17M.

On an average we may assume that 100 kilos of finished bottles
(160 ordinary Rhine wine or red wine bottles) require 250 kilos of
air-dry peat, or, if 100 sods of peat be supposed to weigh 35 kilos,
then 100 kilos of bottles will require 700 sods of cut peat. The
daily consumption of a glass furnace, having 8 pots of 400 kilos
each, is 4,500 kilos of peat in 24 hours, with a melting period of
15 hours, so that in the week six workings and smeltings can be
carried out.

In cistern furnaces the peat consumption is even more favour-
able. In a glass-works near Kolbermoor, which manufactured only
glass bottles in a Schinz cistern furnace, 20,000 bottles were made
in 7 batches, with a fuel consumption of 2,000 to 2,500 kilos in the
week, and, therefore, for each batch, including cooling, 36 cb. m.
of peat were required, corresponding approximately to 12 cb. m.
of peat for 1,000 bottles, or with a price of 1-40M. for a cubic
metre at the place, to a fuel cost of 16-80M.

Good brown coal for the same purpose would have cost at that
time and place 1-50M. per 100 kilos, or 30 to 40M. for the same
output.

At the Ignaz Glaser Works, in the Burmoos, near Salzburg,
which manufactures exclusively plate-glass in Siemens gas fur-
naces, 10,000 sq. m. of plate-glass (2 mm. thick) are manufactured
per month in each of four furnaces, and therefore 40,000 sq. m.
altogether of plate-glass per month. For this purpose, including
flattening kilns, heating the pots and firing a steam engine for
driving small working machines, the furnace installation requires
17,000 cb. m. of fuel peat per annum, or for 100 kilos of plate-glass
3-6 cb. m. of peat (200 kilos each), i.e., 720 kilos of peat are
required.

There are at present many glass factories using peat fuel.
In Austria, for instance, at Suchental, Georgenthal, Aalfang,
Sofienwald, Althutte, Neuhutte, Eugeniahiitte, near Schrems,
Nagelberg, Salzburg, and in Bavaria at Kolbermoor, &c.

The Glass Manufacturing Company of C. Stolzle and Sons,
of Nagelberg (Lower Austria), gave their peat consumption as
300 to 600 kilos per 100 kilos of glass, according to the nature of
the glass made. As mentioned above, the Company required
50 to 60 million sods (17,000 tons) of cut peat per annum in their
various works.

The installation expenses of a modern peat gas furnace do not

1 Steinmann's " Compendium der Gasfeuerung."

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY 421

exceed those of an ordinary smelting furnace with the same size
of hearth, while, on the other hand, its maintenance costs less,
and when its foundations have been made with the requisite care,
the furnace may easily last ten to twelve seasons without any great
repair being required. The increased expenditure due to the
substructure is very rapidly repaid by the saving of fuel and also by
other advantages of the furnace. Sometimes this will be paid off
even within the first two seasons' work.

Two of the gasifiers shown in Figs. 142 and 144 will be ample
for a glass furnace with 4,000 kilos pot capacity or for a cistern
furnace, the cisterns of which can take from 5,000 to 7,000 kilos
of glass.

For the manufacture of hollow glass ware not only the smelting
furnaces but also all the auxiliary furnaces (including even the
annealing ovens), which require a lower temperature, can be con-
structed for gas-firing. The peat consumed in these may be taken
as usually 25 per cent, of that used in smelting when plate-glass is
being made, and 8 to 12 per cent, for hollow glass ware.

4. — Peat-firing for Burning Earthenware, Bricks, Lime, &c.

The successful use of peat as fuel in the above-named industries
is made possible, in the case of continuous working, by means
of Hoffmann's annular kilns in addition to the gas furnaces already
mentioned.

If these Hoffmann annular or zigzag kilns are combined with
drying chambers specially adapted for the wet bricks, commercial
success of the industry will be assured. According to Patent
No. 283248 of the brickworks engineer Rauls, of Cologne-on-
Rhine, a zigzag kiln may be constructed with its drying chambers
built either on or in front of its burning chambers and co-axial
with these, which are provided with doors at their ends, and with
a track going through each of the burning and igniting chambers
and extending from the brick-way house to the place where the
finished bricks are loaded, the filling and the emptying of the
kiln being at the same time made entirely automatic.

In such a kiln it is said that 1,000 bricks or tiles can be
manufactured for 8-80M. (the cost was formerly 15 to 16M.), the
particulars being as follows : —

Annual output : 10 million bricks and tiles.

Daily output : 40,000.

Size of factory : 33 x 60 m. (1,710 sq. m. site, ground-level).

Number of workmen : 21 men, including those in the clay-pit.

Installation costs : 260.000M. ; including cost of clay-pit, 42.500M.,

working capital, 20,000M., and peat industry, 20.000M.
Cost of production for 1,000 bricks loaded at the brick-kilns : —

(a) Writing-off and interest, 1-87M.

(b) Peat and coal used, 2-76M.

(c) Wages, 2-17 M.

(d) Other expenses, 2 • 00M.
Total, 8-80M.*

* See Rauls, " Handbuch der Trockner und Brennofen," Cologne, 1915.

422 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

The cost of 4,000,000 kilos (4,000 m. tons) of peat was :—
Wages, 6,900m., overseer, 480M., interest, 800M.
Writing-off, 400M., wear and tear, 1.000M., raw material, 2.100M.,
lubricants, 200M., stoker, 300M., Total, 12.180M. ; or in
round numbers, 13,000M., with an installation capital of
20,000M. (50 kilos of peat cost, therefore, 0-163M.).

The plan adopted for automatically feeding the peat is that
in the German patent of O. von Wilucki, Director of the Brick
School at Zwickau, in Saxony.

The peat burnt consists of more or less small pieces of formed
peat or mould, but in order that the operations may run smoothly
it is essential that it should be as dry as possible. With this object
the Rauls peat gas producer is combined with new and ingenious
driers so that no peat except that which is almost dry enters
into the producer. The drier is run at no expense, all the fuel
required for it being obtained from the gas producer itself.

In the Kolbermoor earthenware factory, which is mainly con-
cerned with the manufacture of ridge-tiles, pipes, hollow and
ornamental bricks, &c, 1,000 ridge-tiles were burnt in shaft kilns
having narrow (Mehl's patent) grates with the aid of 5 cb. m.
(215 to 220 kilos each) of peat won by the factory itself. Here also
gas-firing has been installed for the better utilization of the fuel.

In most cases, especially for the manufacture of roofing tiles,
the peat, as in the Raul's plant, is mixed with coal in order to
facilitate combustion.

In the Ingaz Glaser annular kiln brickery at Biirmoos, near
Salzburg, the burning of 7 million bricks (29 x 14 x 6-5 cb. m.)
requires 15,000 cb. m. of cut peat, i.e., 3,000,000 kilos of peat,
(each cubic metre weighing 200 kilos), and therefore 428 kilos
would be required for 1,000 bricks.

In the steam tilery at Husum, near Jever, in Oldenburg, where
Dutch bricks are made from an excellent, rich, blue clay, surpris-
ingly good, hard, brown-finished bricks were produced with a fuel
one-half of which was machine peat and the other half coal, the
product previously obtained with coal alone not having given
satisfaction. Equally good results are obtained in the " Scharrel
Annular Kiln Brickery " where the output is 10 to 12 millions
per annum.1

While for continuous working Schiitt's annular kilns are the
simplest firing installations for the utilization of peat in burning
ordinary earthenware bricks, pipes, &c, gas furnaces provided with
special gasifiers are necessary when, as in the case of high-class
glazed potter's ware, facing bricks, stoneware, &c, we require
that the flame should be as pure and as uniform as possible and
when we wish to prevent the ill-effects due to contact of the
wares to be burnt with the fuel and to the influence on the wares
of smoke and ashes, which might injuriously affect the colour of
the product, even in the case of bricks.

For this purpose a gas furnace is combined with a Hoffmann
chamber kiln (Mendheim type) for production on a large scale, or

1 Mitteilungen, 1906, p. 168.

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY

423

one or more kilns, grouped together, are provided with gasifiers
and a hot blast is forced into the combustion hearth (types of
Kleinwachter, Nehse, Moldner, &c, for stoneware, porcelain and

Figs. 150 and 151. — Lime-kiln with semi-gas firing for peat.

fire-brick) when the working temperature is to be as high as
possible.

The description of kilns such as these would take us outside the
limits of this handbook ; we can dispense with it all the more

424 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

readily as it is not advisable to construct plants of this type without
the co-operation of experts.1

For a smaller output kilns of a simpler character can be con-
structed with semi-gas furnaces for the combustion of the peat.
Figs. 150 and 151 show, for instance, a lime-kiln with semi-gas
firing built many years ago for a lime-burning works at Danzig.
It consists of a triple fire shaft-kiln with three gasifiers Glt G2, G3,
the construction of which is like that shown in Fig. 142.

Immediately before the generated gases enter the shaft the air
required for their combustion is passed into them through the air
passages left in the side walls of the gasifiers. H is the upper
charging door to which the limestone is wheeled up an inclined
plane, T is the lower charging and discharging door. The kiln,
which is simple in construction, gives good results.

In the more modern lime-kilns with semi-gas firing the entire
process of burning a charge takes thirty-six to forty hours and
for every 100 kilos of burnt lime 50 kilos of peat, or (when 1 cb. m.
of burnt lime weighs 1,200 kilos) for 1 hi. of lime 60 kilos of peat
having a heating effect of 3,700 kilo-calories, are gasified.

Semi-gas peat-firing can also be used with advantage in more
or less small arched kilns for burning good-class earthenware pipes,
fire-bricks, &c, in which case the inner cylindrical chamber of the
kiln should be suitably widened and arched at the top. As in all
arched kilns, the necessary number of air holes should be left in the
sole and these can be connected by a duct, under the sole, with a
chimney, which is best erected near the kiln and to which, later on,
other kilns may also be connected. According as desired the kiln
flame may be an ascending or a reverberatory one and the flame
itself will have an oxidizing or a reducing action according to
the amount of air mixed with the fuel gas.

5. — Peat Gas Furnaces for Boiler Installations, Digesters,

Evaporators, &c.

As in all industrial operations in which the fuel consumption
has a considerable effect on the working expenses, so also for the
working of steam-raising, boiling and evaporating plants, efforts
have been made to introduce gas-firing wherever the simple grate
furnaces described on pp. 341 to 349 have proved inefficient,
especially in localities where the peat was of a poor quality.

The simple gas furnace mentioned at the beginning of this
Section was that generally used, and attempts were made to
improve it so that the results would approach as closely as possible
those obtained with hot-blast gas-firing.

A gas furnace for boilers in which the air required for the com-
bustion is added to and mixed with the fuel gas in a very simple

1 Further information with regard to the construction of these kilns
and their outputs are contained in Die Deutsche Topfer- und Ziegler-Zeitung
and in the Tonindustrie-Zeitung.

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY

425

manner was constructed by H. Putsch (see Figs. 152 and 153.)
This furnace, which resembles the semi-gas furnaces mentioned
in the introduction to this section, has given satisfaction, being
both simple and cheap.

Fig. 152. — Semi-gas peat furnace for steam boilers.

Fig. 152 shows a longitudinal section through the centre of one
of the two gasifiers, which are placed side by side ; Fig. 153 a cross-

Fig. 153. — Semi-gas peat furnace for steam boilers.

section through the two (through the left gasifier along the line
A-B and through the right gasifier along C-D., Fig. 152).

R, Rt are the hoppers through which, in turn, after withdrawal
of the slide s, the gasifier is charged with peat, which forms

(^595)

2 F

426

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

a high layer on the grate E where, after ignition from below,
it becomes gasified. In each section there is a spy-hole or
stirring hole a. The gases, as they force their way up through
the fuel, are drawn by the chimney draught from the two
gasifiers into the common flue, which passes under the centre
of the boiler K, after the necessary combustion air has been
added to them through the nozzles i, i, i, in the arched roof
and in the back wall of the gasifiers. The side walls of the
gasifiers and the parts of the furnace in contact with the hot
gases are made of fire-brick ; in each of the former there is
an air chamber L, partially obstructed with fire-bricks arranged
lattice-wise and connected on the one hand by the duct h with
the external air and on the other through the passages m and
n with nozzles opening into the interior of the gasifiers. The

iiiiibiiiw^

I „

Ml
1 III

« 1,

,85 ilili i,! II 1

illffilll

Fig. 154. — Semi-gas furnace for evaporating pans.

mouth of the air-duct h is closed outside by an adjustable slide g.
According to the position of the latter the required amount of
air enters through the ducts h into the air chambers L L, and, its
passage through these being impeded by the latticed arrangement
of the bricks, it is afforded an opportunity to become heated by
the hot walls of the gasifiers before entering the latter through
the various nozzles. As the air thus enters the gasifier at a rela-
tively high temperature and there comes in contact with the
hot gases which have just been generated, the main conditions
for a good and energetic combustion of the two are fulfilled and
at the entrance to the common flue an almost perfect combustion
sets in with development of an intense heat and flame. The
further course of the flues is similar to that of an ordinary boiler
installation.

The furnace shown in Figs. 154 and 155 has proved suitable for

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY

427

burning peat, alone or mixed with brown coal, for heating evaporat-
ing pans in boiler-houses and salt works. It is a combination of a
step grate with a flat grate. Immediately in front of the fire bridge
G, the air which is necessary for an energetic com-
bustion and has been heated by the walls of the fur-
nace is added to the combustion gases by means of
the air-ducts k. Furnaces of this type have been
used successfully for many years past under
evaporating pans and boilers in the Aussee Salt
Works. The width of the furnace is 60 cm. for coal
and 35 cm. for a mixture of peat and coal. Six
furnaces are built beside one another for a pan
155 sq. m. in area.

Semi-gas furnaces made by C. Reich, of Han-
over, and used with success for peat-firing are
shown in Figs. 156 to 158. Fig. 156 represents a
semi-gas furnace for evaporating pans, and Figs. 157 to 159 fur-
naces for boilers for steam-raising or for hot water and steam heat-
ing installations. Their satisfactory action, which is at the same
time nearly smokeless, is due to the combined effect of the four
main parts, viz., the feeding shaft A (a), the inclined step grate,
the burner 0 R (o r), and the gas chamber B (b), with the air
supply and air chamber M (m). (Figs. 156 to 158.)

Fig. 155.

Fig 156 — Reich's semi-gas peat
furnace for evaporating pans.

Fig. 157. — Reich's semi-gas peat furnace-
for steam boilers.

The upper portion of the inclined grate and the feeding shaft
A (a) serve for the preliminary heating and the destructive distilla-
tion of the fuel, charged through the hopper T or d. Direct com-
bustion occurs on the lower portion of the grate where the necessary
amount of air is admitted. The flame thus formed mixes in the
gas chamber B (b) with the gases drawn from A (a) through the
connecting passage x. These gases can be produced continuously
and uniformly by adjusting the gas slide S (s) for the width of the
connecting passage x. The dividing wall z between the chambers

2 F 2

428

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

A (a) and B (b) is heated to a high temperature, and, as it at the
same time acts as a heat reservoir, it facilitates the uniform separa-
tion of the volatiles from the fuel. Strongly heated, " fire bridge
air " is added through the air passages 0 (o) to the gas mixture
in order that the combustion of the latter in the burner R (r) may be
energetic.

The air is heated either in compartments in the furnace walls
or in special air-heating chambers M (m). The amount of upper
or " fire-bridge air " admitted can be regulated by means of a valve
V (v). The hot-air current issuing from the pre-heating chamber
M (m) circulates round the burner R (r), passes through inclined
slits 0 (o) in these and mixes, when very hot, with the burn-
ing mixture of gases, producing, especially behind the burner,
a turbulent motion with intimate mixing of the two masses, and
therefore an almost complete combustion without any formation

nivv.

Figs. 158 and 159. — Reich's semi-gas peat furnace for central heating installations.

of smoke worth mentioning. In order that it may be the more
easily cleaned, the furnace can be provided either with an
open ash-hole (as in Figs. 156 and 157) or with a tilting grate k
(as in Fig. 158).

Semi-gas furnaces of this type for peat-firing were constructed
for the boiler-house of the Papenteich Sugar Factory, at Meine,
for the still-house of Charles Koster, at Borgstedt, near Kirchof,
in Hanover, for the boiler-house of the Kolomma Machine-building
Company, for the Kulebacki Smelting Works, near Murow (Russia),
for the central heating installations of Attl Monastery, near
Wasserburg, in Bavaria (installed by Kaferle, of Hanover), and
that of Gundlach-on-Leizen, near Dambeck in Wiirtemberg
(installed by Kauffer and Co., of Mayennes).

In the peat furnace of the Papenteich Sugar Factory at Meine,
analyses of the gaseous products of combustion have shown a

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY

429

content of carbon dioxide equal to 17-5 per cent, and an average of
0-3 per cent, of oxygen when the flue draught was 6-5 mm. of
water. The steam-raising power of the peat, which was not quite
air-dry, was 3-42 kilos of water per -kilo of the peat and 17-8 kilos
per square metre of heating surface per hour. At the Kulebacki
smelting works, with Reich's semi-gas furnace, 1 kilo of the peat
employed raised 4-0 to 4-2 kilos of steam, while in the furnaces
previously used there (ordinary step grate furnaces) the evaporat-
ing power was only about 2 kilos.

Fig. 160 shows a semi-gas peat furnace which can be installed
somewhat more simply and which has been constructed for steam-
raising by the Okjaer Mosebrug Peat Works in Jutland. With it
the evaporating power of a peat containing 4 • 4 per cent, of ash and

Fig. 160. — Okjaer Mosebrug's semi-gas peat furnace for steam raising.

24-6 per cent, of moisture was 3-9, and that of a peat containing
1 -4 per cent, of ash and 20 per cent, of moisture was 4.

It has been shown that when peat is burnt on grates under
boilers, the latter are not much corroded and therefore last a long
time. This is even still more the case with gas-firing installations,
in which a perfect or nearly perfect combustion occurs as the
gases in contact with the plates of the boiler contain neither free
oxygen nor free carbon and the flame cannot therefore corrode
the iron. The result of this is that the plates last longer and are
always quite free from soot, which is of great advantage also so
far as the steam raising is concerned.

In steam-raising furnaces 1 kilo of air-dry peat, poor in ash,
evaporates 4-0 to 4-5 kilos of water. It replaces, therefore,
0-75 kilo of medium coal and is equal in value to ordinary
brown coal, having a somewhat higher percentage of moisture.1

1 Cf. also M. Arland, " Verdampfungsversuche mit Stich- und Maschinen-
torf und gemischte Brennstoffe," Mitteilungen, 1916, p. 239, and A. H. W.
Hellemons, " Wirtschaftlichkeit des Torf-Dampfkesselbetriebes," Mitteil-
ungen, 1916, p. 357.

430 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

Owing to the uniform character and the long flame of the com-
bustion, and, therefore, to the longer life of the metallic walls
of boilers, pans, and ovens, peat-firing has proved very suitable,
for instance, for the boiler-houses of salt works and breweries in
Wiirtemberg, in Upper Bavaria, and in the Salt Department
demesnes. The latter statement holds for the Bavarian salt works,
which make " crystal salt." In the Austrian salt works, where the
product is lump salt, which is dried by direct contact with the
burnt gases led through the drying chambers from the furnace for
the evaporating pans, the general use of peat is made more diffi-
cult in so far as the combustion must be kept almost entirely smoke-
less. Owing to variations in the character of the peat and in
its percentage of moisture it is difficult to keep the combustion
smokeless in simple grate furnaces, but by first gasifying the peat,
mixed if necessary with good coal, we can, as was the case at
Aussee, get a uniform, smokeless combustion.

The choice of peat as a fuel in an industry and further appli-
cations of it depend, and always will depend, mainly on the cost
of the peat.

In the Royal Salt Works at Rosenheim, 22,100 m. tons of salt
were won every year from a 26 per cent, salt solution by means of
65,000 cb. m. of cut peat fired in semi-gas furnaces,1 60,000 cb. m.
of the peat being won by the Company itself. (See p. 53.) The
amount of peat required, therefore, for 100 kilos of salt was
0-3 to 0-33 cb. m. = 75 kilos.

In the Aussee Salt Works the peat gas furnaces installed at the
time (in the eighties) worked very satisfactorily, 100 kilos of peat
being sufficient for the winning of 128 kilos of " lump salt." The
high charges for the installation and the upkeep of the furnaces
induced the Company, however, to return to simple furnaces with
step grates (see Fig. 154), and to burn in these a mixture of
Trauntal brown coal and peat in the ratio 1:2, with which it has
been estimated that 100 kilos of peat produce about 132 kilos of
salt or that 80 kilos of peat are required for 100 kilos of salt.
(See p. 55 for the Aussee Salt Works peat industry, which is no
longer working.)

In the boiler-houses of breweries the following results have
been obtained : —

At the Weihenstephan State Brewery, for a single boiling of
31 hi. of malt, 1,610 kilos of good Freising or 1,458 kilos of Feilen-
bach cut peat were required under the copper. Hence for 10 hi.
of malt for mere, but nevertheless vigorous, ebullition 520 kilos
of Freising or 470 kilos of Feilenbach cut peat were required.
On the other hand, a single boiling of 36 hi. of malt at Aibling,
including the firing of' the steam boiler, required on an average
15 cb. m. of the local peat of medium quality which, for an average
weight of 240 kilos per cubic metre, corresponds to 1,000 kilos of
peat for 10 hi. of malt, including the working of the steam boiler.

1 These semi-gas furnaces are described in " Die Siedesalzerzeugung,"
by Charles Baltz (Edlen von Boltzenberg),

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY 431

6. — Peat in the Railway Industry

The question of the utilization of peat in the railway industry,
as far as Germany and the neighbouring countries are concerned,
can be regarded as finally answered. In spite of every effort
and of the painstaking experiments on the utilization of peat on
railroads, which were repeated again and again over a period of
many years and which were constantly being made as the railway
systems developed, partly with a view to decreasing the working
expenses and partly for national economic reasons, the conclusion
has been arrived at that peat should not be employed as fuel for
firing locomotives. Apart altogether from light cut peat and press
peat, which crumbles very easily in the fire, even the best machine
peat is not able to compete with coal in meeting the great demands
on locomotives due to the extraordinarily increased and constantly
increasing requirements of the passenger and goods traffic of our
railways. Not only were the working expenses generally higher in
the case of peat-firing than in that of coal, but the firing itself, as
well as the procuring and the carriage of the much more bulky peat
fuel, proved considerably more troublesome. These disadvantages
were in general sufficient to outweigh the national economic
advantages — employment of agricultural labourers and utilization
of waste moorlands. Hence, after trials extending over many
years throughout Prussia, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Hanover, Olden-
burg, &c, the railway boards were obliged to give up gradually,
and in most cases entirely, the use of peat in their industry except
for a few short lines passing through peat districts.

It is unnecessary, therefore, to repeat here all the trials and
their results, which have been mentioned in detail in the second
edition1 of this book (pp. 443-452) ; they are now only of
historical interest.

In Sweden also the State Railway Department, by means of
exhaustive trials made in 1910, showed that the introduction of
peat for firing locomotives would make the cost considerably
higher than that incurred with English coal, the Department
finding as a result of the trials made abroad (in Germany) that
it requires 1 -95 m. tons of peat to replace 1 m. ton of coal. The
peat required to fire the locomotives would have been approxi-
mately 80,000 m. tons per annum, and to cover this new
installations would have been necessary, the increased cost of
which would have to be borne by the difference between the
price at the time of the coal (11 -25M. per metric ton) and the peat
(5-6M. per metric ton). The conclusion reached was that the
introduction of peat-firing was not to be recommended for
railway and public financial reasons.

Influenced by the favourable results obtained with Ekelund's
peat powder firing in several Swedish factories, several of the
railway boards in Sweden have again considered the firing of

1 Published 1905. Cf. also A. Hausding, " Die Torfwirtschaft Sud-
deutschlands und Osterreichs," Berlin, 1878, Paul Parey.

432 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

locomotives with peat powder. For this purpose, however, the
locomotives must be provided with special contrivances. The
comparison trials, which, as a matter of fact, were made with an
eight wagon goods engine with tender, 27 m. tons in weight,
56-1 sq. m. heating surface, 14 sq. m. Schmidt's super-heater,
1-1 sq. m. grate area, and 32 km. maximum speed, have given
the following results : The steam pressure being kept the same,
the super-heating was greater in the case of peat powder firing
than in that of coal, the temperature of the escaping waste gases
was 310 to 320° C. in the case of the peat powder and 340 to
360° C. in that of the coal. Owing to the nearly complete
combustion of the peat powder, there was in this case no evolution
of smoke and sparks and the surface of the boiler exposed to
the heat remained quite free from soot or other deposit. The
ratio of the power returns from the peat powder and the coal
were as 1 : 1|. The labour of stoking the peat powder was almost
nil, as this was done automatically, so that the fireman could
pay more attention to the line and the signals. With peat
powder firing the locomotive could meet the demands made on
it as well as with coal-firing.1 These experiments are not to be
regarded as yet concluded and the final result is therefore still
uncertain.

These efforts to utilize peat have again been made owing to
the extraordinary increase in the price of coal and the difficultv
of obtaining enough fuel for the railways in 1914-1915 at the
beginning of the War. For the same reasons the Swedish State
Railways Department have taken into consideration the building
of an experimental factory for which 500,000 kr. have been
voted by the Government. For this purpose the Vakoe Bog in
the Selvesberg-Aalenhut district near Hokon has been purchased,
and peat powder is to be made there by the new process of von
Porat and Odelstierna. Press peat is also to be made from the
peat powder.

In other countries poor in coal and rich in peat, as, for
instance, Russia, Canada, &c, attempts have also been made
to get peat more widely adopted in the railway industry than
hitherto.

For firing experiments with various fuels in the railway
industry see p. 330.

7. — Erection of Power Stations in Bog Districts

It is possible to transmit electricity and, therefore, electric
power, over conducting wires or cables from a collecting or
producing station to centres of utilization in districts separated
from one another by considerable distances without considerable
loss, i.e., without considerable expense. Owing to this, electrical
power stations in bogs are well adapted for taking advantage

] Report by Captain Wallgren in the Jahrbuch der Moorkunde, 1913, p. 70.

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY 433

of the large quantities of peat fuel stored in the bogs and
at the same time for securing for agriculture, without expense,
extensive areas of bogs. This is important in the case of
places where other methods of winning and utilizing peat have
hitherto proved quite uneconomic and impracticable owing to
high cost of transport to and from the places or in consequence
of too high a cost of winning on the small scale.

The State has great interest in this matter on the one hand
because it is itself the owner of almost immeasurable bog areas,
very rich, owing to their depth, but not hitherto workable, owing
to their remoteness, and on the other hand, because it is especially
called upon to improve the condition of the people and, there-
fore, to promote the cultivation and colonization of our waste
lands, both bog and moor, even when these are in the possession
of private owners. It is in a position to give powerful support
to this method of utilizing moors by handing over State bogs at
low rents for the winning of peat to undertakings of this class
directed to the common-weal, and by providing loans, repayable
over long periods, for the erection of the works.

Holland, and to some extent East Frisia, show how green
meadows and thriving villages can be made out of immense
waste moors by the cutting away of peat on a large scale during
several years. Attention must always be paid, however, to
ensuring that the technical utilization of the bogs should not
prejudicially affect the later agricultural operations. The canals
and trenches serving to drain the bogs and to provide the necessary
means of access are, as in the case of Holland, to be laid out so
as to divide the surface of the bog into settlements of 5 to 15 ha.
each. The smaller (open) drains, usually | m. in depth and
10 to 20 m. apart, should, if possible, be replaced by covered
drains in order that the land may be worked with machines.
As is customary, care should be taken to see that the strippings,
so valuable for agriculture, should be preserved and distributed
with care over the surface to be tilled.

So far as is known, only three of these bog super-power
stations have come into operation. Two of these are in Germany
(one in the Wiesmoor, near Aurich, the other in the Schweger
Moor, near Osnabruck — in Memel a similar factory has been
planned by Mayor Altenberg), and one in Russia, the " Bogorodsk
Peat Electric Station " near Moscow.

In addition, the following peat electrical power stations are
said to be in operation in Sweden : The power stations at
Skaberjo and Slatterod, at Sperlingsholm (with Lutter's suction
gas plant), as well as the power station of the Visby Cement
Factory, which is capable of giving 1,500 h.p. and in which,
according to Larson, the consumption of peat fuel containing
41-7 per cent, of water and having a calorific value of 2,400
calories is 1 • 42 kilos, corresponding to 0 • 842 kilo of dry substance,
per h.p. -hour. Further particulars are not known about these
factories, but with regard to the first three works the following
may be reported : —

434 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

(a) The Wiesmoor Electric Power Station near Aurich

The origin of this station is to be found in the efforts of the
Prussian Estates Department to render large surfaces of bogs
available for agriculture and to the exertions of Dr. Ramm,
Privy Councillor, of the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture, for the
realization of these objects. In as short a time as possible the
contiguous parts of the Aurich, the Neudorf and the Friedeburg
Wiesmoor, having an approximate area of 10,000 ha., are to be
made available for agriculture, especially for high bog cultivation.
In order to lower the expenses of draining, making roads and
canals, tilling, &c, the peat raised in these operations, not
inconsiderable in amount, and especially that contained in
suitable parts of the bog, was to be used at the same time for the
winning of more or less large quantities of utilizable fuel. The
bog surfaces, which in this way would have been deprived of peat,
were to be made available for agriculture after a suitable time,
by cultivation (" fenning ") of the earthy subsoil by covering and
mixing it with the moss peat removed from the upper surface.

In the case of the large quantities here dealt with, the winning
of peat fuel could be effected by machinery. A part of the
peat was to be employed for producing the power necessary for
working the peat machines. The disposal of the excess, and the
larger part, of the peat for household fires and industrial plants
did not appear very hopeful owing to the great distance of
the bog from inhabited, more or less large districts, and on
account of the lack of sufficient large industries in the neigh-
bourhood of the bog. After several unsatisfactory attempts, to
drive the peat-winning machines separately by locomotives,
electrical driving by a system common to all was decided upon.
For this purpose a power station was erected in the bog and
equipped with a 200 h.p. steam engine which drove a 5,000 volt
alternating current generator. The factory started operations
in 1908. Simultaneously, however, negotiations were begun
between the State and the Siemens Electrical Company, Ltd.,
for the erection of a large overland power station after the
initiation of proposals for the co-operation of a number of
surrounding places such as Wilhelmshaven, Bant, Happens,
Neuende (Riistringen), Leer, and Emden, as well as the towns
and parishes of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg. In the expecta-
tion that it would be better to have the plant, the working, and
the management of such a factory in the hands of a company,
an agreement was concluded according to which the Siemens
Electrical Company, Ltd., through the Siemens-Schuckert
Company, should erect the machinery and the conductors for an
overland power factory (exclusive of the buildings) at its own
expense and that it should itself conduct the industry. The
peat was to be bought from the State, and the electrical power
required for the peat winning and the opening up of the bog was
to be sold to the State.

The large overland power station thus built was able to start

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY 435

operations in August, 1910, after the original 200 h.p. steam
engine had been replaced by a steam turbine plant of 5,400 h.p.
It is situated at the point on the road between Bagband and
Wiesederfehn where the main canal (not yet constructed) leading
from the Ems-Jade Canal through the Markard Bog (the reclama-
tion of which has already been begun) to the North Georgsfehn
Canal will cross the road.

In the boiler-house there are eight water-tube boilers, each
with 300 sq. m. heating surface, constructed for a working pressure
of 12-5 atmospheres and fired with peat. Four of these boilers
have each a super-heating surface of 100 sq. m., and the other
four have each 70 sq. m. All the eight boilers have each 12 sq. m.
grate area. The boilers in the second set of four are provided
with two Steinmuller pre-heaters, each of which has a heating
surface of 285 sq. m. There are also two water-tube boilers, each
having 330 sq. m. heating surface and 77-5 sq. m. super-heating
surface, constructed for a working pressure of 12-5 atmospheres
and fired with coal. The latter boilers are also fitted with a
.Steinmuller pre-heater having approximately 450 sq. m. heating
surface. The feeding of the boilers is provided for by three
steam pumps and two double-stage, high-pressure, centrifugal
pumps, which draw the water from the feeding tank, in which
the condensed steam from the turbines has been mixed with
water which has been passed through a purifier. The water
which is taken from the North Georgsfehn Canal is, as usual,
purified in the ordinary water purifier with addition of a little
soda and lime. In the machine house there are five turbine
current machines (turbo-dynamos), two of which generate each
1,250 kw., and two others give each 1,550 kw. at a tension of
5,000 volts and one machine which gives 1,720 kw. at 1,150 volts.
The machines run at 3,000 r.p.m. The turbines are all of the
Zolly type.

In the nature and arrangement of its rooms and fittings the
factory does not in general differ from the other electric stations
recently constructed by the Siemens-Schuckert Works. (Further
particulars are contained in the memoir ' Das Kraftwerk im
Wiesmoore," by S. Teichmuller, in the Elektrotechnische Zeitschrift,
1912.) Only the special measures taken in the working of the
factory for the winning and the utilization of the fuel peat are
of importance for this handbook.

Two Strenge peat-dredging machines, each with an automatic
sod conveyer, and twenty-six ordinary Dolberg peat machines,
are used at present for winning the peat. One Dolberg peat-
dredging machine1 was worked as an experiment in 1914. In the
•case of the Strenge machines the peat was brought, up to 1912,
by an elevator over a conveying channel to the mixing machine,
after which it was spread through two side channels as peat
pulp on the surface of the bog. After some time it was cut into
sods, placed in small heaps (Wienjes), and dried in the air. Since

1 According to Figs. 68a and 71 on pp. 161 and 165.

436

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

1912 these machines have been converted into forming machines,
and, like the new Dolberg automatic machine, are equipped with

-

-- ■ - ■/■

*-*8Bh

fr :. t. i *'■" '" **'

^?«'%» ~

'%•

J^fe^B^

Fig. 161. — Strenge's large scale machine with sod spreader.

automatic sod spreaders (see Fig. 161). In the other Dolberg peat-
forming machines (see Fig. 162) the peat is dug by three or four
men and thrown on to a conveyer, which takes it up an incline

Fig. 162. — Dolberg's peat machine, with conveyer.

to the mixing and forming machine. The triple or quintuple
peat bands as they leave the machine are divided into sods and
transported on boards in cars, tipped and dried in the ordinary
way. A Dolberg machine can form 60,000 to 80,000 sods in
ten hours.

According to a somewhat different method, the peat from the
mixing and forming machine is pressed on a conveying belt and
without being divided into sods is thrown from the band into
high heaps, from which, after the winter, it is cut and brought to
the furnace house (manufacture of the so-called " autumn peat ").

In the season from April to August the machines yield
altogether about 50,000 m. tons of air-dried peat. The air-dried

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY

437

peat has 25 to 30 per cent, of water ; in the hot summer of 1911
it had only 18 to 22 per cent. The sods, which measure at first
33 x 10 x 12 cm., contract to 26 x 6 x 6 cm. As the demands of
the factory are continually growing it is intended to increase
the amount of peat won per annum to 60,000 m. tons, thus
providing for a current production of 10,000,000 kw.-h.

The air-dried peat is transported over field railways1 to the
power station by means of benzine locomotives. The distances
to which the peat is transported are fairly great, amounting on
the average to 1| km. In the power station the peat is either fed
directly above the boilers into hoppers leading to the boiler
fires or is stored in sheds so as to ensure that a sufficient amount
of dry peat should be always at hand. This is an essential
condition for the regular and economical working of a factory
of this magnitude. The fulfilling of this condition caused
considerable difficulties at first, but, in the main, it can now be
regarded as satisfactorily solved. The capacity of the sheds is

-

Fig. 163. — Clamping peat in the Wiesmoor by means of an elevator.

2,600 m. tons of peat. Another portion of the peat sods is formed
into large clamps on the bog by means of a transportable Dolberg
conveyer lift, the inclination of which can be adjusted to heights
up to 10 m. (see Fig. 163) and which can be driven and trans-
ported by a 15 h.p. electro-motor. The feeding of the peat in
the power station offered considerable difficulties. The fuel peat
during the loading, unloading, and slipping from the hopper
showed a tendency to " lock," due to the form of the sods
necessary for its winning. Attempts to break or cut the peat
by machinery failed, as too much dust formed in these operations.
Often no peat at all fell out of the lower mouth of the hopper
and on being stirred up after a " block " it passed on in larger
quantities and more rapidly than was desirable. After long and

1 The rails (60 cm. gauge) rest on a layer of sand, 20 to 25 cm. in height,
on which a layer of slack (from the peat fires) is thrown.

438

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

costly experiments, success in feeding the peat was attained in
an entirely satisfactory degree by a slight alteration in minor
details.

About 500 men were engaged here (in the years 1914-1915)
in winning peat. The rates of wages were 30 Pfg. an hour for
ordinary labourers and 40 Pfg. an hour for skilled workmen,
who earned, however, 4 to 5M. a day by piece-work.

A step grate serves for burning the peat. This has been given
its present form, which ensures good combustion, only after many
difficulties were experienced and many alterations were effected.
The grate is in two parts. Its two halves are inclined at an
angle of 36° and can be fed in turn (compare Fig. 164) from the
chute (of a hopper), which is placed in front of the whole grate.

Fig. 164. — Hoppers for the boiler furnaces in the Wiesmoor power station.

In the more recent arrangement entrance of excess of air during
the charging is avoided, the peat blocking the entrance of the air
during its rapid fall from the hopper. This is of importance,
since the air-dried peat has the low heating effect of 2,500 to
3,500 calories and therefore requires to be frequently charged,
especially as the fuel is somewhat bulky. 100 kilos of fuel peat,
thrown in as sods, occupy a volume of at least 0-4 cb. m., corre-
sponding to a heating effect of 620,000 kilo-calories for a cubic
metre. Many difficulties with regard to burning and charging
the peat, depending mostly on want of uniformity of the fuel (too
much moss peat ; or, because too deeply dredged, too much sandy,
and, therefore, slack-forming constituents; in part, also, too wet
a peat), had to be overcome.

In December, 1910, exact experiments gave the following as
mean results: —

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY 439

The quantity of water evaporated was 44,982 and 43,092 kilos,,

and the peat burned for this purpose was 15,266 and 14,027

'44,982+43,092
kilos. From this the evaporative power is 1t. 9fifi .

= 3-01, and the amount of heat utilized is 653-6 x 3-01 = 1,967

calories. From this it follows that with 2,680 calories as the mean

calorific value found for the peat the efficiency of the boiler is

1,967

— — =73-5 per cent., while the efficiency guaranteed by the

factory was 65 per cent. The steam pressure at a temperature
of 247-5° C. was 12-1 atmospheres.

Percentage of carbon dioxide in the flue gases . . 12-8

Percentage of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the

flue gases .. .. .. .. .. ..19-6

Temperature of the hot gases in the flue . . . . 330° C.

Temperature of the air draught . . . . . . 28° C.

Draught above the grate .. .. .. .. 5-6 mm.

Draught in the flue above the damper . . . . 8-3 mm.

Draught in the main flue . . . . . . . . 17-6 mm.

Temperature of the feed water . . . . . . 47 • 7° C.

Heat of formation of the steam .. .. .. 653-6 c.

The high efficiency given here is not attainable in everyday
practice. As a rule (up to 1912) the consumption of peat was
2-7 kilos per 1 kw.-h. Sometimes, however, it was 2-4 kilos per
kilowatt-hour ; in wet weather 3 kilos or more have been used.
If the price of the peat be assumed to be 5M. per metric ton, then
with a peat consumption of 2-4 to 2-8 kilos for 1 kw.-h.,
the fuel cost for 1 kw.-h. will be 1-2 to 1-4 Pfg., which is
approximately the same as when coal is used for firing. By
further improvements it is hoped that the fuel number 2-5 kilos
(air-dried peat) will certainly be attained in ordinary practice.

The idea put forward some time ago of replacing steam
boilers fired with peat by gas engines operated by gasification of
the peat according to the Frank-Caro " Mond gas " method, or at
least of making thorough experiments with this object in view,
has been dropped for the present on account of the hitherto
unsuccessful results obtained in the Schweger Bog. On the other
hand, efforts have been made to lower still more the costs of
winning machine peat and those of the existing furnace plant by
introducing, for the first mentioned, apparatus for automatically
spreading the wet peat sods, and in the case of the furnace plant
by improving its conveyers, feeders, and shakers, and therefore
the heating effect of the boilers.

With regard to the reclamation (cultivation) of the Wiesmoor
which proceeds hand in hand with the winning of the peat and
forms the State's special task, the following may be briefly
cited : —

For twenty or thirty years the peat works can be provided
with fuel from the transport and drainage canals alone, which
are dug through the whole depth of the fuel peat to a width
of 50 m. After the cutting of the main canal the adjacent bog

440 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

becomes drained so far as to allow the peat to be spread for
drying on the canal banks and some roads to be made alongside
the canal and also for a short distance into the bog. These
roads, in accordance with the plan of division and colonization,
are laid out in widths of about 7 m. at right angles to the length
of the canal so that they will lie later on between every two
colonies but are so far apart from one another that they serve
their primary object of assisting the agricultural utilization.
The colonies are each 100 m. in width, so that the distance between
the roads was, therefore, selected at 400 to 500 m., thus corre-
sponding to four or five colonies. Following this we have the
cutting and the clearing of the drains to a depth of 1 to H m.
The bog is then left alone for three to six months, during which
period it drains considerably. When the draining pipes have
been laid and the trenches filled in, the working of the bog is at
once begun with Kemna steam ploughs and electrically driven
tilting ploughs, from the Siemens-Schuckert works, with Kemna's
supporting wheels. Each of the latter is driven by means of a
windlass car and a Schweizer anchor car. Their most recent forms
are provided with wheels so broad (up to 80 cm. felloe width)
that they can travel over soft bogs even without supporting planks.
In spite of the cheapness of the electric current (4 Pfg. per
kilowatt) the steam plough is preferred because it is more easily
moved and worked more cheaply. In the case of the electrically
driven plough displacement of the cable, the bringing forward
of the current transformer, and the connexion with the electrical
conductors, are found sources of trouble. When the furrows
have been allowed to remain some time, the disc harrow (of
Kemna) begins operations, and finally the Kemna roller follows.
On the ground which has been thus consolidated lime and
artificial manure are scattered. These are harrowed in thoroughly
and immediately afterwards the sowing takes place.

The working of the machines on the bog amounts to : —

Worked by the plough . . . . . . 5-6 ha. daily.

Worked by the harrow (double stroke) . . 10
Worked by the roller . . . . . . . . 15

A set of machines is able to work 750 to 800 ha. in a year of
200 working days. The expenses of the reclamation amounted
at Wiesmoor (1912) to approximately 600M. to 700M. a hectare.

When a site for the dwelling house has been cleared of peat
and the colonies are in good working order, they are assigned to
the settlers. The further cutting of the peat is the task of the
settler himself. The disposal of the peat is an easy matter, as
the power station has been designed to use this fuel.

The peat super-power station, which has been planned on a
broad basis, affords proof that commercially successful utilization
of large bogs by the erection of big power industries in which peat
only is employed as fuel is possible even when this can only be
attained by overcoming many difficulties, some of quite con-
siderable magnitude. Further development of enterprises of
this nature is certain to take place. It is a matter of the

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY 441

cost of winning peat with regard to which, unfortunately, the
results hitherto obtained have not yet been satisfactory. Here,
as in every other case, we must always approach " very promis-
ing novelties " only after very thorough and trustworthy special
experiments have been made.

The experiences of recent years in this large scale industry
have shown that although the dredging machines win peat some-
what more cheaply, ordinary peat machines, requiring digging
by labourers, are, on the whole, more convenient and more
generally in use. The peat-dredging machines hitherto manu-
factured are difficult to move and are not suitable for every bog.
Even for the conditions existing at Wiesmoor there is as yet no
peat-winning machine which satisfies all the requirements. The
actual average yield of air-dry peat in a summer from a large
scale peat-dredging machine is 5,000 m. tons, the ordinary
Dolberg peat machine giving 2,000 to 2,500 m. tons. On an
average the cost of manufacturing a metric ton of air-dry machine
peat is now 8M. to 9M., but may later be reduced to 6M. to 7M.

(b) The Schweger Moor Electric Power Station

In spite of all attempts, authentic details as to this, the second
large peat power station, could not be obtained.1 After experi-
encing obstacles of many kinds the industry began operations in
1912. It is divided into two parts, one of which is the electric
station and the other the peat works, the object of the latter being
to supply power gas to the former for all the machinery, and, as
already mentioned on p. 409, it was based on the Frank-Caro
" Mond gas " process with recovery of the by-products (ammonia,
&c). It is said to have four gas engines, each of 1,000 h.p., and
that for every metric ton of dry peat 40 kilos of ammonium
sulphate, gas for 800 kw.-h., and 30 to 40 kilos of tar have been
obtained, and this with a peat containing up to 70 per cent. (?)
of water. The winning of the peat, for conversion into the gas
required for the projected industry of the electrical station, is said
to have met with such great difficulties, partly owing to the
nature of the bog and partly owing to the large amount of the
' half-dry " peat required and its cost being too high, that the
peat producer gas plant has ceased working since 1913, and the
electrical station has since then been worked with coal. The peat
producer gas company is said to have been wound up and millions
(of Marks) to have been lost. It has been represented that the
yield of ammonia during the production of the gas was too small
and, therefore, the manufacture of the peat power gas was too
costly. The factory erected for winning the peat is at present
employed in manufacturing and selling machine peat for fuel
purposes.

1 Some details by Dr. Hamers are to be found in the report by
Dr. Bersch, Zeitschrift fur Moor kultur und Torfverwertung, 1912, p. 175.

(2595) - G

442 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

In 1914, it is said that the cost of the peat required by the
factory has been not inconsiderably reduced in consequence of the
employment of sod spreaders worked by machines, and also that
the nitrogen percentage of the peat being now on the average
1 -8 to- 1 -9 an improvement in the yield of ammonia is expected,
and with it the success of the whole enterprise.

(c) The Bogorodsk Electric Power Station near Moscow

The power station has been erected by the Moscow Company
for the transmission of electrical power. The head office of the
Company is in Petrograd and its fully paid-up capital is 6,000,000
roubles. It began work at the end of 1914 and at present has
a capacity of 10,000 kw. Three steam turbines, each with a
rotatory current generator for 50 periods, have been set up. Each
machine has a capacity of 5,000 kw. Two of them are in
operation, the third being kept in reserve. The steam turbines are
Zolly turbines, supplied by Escher, Wyss and Co., of Zurich, and
the rotatory current machine was supplied by the Siemens-
Schuckert Co., of Berlin. It was proposed before the War to
increase the capacity of the plant by a further 10,000 kw. Within
distances of 50 km. all round the station current was supplied for
lighting places and as a source of power for factories (mainly
spinning and weaving) as well as for the numerous looms in
the local houses. A fairly large amount of current is supplied to
the electric station at Moscow, which is 70 km. from the bog.

The only fuel which has been taken into consideration for the
industry is peat, that is machine peat, which is won with well-
known machines of various types, amongst which are twenty-five
Anrep and Hendune machines. The peat is for the greater part
raised by hand and brought to the machines by conveyers ; one
Strenge dredger and one scoop dredger are, however, at work
there.

The connexion of the peat power station with the electrical
station at Moscow allows as much current to be given at any time,
even at night, to the precincts of Moscow as can be spared from the
supply of the 10,000 kw. in the other system of conductors*
The output of the power station, when working day and night for
the whole year, and, therefore, for about 8,000 hours per annum, can
in this way be fully utilized, a circumstance which is of great import-
ance for the industry and for its commercial success. The yearly
output is, therefore, approximately, 80,000,000 kw.-h.

It has been calculated that 1 -8 kilos of peat, containing 25 per
cent, of moisture, must be burnt under the boilers to generate
1 kw.-h. According to the experience of other stations — for
instance, at Wiesmoor, where 2 • 5 to 2 • 8 kilos are required — this is
too low an assumption since, even if for no other reason, air-drying
on a large scale to an average of 25 per cent, of water is scarcely
attainable. Assuming, however, 2 -0 kilos, then the year's output of
80,000,000 kw.-h. requires 160,000,000 kilos, i.e., 160,000 m. tons
of air-dried peat.

APPLICATION OF PEAT-FIRING IN INDUSTRY 443

The average daily output of the peat machines during a season
of about eighty days (from the middle of May to the end of July)

must, therefore, amount to at least - = 2,000 m. tons of

80

air-dried peat.

The peat is burnt under the steam boilers (tubular boilers).
The fuel is brought from the clamps on the bog over a railway to
the boiler-house and is then raised to the bunkers of the steam
boilers by lifts and conveyers. The air-dried peat is very hard,
dark brown in colour, and has in the air-dried condition (25 per
cent, of water) a calorific power of about 4,500 c.

The bog which has been acquired and is being worked by the
Company has an area of 40 sq. km., i.e., 4,000 ha. ; the bog is
up to 12 m. in depth, but, on the average, is only 3 to 4 m.

The power station is on a sand ridge in a small lake situated in
the middle of the bog. The cut-out bog is at present left waste.
On account of the confusion due to the War particulars as to the
working results could not be obtained.

In the Bogorodsk district bogs have been largely utilized for
many years. The peat serves in general as fuel for neighbouring
factories, in which there ought to be at present steam boilers for
about 150,000 h.p. fired with peat.

2 G Z

Section V

THE UTILIZATION OF
PEAT FOR ILLUMINATING PURPOSES

1. — Substances formed by the Distillation of Peat

Various substances, such as gases, tar, an aqueous liquid, and
charcoal (or peat coke), depending on the age of and the percentage
of moisture in the peat, are formed by its distillation, that is, by
heating it in closed vessels usually made of iron. The peat
charcoal is left in the retort while the gases, the tar and the
aqueous liquid escape as volatile substances, while hot, through the
exit tube of the retort. When the mixture of gases and vapours
is led through condensers and receivers, the tarry and aqueous
ammoniacal vapours subside, and the gases can then be collected
in another vessel.

In this distillation process fresh peat behaves like wood, and
dense, old peat like coal. The yield of the one or the other of the
above-mentioned substances depends largely on the temperature of
distillation ; at a low red heat the amount of tar, aqueous liquid
and charcoal is larger, and at a high temperature gaseous products
preponderate.

The gases consist of light hydrocarbons, a small amount of an
oil-forming gas, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and
nitrogen, hydrocyanic acid and vapours of volatile oils (light
photogen, peat oil), which can be condensed by heavy cooling. On
account of its high content of carbon these combustible gases have,
in the purified condition, considerable illuminating power and for
this reason may be used for illuminating purposes.

The tar is an oily, dark brown liquid, sp. g. 0 • 870 to 0 ■ 965, with
a very unpleasant ordour, and contains hydrocarbons in the form of
light oil (the so-called " peat oil ' —peat photogen), and heavy oil
(solar oil, gas oil, or lubricating oil), in addition to impurities such
as sulphuretted hydrogen, hydrocyanic acid, &c.

If the distillation is commenced at a red heat and if the tem-
perature be raised according as the distillation proceeds, a tar is
obtained which, in addition to the substances just named, contains
' paraffin," a body much in demand and of value for the manufac-
ture of candles.

The aqueous liquid (ammonia water) contains ammonia, acetic,
butyric, and valeric acids, phenol, methyl alcohol, &c, and can be
utilized with advantage for the preparation of acetic acid and
ammonia.

The charcoal (peat charcoal), according to the raw material
employed, the course and the main object of the distillation, may be

UTILIZATION OF PEAT FOR ILLUMINATING PURPOSES 445

either of a firm, ringing quality suited for fuel and forge purposes, or
of a loose, powdery nature of little value as a fuel, but capable of
being employed as a manure, or it may be of an intermediate type
suited for the one or the other purpose.

After further treatment and purification of the crude distilla-
tion products a series of valuable substances adapted for illumin-
ating purposes is obtained. This includes illuminating gas, photogen,
solar oil, paraffin, and the by-products asphalt, charcoal, ammonia,
acetic acid, methyl alcohol, &c. The total value of these substances,
obtained from a given amount of peat, has again and again
given rise to efforts being made to win them on a large scale
and in this way to utilize peat bogs. According to the local condi-
tions and the special properties of the raw peat the main object of
the enterprise is sometimes the winning of illuminating gas, and
at other times that of the combustible oils and the paraffin, while
the other substances are won and utilized as by-products.

The results obtained on a large scale have not been as good as
was expected from experiments carried out on a small scale. The
most important of these results are given in the two following
sub sections.

2. — Illuminating Gas from Peat

If peat is distilled, by subjecting it to the action of heat in a
vessel, only its moisture is first given off. At 150 to 180° C. light oil
vapours begin to pass over. These are characterized by a strong,
acrid odour. The amount formed is still greater at an incipient
red heat. They are followed, as the temperature rises, by tar
vapours mixed with ammonia and acetic acid vapour. Towards
the end of the distillation not inconsiderable quantities of ammo-
nium cyanide and small amounts of sulphuretted hydrogen are
given off, together with the oxides of carbon. The oil vapours,
mixed with various gases, burn with a flame which is in itself only
slightly luminous, like that of the gas produced from wood. They
acquire, however, strong illuminating properties when the oily and
tarry substances produced during the distillation are brought,
according to the method of Professor Pettenkofer, for considerable
time1 into contact with a glowing metallic surface, by which they
are changed into heavy hydrocarbons having a high illuminating
power. The vapours developed from the peat in the retorts are
led, therefore, through a series of white hot tubes before entering
the condenser. The oil vapours are thus completely decomposed
and converted into illuminating gas.

The figures given on the following page may be taken as
average results for the yield of gas obtained in experiments
carried out on a large scale by the ordinary process with
different varieties of peat.

1 See Dingler's Polytechn. Journ., 145, p. 21, for a paper by Pettenkofer,
' ' Ueber die wichtigsten Grundsatze der Bereitung und Benutzung des
Holzleuchtgases. ' '

446

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

Yield of Illuminating Gas,

ETC.,

FROM

100 Kilos of Peat.

Percentage of

Illumin-
ating gas.

Variety of raw peat.

Char-

Tar

Ammonia

Observer.

coal.

water.

cb. m.

Bavarian pitch peat, poor

21-68

30

4-5

15-20

Dr. W. Reissig

in ash, with 19 per cent.

(late), Peat

of moisture

Gas Factory

Light, yellowish-brown,

23-87

25

2-34

—

at Utersen.

fibrous peat from

Holstein

Compressed and artificially

25 • 1 1

43

6-7

24-25

Graser (Eng.).

dried Biirmoos peat

English peat

28-80

33-5

—

—

—

Air-dried peat from

30-36

20

3-1

24

F. Schuppler.

Konigsau Bog

Dark brown, dried, grass

22-09*

—

—

—

Dr. C. Stammer.

peat with 21 per cent.

of ash

* Containing 30 per cent, of carbon dioxide.

The yield of these substances from 100 kilos of coal is as
follows : —

Illumin-
ating gas.

Percentage of

Obser-

Variety of coal.

Coke.

Tar.

Ammonia
water.

ver.

Saxon coal
Westphalian coal
Silesian coal
Newcastle coal

cb. m.
24-0
28-4
28-4
28-4

50-60

65
55-60

65

4-75
4-25
4-75
4-25

► 6-7
J

—

(1)

(2)

9-52 .

. 12-16

42-65 .

. 33-00

27-50 .

. 35-18

20-33 .

18-34

Traces

0-00

0-00 .

0-32

According to Dr. W. Reissig, purified peat gas prepared from
good raw peat contained : —

Heavy hydrocarbons

Methane

Hydrogen

Carbon monoxide

Carbon dioxide and sulphuretted hydrogen

Nitrogen

100-00 99-00

From these figures it may be seen that the yield of gas from
peat is relatively great, while that of coke and tar, both in quantity
and in quality, is considerably poorer than that obtained in the
manufacture of coal gas ; also the dilute ammonia formed in the
peat gasification cannot be utilized so well as that obtained in
the gasification of coal. On the other hand, the illuminating power
of peat gas is somewhat greater than that of wood or coal gas of

UTILIZATION OF PEAT FOR ILLUMINATING PURPOSES 447

the same degree of purity (percentage of carbon dioxide), and this
circumstance, together with the good yield of gas obtained in
gasification experiments on the large scale, led to the erection of
several peat gas works at the end of the fifties and the beginning
of the sixties. Some, as in Salzburg, were wood gas works altered
for peat gasification, others, as in Utersen, Heide, and several
other towns in peat districts, were newly erected factories. The
muffles or retorts were usually constructed to take a charge of
40 to 50 kilos of peat. The gasification required one to one and a
half hours, and the fuel necessary for it amounted to 40 to 45 per
cent, of the charge which was distilled, assuming that the peat coke
remaining after the gasification was utilized otherwise.

The high percentage of carbon dioxide in peat gas, increasing
as it does with the percentage of moisture and the light, porous
nature of the peat, made the cost of purification greater, and almost
everywhere threw obstacles in the way of the success of the peat
gas factories. There is scarcely one of these factories working
now, or which has not been changed into a coal gas factory.

The same result was obtained from experiments conducted
at a later date in the neighbourhood of Hamburg.

At the Utersen gas factory1 the purification of 1,000 cb. m. of
gas required 1,370 kilos of shell lime, while for the same purpose
in the case of wood gas 840 kilos, and in that of coal gas 88 to
90 kilos of lime were sufficient.

According to experiments of Dr. Stammer,2 the purification
of 1,000 cb. m. of peat gas required only 1,100 kilos of lime. Even
with this lower amount the lime required for purifying equal
amounts of illuminating gas from peat, wood, and coal would be in
the ratio 12 : 9 : 1.

The high cost of purification of peat gas, which was out of all
proportion to that of coal gas, led to the peat gas factories erected
at Utersen (1861), at Heide (1864), at Salzburg, and other places
being shut down after very short periods and to their being changed
into coal gas factories.

In the present state of technics, it is as a rule more economical
to employ the peat in a suitable boiler and engine plant, or in a
power gas plant, to generate electricity and utilize the latter for
power and illuminating purposes.

3. — Recovery of Peat Oil, Paraffin, &c, from the Distillation

Products

Numerous experiments have been instituted by Wagenmann,
Dr. H. Vohl, Dr. Thenius, and Professor Dr. Hoering on the
gasification of various peats with the object of obtaining by slow
heating and at a low temperature the largest possible yield of tar
for the preparation of combustible oils, paraffin, &c.

1 For the arrangement and working of the Utersen gas factory see
Dingler's Polytechn. Journ., 152, p. 352.

2 Dingler's Polytechn. Journ., 174, p. 130.

448

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

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UTILIZATION OF PEAT FOR ILLUMINATING PURPOSES 449

Recently Ziegler and Bamme have drawn attention to the
combining of peat coking with the winning of the volatile
products, which is necessary from the economic standpoint, for
the advantageous utilization of bogs.

According to Vohl, the manufacture of illuminating substances
from a peat was remunerative only when the yield of tar was at
least 4 per cent, of the weight of the peat, and when the distillation
was not in general carried out in costly distilling plants, but by
means of retorts or coking kilns on the bog itself. The tar
manufacture took place either with the winning of all the volatile
products and the charcoal, or all the volatile gases were collected,
the charcoal being sacrificed by the peat being completely burnt,
leaving ash only as residue, or finally the volatile substances,
except the tar and the gases evolved, were neglected, a valuable
charcoal, however, being obtained when the raw substance was
of a suitable nature therefor.

The quantities of the crude products — tar, ammonia water,
and charcoal — obtained from various peats, and of the pure
commercial illuminants, asphalt, &c, prepared from 100 parts
of the tar, are shown in the table on the preceding page.1

In numerous experiments, H. Vohl obtained from brown
coal tar : —

33-41 per cent, of light oil (0-820),
40-06 per cent, of heavy oil (0-860), and
6-70 per cent, of paraffin as maximum yield ;
10-62 per cent, of light oil,
19-37 per cent, of heavy oil, and
1 -20 per cent, of paraffin as minimum yield.

The aqueous solution obtained in the distillation of the peats
mentioned under 6 and 7 was also investigated, and the substances
contained in 100 parts by weight were : —

Acetic acid (concentrated) . . = 1-5800 of sp. g. 1-063.
Wood spirit (methyl alcohol). . = 0-7639 of sp. g. 0-870.
Ammonia (anhydrous) . . = 0 • 0860, corresponding to 0 • 242 of

sal ammoniac.
Butvric and valeric acids . . = 0 • 2069

2-6368
Water 97 • 3632

100-0000
The charcoals, like that from wood, contain : —

Carbon (with small quantities of nitrogen and 93-231

hydrogen) or combustible substances
Ash 9-769

100-000*

* There is a misprint in the German text in this place, the sum of the percentages of
the ash and the carbon being 103, not 100. — -Translator.

1 For the plant and details of the process employed for the preparation
and the purification of the volatile products from peat, compare the papers
by Dr. Vohl, Annalen der Chem., 97, p. 9 ; Dingier 's Polytcchn. Jonrn., 140,
p. 63, and 183, p. 321 ; Lobel, " Beitrag zur Kenntnis des Torfteers,"
1911. For the composition and the properties of the by-products see
especially Dr. Paul Hoering, " Moornutzung und Torfverwertung," 1915.

450 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

Of the factories which were working at that time on a large
scale, that of Bermuthsfeld, near Aurich, obtained 6 to 8 per cent,
of tar from the peat employed, and from this got 20 per cent, of
its weight of photogen (sp. g. 0-83) and 0-75 per cent, of paraffin.
The factory at Zeitz obtained 0-72 cb. m. of anhydrous tar,
42 cb. m. of coke, for firing the furnaces, and 5-39 cb. m. of gas
water, containing 6 per cent, of ammonium sulphate, from
'250 kilos of air-dried peat in twenty-four hours. The 0-72 cb. m.
of tar (sp. g. 0-86) gave 119 kilos of photogen (sp. g. 0-83),
303 kilos of solar oil, 208-5 kilos of a crude substance containing
paraffin, 40-5 kilos of creosote, and 174-5 kilos of asphalt. The
yield of tar from the peat was 4-65 per cent. Peat oil, light
peat oil, or peat photogen is a very fluid oil, clear as water,
with a not unpleasant odour and completely volatile. Its
density does not exceed 0-835. It is a good solvent for resins,
is free from oxygen, and consists of carbon and hydrogen only.
In any photogen, or oil, lamp the peat oil burns emitting a beauti-
ful white light without the slightest odour or formation of smoke.
During the burning the wick is scarcely charred. The nitro
derivative of peat oil has an agreeable odour, resembling that of
musk and oil of almonds. Alone, or mixed with alcohol, it is
excellent for removing stains. The chief use, however, of the
oil is for illuminating purposes.

Heavy peat oil, gas oil, or lubricating oil has a light brown
or pale yellow colour and a slight odour. It is less volatile than
peat oil and has a density up to 0-885. In any good oil lamp
it burns with a dazzling white light, charring the wick, however,
after several hours' combustion. It can be used advantageously
in resin gas and oil gas factories for the production of an excellent
gas. It is not solidified by either cold or by resinification, and
is therefore used as a lubricant in England, especially for the
spindles (highflyers) of the cotton-wool factories, for which
purpose it commands a high price.

The asphalt obtained from peat has a beautiful black colour,
and is employed in iron lacquering, making lampblack, &c.

The paraffin is of good quality, transparent as alabaster, and
can, without detriment, be mixed with 10 per cent, of stearine
for the production of candle material.

According to Anderson, the composition of the paraffin is as
follows : —

From boghead coal.

From peat.

From petroleum.

Carbon . .

85-00

84-5 -85-23

85-15

Hydrogen

15-36

15-05-15-16

15-29

Assuming that the peat mentioned under 6 and 7 in the table
on p. 448 is dried in the retorts by radiant heat before distilling,
and that it gives on the average 7 per cent, of tar and 30 per
cent, of coke, then, according to Dr. Vohl, the following
quantities of products would be obtainable from 1,000 kilos
of peat.

UTILIZATION OF PEAT FOR ILLUMINATING PURPOSES

451

Kilos.

Peat oil

.. = 7-9094

Solar oil

^8-5463

Lubricating oil

Paraffin

. . = 1 • 1893

Creosote and carbolic acid .

.. = 19-8114

Sal-ammoniac

.. = 0-9196

Acetic acid

.. = 6-0040

Wood spirit

. . = 2 • 9028

Coke

.. = 300-0000

Butyric and valeric acids .

.. = 0-7862

The application of peat in the manufacture of illuminating
substances has not, however, been hitherto attended by the
success which one would be justified in expecting from the
experiments carried out even on a large scale. The winning of
tar and tarry substances from peat in combination with peat
carbonization according to the methods proposed by Ziegler and
Bamme, which have already been tried on a large scale, are likely
to give, under certain circumstances, better results in the
utilization of bogs. The same may be said of the recovery of
by-products (ammonia) in the case of the Frank-Caro gasification
of peat for power purposes. Nevertheless, an assured commercial
success does not seem to have been hitherto made possible by this
method. For the yields of tar and tar water in this process,
see the details on pp. 378-81 and 409-11.

Attempts have also been made to obtain bitumen, or wax,
from peat, but these can be attended by commerical success only
when they form a side industry to another recognized peat industry
such as those of distillation or coking. The Ziegler-Frank
(condenser) is said to have worked well for this purpose.

In the crude state the bitumen is dark brown to black in
colour, but when distilled, pressed, &c, it is dazzlingly white
and melts at 78° C.

According to the Berichte der Deutschen chemischen Gesell-
schaft (1902), the percentages of wax, referred to dry peat, in the
•case of several specimens were as follows : —

7-5 per cent, of wax.
•7-8-0
5-5

Aibling bog

3-8
4-1
2-8
1-3

1-92-10-0

Kolbermoor . .

Feilenbach bog

Oldenburg

Franzenbad . .

Peat litter from Liineburg Moor

Peat from Salzwedel

Peat from Tangsehl, from the sur-
face to 3 m. in depth, gave gradu-
ally increasing amounts from . .

Comprehensive accounts of numerous results of recent
researches on peat carbonization and peat gasification are to
be found in the Section " Chemie der Destillations-produkte," in
Dr. Hoering's " Moornutzung und Torfverwertung," Berlin, 1915,
to which we can here only refer. Further consideration of this
subject would exceed the limits of the purpose and range of
this book.

Section VI

UTILIZATION OF PEAT LITTER AND

PEAT MULL1

1.— Peat Litter and Peat Mull for the Absorption and
Deodorization of Manures and Waste Substances

The possibility of utilizing light mossy, fibrous peat and peat
mould as litter for stables and as a deodorizer for human and
animal excreta has been known for a long time, and this use of
peat has been therefore, for many years past, in actual operation
on the farms of persons dwelling in the neighbourhood of bogs.
In spite of the excellent results it gave, this use could only become
general when, in the manufacture of peat litter on a large scale,
it became possible by judiciously selecting the raw peat, by
uniformly working it in machines, and by specially pressing and
packing it, to introduce the peat litter to trade as a handy, fairly
uniform, transportable, and cheap product, well suited for the
purposes to which it was put.

According to a report of the Agricultural Councillor Horn,
light moss peat had, even in the seventies, especially in the Grand
Duchy of Baden, become indispensable as litter. For use in this
way the moss peat was cut into thin slices, in so far as the waste
small peat obtained during the winning of fuel peat did not
suffice to meet the want. On the Grenzhof and Helmdorf estates
moss peat was at that time regularly used as litter, 0 • 30 to 0 • 45 hi.
per day being required for each animal, with a corresponding
amount of straw over the layer of peat. In the parish of Klufbern
there was not a single homestead in which peat litter was not
used during three to five months of the year ; the manure obtained
at the same time was held in much higher esteem than ordinary
stable manure.1

The credit for starting, in 1878-79, the use of peat litter on.
a large scale by winning the litter in a factory as described in
detail in Part I, and of having facilitated this by means of the
machines discovered by him is due to the bog-owner, W. Hollmann,
of Gifhorn. As a result of the undoubted success of the first peat
litter factory at Gifhorn, others, with improved machinery, very
quickly followed it in Bremen and Oldenburg, and to-day
factories of this type exist in almost all the larger peat bogs.2

There is an acute demand for litter in many districts where
little corn is raised, for instance, in portions of West and South

1 In addition to the publications mentioned on p. 260, see also Haupt's
' Torfstreu als Desinfektions und Diingemittel," Halle, 1884, and Vogel's-
' Die keimtotende Wirkung des Torfmulls," Berlin, 1894.

2 Some of the larger peat litter factories are mentioned on p. 281.

UTILIZATION OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL 453

Germany, in the Tyrol, Carinthia, Styria, as well as in some
parts of Bohemia, Upper Austria, Italy, &c. This leads to a
heavy demand on the forest litter in the districts in question,
and therefore to the destruction of the forests. This evil can be
successfully met by utilizing the high bogs, which occur almost
everywhere, for the winning of peat litter.

In the utilization of peat as litter and mull, we must consider
its extraordinary high absorptive power for liquids, its power of
absorbing ammonia and other volatile sweet or ill-smelling
substances, its disinfecting and preserving power (due to the
destruction of injurious bacteria), and its content of plant food
or fertilizing substances.

With regard to the absorptive power of different varieties of
peat, details have already been given in Part I, p. 262. According
to these the mossy and fibrous peats which are converted into
peat litter have as a rule absorptive powers of 800 to 2,000 per
cent., i.e., 8 to 20 times their own weights. Investigations of
peat litter samples from well-known factories, made in 1891
during the Bremen Exhibition for Bog Utilization, gave an
absorptive power as high as 2,200 to 2,500 per cent.

It is generally assumed that an absorptive power above 1,200
per cent, cannot be fully utilized in a stable, and that good peat
litter should therefore have an absorptive power of 800 to 1,000
per cent. In some cases, however, especially for one's own use,
peat with a much smaller absorptive power than 800 can be
employed as litter. The determining circumstances are the
demand and the market price of other litters, account being taken
of the fact that the absorptive powers of other litters are consider-
ably smaller than those of peat. In the case of straw this is
200 to 350 per cent., heather 190 to 230 per cent., bracken 200
to 250 per cent., saw-dust 360 to 500 per cent., and wood-cotton
133 to 333 per cent.

According to Nessler, 100 parts of peat will absorb 1-6 to 2-5
parts of ammonia, while the same weight of rye-straw will
absorb only 0-26 part of ammonia. In another case 100 kilos
of peat absorbed as much ammonia as 225 kilos of straw. Hence
it happens that in stables and closets in which peat litter and peat
mull are used, we notice scarcely any bad odour which, if present,
would pollute the air to be breathed by animals and men. With
the absorption of the urine and the retention of the ammonia
by the peat the most valuable constituents of the manure, which
would otherwise be lost by the decomposition or evaporation of
the sewage, are preserved for agricultural use. Dr. Fleischer
estimated the loss of valuable fertilizers, due to decomposition of
the urine in the cesspools, at 140M. for every ten head of cattle
per annum.

According to Dr. A. Konig's experiments1 the absorptive
power of peat for ammonia varies with the nature of the peat.

1 "Landw. Lehrbucher," 1882, p. 1, &c.

454

THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

With 20 g. of dry peat and a solution of ammonium carbonate
the following results were obtained : —

Peat.

Ash.

Percentage of the

nitrogen of the
solution absorbed.

100 parts of dry peat
absorbed the follow-
ing amounts of
nitrogen.

Percent.

Pure moss peat . .

2-2

73-6

1-55

j } > j * * * *

2-5

65-3

1-37

Humified, heather peat . .

6-9

47-7

1-00

Grassy and woody peat . .

22-0
37-5

39-8
32-1

0-84
0-68

Just as peat litter and peat mull absorb ammonia, they also
absorb other sweet-smelling or ill-smelling substances or in-
jurious gases, such as sulphuretted hydrogen, carbon dioxide, &c,
and when they are employed for this purpose wherever such
substances are being developed they keep the air pure.

Chemical Composition of Moss Peat. — Investigations by the
Bog Experimental Stations have shown that moss peat, contrary
to what is generally believed, is by no means free from acid. All
the layers of the German high bogs contain large amounts of free
acids. The nitrogen content of completely dry moss peat, free
from grass residues, varies, according to Professor Fleischer,
from 0-5 to 1 -0 per cent., but otherwise the compositions of moss
peats from various sources do not differ considerably from one
another. The variations in the composition of 100 parts of dry
peat are, according to Professor Fleischer : —

Nitrogen
0-5-2-3

Magnesia
0-2-0-4

Ash
1-0-1-55

Sand (insoluble)
0-2-0-6

Potash
0-01-0-04

Iron oxide and alumina
0-11-0-22

Phosphoric acid
0-02-0-04

Lime
0-1-0-3

Sulphuric acid
0-15-0-24

Moss peat from North-west Germany has generally a higher
percentage (up to 0-43) of lime.

Straw, on the other hand, has a lower percentage of nitrogen,,
but somewhat higher percentages of potash, lime, and phosphoric
acid.

The disinfecting power of peat litter and peat mull depends
both on the absorption and retention by the peat of injurious
waste products, and on its power of inhibiting decomposition
and putrefaction by preventing the development of injurious
bacteria.

In 1894 Dr. J. H. Vogel1 submitted to the German Agricul-
tural Society four detailed reports on the bactericidal action of
peat mull made by Professors Stutzer, of Bonn ; Frankel, of
Marburg ; Gartner, of Jena ; and Loftier, of Grief swald. Accord-
ing to these reports, peat mull when mixed with human excreta

1 Dr. J. H. Vogel, " Die keimtotende Wirkung des Torf mulls." Four
reports to the German Agricultural Society, 1894.

UTILIZATION OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL 455

prevents the development of the bacteria which produce epidemic
diseases, e.g., the cholera bacillus, if the peat mull is saturated with
2 to 5 per cent, sulphuric acid and is well mixed with the excreta:

The various uses to which peat litter and peat mull are put
and the results obtained thereby are given below.

2. — Peat Litter for Use in Stables

As litter for stables only (fibrous) peat litter, never peat mull,
is employed as the latter develops too much dust, making the air
impure and soiling the cattle by adhering to their coats. It is
estimated that 100 kilos of peat litter will be required per annum
for every 100 kilos live weight of the animal (e.g., cattle) ; draught
animals, which are not always in the stalls, require less. It is
assumed that a horse will require per month about 75 to 90 kilos
of moss peat litter, and correspondingly more of grass peat litter,
sometimes up to 200 kilos. The litter must be stored dry and
used dry.1 It is spread to a depth of 10 to 20 cm., and at first,
until the animals have been accustomed to it, it is covered with
some straw. For every square metre of the stable floor 9 kilos
of peat are therefore required. The dung should be removed
once or twice a day, moist litter should be uniformly distributed,
and fully saturated litter should be removed and replaced by
1 to 2 kilos of fresh litter for each animal (2 to 3 kilos in the
case of horses). The bed should be renewed when the air of the
stable has become impure, or when the animals show either a
disinclination to lie down or wet their coats when they do so.
A bed lasts four to five weeks in the case of horses, and two to
three weeks in that of cattle. Sewage channels in the stalls are
filled with peat litter to prevent the urine from flowing away,
which, absorbed by the peat, makes an excellent manure.

In the case of new stalls where peat litter is to be used, drains
may be omitted altogether, and also the bed for the animals may
be made quite horizontal, as contrivances to aid the escape of
the urine are no longer necessary.

Peat litter stalls are almost odourless if properly managed, as
the excreta are at once absorbed and the ill-smelling substances-
are retained by the litter. On the estate at Kreuzberg, near
Berlin, for instance, the air in a byre containing 250 cows was kept
quite pure by means of 1,000 to 1,250 kilos of peat litter per day.

Chief Forester von Steuben states that 4 kilos of peat litter
are enough for one cow per day. If the dung is removed three
times a day and the beds are re-made every morning, mid-day,
and evening, the cows will then have a drier standing place and
a cleaner bed than in the case of straw. Daily removal of the
dung from a stall containing young cattle is not necessary.

The animals become accustomed to peat litter very quickly,

1 The habit of many peat litter dealers, and also of many agriculturists,
of storing their peat litter reserves in the open is strongly to be deprecated .
If good peat litter is to be kept good it must be protected from rain and
moisture.

456 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

when this is used properly, as it gives them a soft, elastic bed ;
even for the stall attendants it has advantages, as the well-known
injurious odour, the acid vapours, the dirty beds, approaches,
&c, are completely got rid of. Sickness of the cattle and the
attendants from inflammation of the lungs, nose and eyes decreases
considerably, and the cattle, moreover, keep themselves cleaner
on peat litter than on any other form of litter.

Peat litter has a peculiarly advantageous effect on the hoofs
of horses. Disease of the fetlock is almost banished by it. The
number of horses lame from hoof troubles is about 30 per cent,
less in the case of peat litter than in that of straw litter.

Wet litter, or litter saturated with urine, must, however, be
removed at the proper time and replaced by dry litter.

Only in the case of sheep is peat litter not very applicable, as
the long peat fibres adhere to the fleece. On the other hand, it
can be very highly recommended for pig-styes or fowl-houses. It
appears to be advisable to leave the portion of a pig-stye in front
of the feeding trough free from peat litter.

Fig. 165. — A disintegrating mill for peat litter.

Peat litter manure has also a smaller volume than stable
manure. For the same number of horses the year's manure has
for peat litter (about 20 cb. m. per horse) only half the volume
which it has for straw litter (40 to 50 cb. m. per horse).

A peat litter is also in most cases cheaper than straw litter.
It ought to be widely used owing to the advantages mentioned.
Since straw, however, gives a manure which rots somewhat more
quickly and acts more rapidly, it is preferable for wet, peaty soils.

Sometimes strongly compressed peat litter bales, which have
perhaps become wet during transport, cannot be sufficiently broken
up by a pitch-fork or shovel, so that many hard lumps remain in
them. Peat litter in this condition cannot afford the animals the
soft, comfortable, and therefore healthy bed to which they are
accustomed. Moreover, in the lumpy condition peat is not so
absorptive as it is in a uniformly loose state. It is advisable, there-
fore, in order to avoid these defects and also to prevent the forma-
tion of a lumpy manure, to employ a peat litter disintegrating

UTILIZATION OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL 457

machine for which hand-driving will generally suffice. These
peat mills (Fig. 165) are constructed by C. Weber and Co., amongst
others. Those for hand driving cost 75M., and power-driven
machines, with an output of 5 to 8 bales per hour, cost 120M.
The disintegrating machine converts uneven or hard bales into a
thoroughly uniform, loose litter, having a more or less large volume
and a high absorptive power. The better, and therefore the more
economic utilization of the otherwise lumpy peat litter rendered
possible by means of the disintegrating machine soon pays for
the cost of the latter.

It has been already mentioned under the winning of peat litter
that it is not advisable in practice to utilize the absorptive power
of peat litter to its full extent. Prolonged lying of the wet litter
in the stables is also to be avoided as well as prolonged exposure
of the uncovered peat litter manure in the ploughed fields and
meadows, as drying and evaporation of ammonia, which then occur,
prejudicially affect the value of the manure.

3. — Peat Mull for Water-closets, Town Sewage Disposal, &c.

According to the experience gained in various towns and large
institutions in the disinfection and deodorization of human excreta
and waste water from houses, as well as in the conversion of offen-
sive human excreta into a convenient, inoffensive form, no sub-
stance is more suitable than peat mull, because it acts with cer-
tainty, is easily handled, and is cheap. It is equally good for cess-
pools, privy buckets, or tubs, as well as for commodes, &c, for
bedrooms or house closets. The emptied or cleaned vessel is filled
with peat mull to a height of 10 to 20 cm., a cesspool to a height
of 30 to 50 cm., and each time it is used some mull is scattered
over its contents. For household use 30 to 50 kilos, for factories
20 kilos, and for schools 4 kilos, of good moss peat mull are
sufficient for each individual per annum. The closets or close-
stools are then almost odourless. The appearance of the contents
and the operations of emptying them out and taking them away
do not excite disgust. The latter operation, being quite odourless,
can be carried out even in broad daylight without offending the
susceptibilities of the workmen or the people of the neighbourhood.
When mixed with peat powder, human excreta give a quite odour-
less, valuable manure, resembling black mould in appearance,
easily handled, and conveniently transported. While urine,
inasmuch as it is a valuable constituent of manure, should always
be added to the excreta with which peat mull is mixed, it is not
advisable to let the other waste water of the household into the
closets, since the value of the excreta would then be decreased
and too much peat mull would be required for its absorption.

Regular supervision and management of these mull installa-
tions, especially the regular addition of mull after use of the
installation, are absolutely necessary for their success.

From public health considerations every closet installation for
town and country which is not connected with a public sewage

(2595) 2 H

458 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

disposal system, or which is not provided with other contrivances
acting with certainty, should not only be obliged by the police to
have the excreta contained in them disinfected by peat mull and
to have their contents mixed by means of suitable contrivances with
a quantity of peat mull sufficient for the operations of emptying
and transporting them, but also the regular and conscientious
maintenance and working of the installations should be closely
supervised by the police. The disgusting conditions which are
found in almost all (even better-class) dwellings, institutions, and
hotels of the smaller and middle-sized towns, which are not
provided with a public water supply or have not compulsory
powers, conditions which have been indeed described as illegal,
but have not been treated as such by the police, would in this
way be at once removed, with great advantage to the public. At
the same time the permeation into the soil around dwelling places
of sewage and the injurious microbes associated with it (which
would take place in the course of time even if it has not already
occurred) as well as the pollution of rivers and springs, the source
of our drinking water, would be prevented.

It is astonishing that the public health authorities have not
devoted their attention to this defect of thousands of dwelling houses,
public institutions, &c, and invoked legal aid to deal with it.
By means of peat mull, anyone can get rid of this universal evil
with very little expenditure for the installation and maintenance
of the contrivances. The value of the excellent manure obtained
covers in most cases in a short time the installation costs and
many times the cost of upkeep.

The carrying out of a general measure of this type would
require, however, exceptional freightage on the railways, so that
cheap peat litter powder could be placed at the disposal of every
community and of every householder.

In schools, factories, and much frequented public closets the
addition of the peat mull can be made by attendants at certain
definite intervals. In house closets it is better to provide the seats
with automatic arrangements for the addition of the mull, or, in
the case of new installations, to set up automatic peat mull closets
or peat stools.1

Well-made contrivances of this type are on sale by the Chemical
Factory, formerly Rud, Grevenberg and Co., of Hemelingen, near
Bremen ; O. Poppe, of Kirchberg, in Saxony ; Karl Fischer, of
Bremen ; Kleucker and Co., of Brunswick ; Schmidt Bros., of
Weimar ; Franz Bros., of Konigsberg, in Prussia ; Umrath and
Co., of Bubna, near Prague ; E. Gildzinski, of Vienna ; B. Griinhut,
of Gratz, &c. Reference must be made to the price lists of the
firms mentioned above for details as to the construction and
prices of the contrivances. Automatic peat stools cost 20M.,
" scatterers " 12M., and the buckets or tubs 6M.

1 According to Pettenkofer, the daily excreta from a fully grown man
are 1,500 g. of liquid motions and 120 g. of solid stools, therefore approxi-
mately 600 kilos per annum, so that the average amount from fully grown
men and children may be assumed to be 500 kilos per annum.

UTILIZATION OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL 459

Police regulations with regard to the use of peat mull for closets
exist in Brunswick, Stade, Magdeburg-Neustadt, Emden, Chris-
tiania, Malmo, Gothenburg, to some extent also in Kiistrin,
Greifswald, Neumiinster, Flensburg, Losancz (Hungary), Gron-
ingen, Bremen, Hanover, Minden, Rendsburg, &C1 According to
Dr. J. H. Vogel, 212 out of the 564 towns in Germany with
more than 10,000 inhabitants were using peat mull closets in 1896.
In some of these, however, the number in use was small.

The German Agricultural Society, in 1902, awarded a first
prize of 5,000M. to the town of Minden, in Hanover, and a second
prize of 2,000M. to the town of Rendsburg, for the best peat closet
process with removable buckets.2

4. — Peat Litter Manures

In spite of ail doubts as to the expediency of using large quanti-
ties of peat litter manures in agriculture, as, for instance, owing to
the difficulty with which peat fibres decompose, the inability of the
peat to loosen the soil, the low content of peat manure in lime,
potash, phosphoric acid, &c, it has become a very valuable
manure, much in demand for agriculture owing to the universally
favourable experience gained with these peat manures, both
peat litter stable manure and peat mull closet manure. Its power
of absorbing and retaining urine (rich in plant food) has, perhaps
most of all, popularized the use of peat litter. In the case of
straw litter, a good deal of this liquid manure becomes lost. The
ammonia also, which is formed by the decomposition of animal
excreta, and which is valuable as a manure on account of the
nitrogen contained in it, is fixed almost completely by the peat
litter, while a good deal of it becomes lost by volatilization in the
case of straw litter.

Experiments instituted by the Bog Experimental Station, as
well as comparative trials made by numerous landowners, have
proved that when the quantities of the litters used in each case
are just sufficient to completely absorb the urine, the drains being
blocked, straw manure contains, indeed, 7 to 10 per cent, more of
potash, lime, and phosphoric acid than peat litter manure, and, on
the other hand, 4 to 5 per cent, less of not easily soluble, and
80 to 85 per cent, of freely soluble, nitrogen. With ten head of
cattle, the amounts required per day for each beast were, 4 • 6 kilos
of straw (cut into pieces 10 to 12 cm. in length) or 3-5 kilos
of peat litter. The amount of manure obtained was much the
same in both cases, being 55 to 58 kilos per day with 16 to 18 per
cent., i.e., 9 to 10 kilos of dry substance.

When it is not desired to forgo the higher percentages of
potash and lime, Dr. Furst recommends the addition of kainit and

1 See statistics by Hans Schreiber in the Osterr. Moorzeitschrift, 1906.

2 See types of peat closet processes for small and medium-sized towns,
" Bericht der Deutschen Landwirtschaftsgesellschaft," 1902, Berlin, No. 74
of the Proceedings of the Society.

2 H 2

460 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

Thomas slag to the peat litter manure — 100 kilos of these to
2,000 kilos of the manure.

Wherever, owing to conservatism, peat litter has not yet been
adopted, the urine collecting in the drains should at least be ab-
sorbed by means of peat litter and its full manurial value retained.
The urine thus fixed forms with the peat litter a thick, curdy or
mouldy mass, which can be easily and conveniently brought to
tillage fields and meadows, or, in suitable cases, even dispatched
to a distant district. Ten hectolitres or 1 cb m. of liquid manure
give in the case of good peat litter (with an absorptive power of
about 1,000 per cent.) little more than 1 cb. m. of solid, easily
handled manure, 1 cb. m. of the liquid manure requiring 100 kilos
of good peat litter.

The reports as to the effects of peat litter manures as fertilizers
are also all favourable. In the Bog Experimental Station at
Bremen, the crops per hectare were as follows : —

Oats. Straw.

Straw litter manure .. .. 3,210 kilos .. 5,155 kilos.

Peat litter manure . . . . 3,705 ,, . . 5,955 ,,

So that with peat litter manure, 500 kilos more grain and 800 kilos
more straw were obtained than were with straw litter manure.

With peat litter manure the potato crop was about 1,000 kilos
per hectare more than with straw litter manure, and the increased
quantity was mostly due to the potatoes being larger. With horse
beans and capuchin peas, 700 kilos more grain per hectare were
obtained with peat litter than with straw litter, the straw crops
being the same in the two cases.

According to C. Haupt, on the Harting estate near Regensburg
5 m. tons of peat closet manure gave the same amount of rye
(grain) and 250 kilos more straw than were obtained with
20 m. tons of straw litter manure from cow-sheds, and with peat
closet manure the yield of potatoes per hectare was 5 m. tons more
than without manure.

In the prison at Vechta a sandy soil fertilized with peat closet
manure gave 15| times the seed sown, while an equally large
amount of straw litter manure gave only lOf times the seed.

The results observed in vineyards, vegetable gardens and fruit
gardens where peat closet manure has been used have also in all
cases been good ; for instance, in manuring asparagus, raspberries,
gooseberries, all kinds of vegetables, radishes, cauliflowers, &c,
where, in addition to giving well-flavoured and fine crops, it gave
a return of 50 to 100 per cent, more than with the same amount
of ordinary farmyard manure.

Fiirst attributes the cause of this remarkable increase in the
crops fed with peat closet manure in comparison with those
with ordinary farmyard manure to two things — firstly, because
human excreta being a product from a vegetable and a meat
diet is about one-third more effective than animal excreta, and
secondly, because peat litter possesses the property of absorbing
more efficiently and retaining for a longer time the plant food
contained in the excreta than the other absorbing agents do.

UTILIZATION OF PEAT LITTER AND PEAT MULL 461

5. — Various Industrial Applications of Peat Litter

On account of its remarkable power of preventing decomposi-
tion and destroying bacteria, as well as of its loose, bulky, elastic,
pliable properties, and especially on account of its low thermal
conductivity, peat in the form of litter and mull has been used
with great success for many years for the following commercial
purposes : —

(a) For Packing and Preserving Perishable Objects, for instance,
for the wintering or the preservation of soft or hard fruit, grapes,
beet, potatoes, onions, &C.,1 for packing eggs, fish, meat, sausages,
&c, and for preserving bodies and parts of bodies in mortuaries.
Hard fruit, packed in peat mull in boxes, keeps its fresh appear-
ance for months without becoming withered or decayed ; the same
may be said of beet, potatoes, onions, &c, which, moreover, do
not sprout prematurely. After an eighteen days' journey, fish
packed in peat appeared as fresh as when they had just come
from the water.

How far fibrous peat or peat mull can compete commercially
with wood cotton as a packing material depends on their costs of
production ; as a packing and filling material, loose peat is at
least as good as wood cotton, straw, or similar substance.

(b) As a Bandaging and Padding Material. — Dr. Neuber, of
Kiel, employed at first — with complete success — peat mull satu-
rated with carbolic acid and iodoform in gauze bags of various
sizes and about two fingers thick as antiseptic bandages in surgery.
Later a peat cotton, highly valued for many years past for
bandaging and healing purposes, was made from fibrous peat and
from the fibres of cotton-grass (Eriophorum vaginatum). This is
used like the well-known surgical wadding, but is preferred to the
latter by many medical men on account of the greater certainty
of its action.2

On account of its great absorptiveness and its power of pre-
venting decomposition, peat litter or peat cotton is a suitable filler
for bed pillows and mattresses for the sick room or nursery.

(c) As an Absorbent and Filling Material, as a Sound Damper,
and as a Heat Insulator. — For the rapid drying of damp rooms
(cellars) fibrous peat or peat mull is of the greatest use on account
of its high absorptive power. Similarly, owing to its low thermal
conductivity, it serves well for covering, or surrounding, ice-cellars,
refrigerating or heating rooms, incubators, &c. According to
Dr. Fiirst, a heap of ice covered with peat was made in the open at
Bockelholm Bog, in 1888-89, and, without replenishing the store,
this ice was taken out in an unthawed condition in the summer
of 1891.

1 " Peat felt," which was introduced to commerce by the Felt Factory
of the Zimmermann family of Eupen, is an excellent packing and pre-
serving material for fish, flesh, soft fruit, &c. It costs 0-30M. per square
metre and is sold in widths of 50, 75, and 100 cm., with a thickness of
\ to 1 cm.

2 Surgical peat cotton, peat cotton cushions, peat felt, &c, are sold,
for instance, by the apothecary G. Beckstroem, of Neustrelitz.

462 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

For covering heating chambers or heat conductors, steam or
hot-water pipes, reservoirs, &c, peat bricks, plates, or cylindrical
shells are made and are now on sale. For insulating walls, as a
rule, peat mull, or better, peat litter, is loosely filled between double
walls. As sound dampers, walls pressed from fibrous peat or made
from peat mull bricks and peat mull plates have proved suitable
for telephone compartments, doors, &c. As cement, the usual
building materials, lime, cement, clay, mud, &c, are used.

Peat litter is a good substance for filling spaces between covers,
and for this purpose it should be saturated with milk of lime and
again well dried.

Lime-sand bricks or clay bricks which are made from a suitable
mixture containing fibrous peat or peat mull give, in the dry un-
burnt condition, a badly conducting brick- — in the burnt condition,
a very light porous brick. In Sweden, for instance, the walls of
cabins built in bogs are made of these peat bricks and mortar, and
'are then boarded both inside and outside.

Garden plants are protected against frost by a covering of
peat mull, which, at the same time, prevents mildewing of the
covered plants.

(d) For the Manufacture of Peat Molassine Meal. — Peat mull, on
account of its great absorptive power and its property of prevent-
ing decomposition's peculiarly adapted for the manufacture of peat
molassine meal, which in recent years has come more and more
into demand. Peat molasses consist of 70 to 80 per cent, of molasses
and 20 to 30 per cent, of good peat mull. The peat in it has no
nutritive value, but experience shows that it is, on the other hand,
quite harmless. It converts the syrupy crude molasses (a waste
product from the sugar factories) into a convenient and stable pro-
duct, which, as a foodstuff, is easily digested by animals.

When the peat mull, made by means of mull machines (p. 264),
is not directly used for this purpose the peat mull intended for the
preparation of the peat molassine meal is manufactured by means
of special machines, such as those sold by C. Weber and Co.,
of Artern, amongst others. A power-driven machine weighing
250 kilos costs 245M.

(e) Other Uses. — Peat litter and peat mull have been used in-
stead of saw-dust with success on an experimental scale for cleaning
and drying metallic articles for nickelling or for metal baths, for
filtering oil or liquids, for thickening lyes (e.g., the so-called elution
lye of the sugar factories which, absorbed in peat mull, forms a
valuable fertilizer) as well as for preserving in a powdery condition
caking fertilizers (superphosphate, kainit, &c), or other pulveru-
lent substances which absorb moisture from the air (a quantity of
mull equal to 2| per cent, of the weight of the manure is sufficient
for this purpose). Peat mull is said to be an excellent material
for propagating beds in gardens, as it keeps uniformly warm and
moist and prevents rotting. The plants shoot more rapidly and
root satisfactorily.1

: Deutsche Landwirtschaftliche Presse, 1884, No. 38.

Section VII
OTHER METHODS OF UTILIZING PEAT

1. — Textile Fibres and Cotton from Peat

Attempts have long been made to utilize the tough, elastic,
fibrous plant residues, found in large quantities in some peat layers,
as spinning and weaving materials, like the well-known hemp,
flax, and nettle fibres. It was believed that the working sub-
stance, the fibres, which, in the form of wool, cotton, hemp, or
linen, cost a good deal, would require to be merely dug or hacked
out of valueless bogs. Only the fibres of the cotton-grass
{Eriophorum vaginatum) have, however, actually proved suitable
for this purpose. These fibres do not undergo decomposition
during the humification of the other plant components in which
they are contained, and in many bogs they occur in a special
fibrous layer, called cotton-grass peat, in considerable quantities
under the litter and fuel peat. From their admitted capability
of being utilized as a spinning and weaving material they invite
development, but they are, nevertheless, neither cheap enough
in their winning nor extensive enough in their occurrence for a
large scale industry.

In Holland and Oldenburg there are large bog areas in which,
under a cover of 10 to 15 cm. of heather soil, there is a layer of
moss or litter peat 40 to 80 cm. thick, and under this a layer of
humified or fuel peat 70 to 100 cm. thick, with finally a layer of
cotton-grass peat, 50 to 150 cm. thick, generally resting on sand.
The cotton-grass layer contains workable fibres of the plant in
well-preserved tufts, in which the structure of the plant can still
be recognized, and in such quantities that, from every cubic
metre of the peat itself, i.e., fibre layer, including the upper layers
which must be removed, 17 to 20 kilos of dry cotton-grass fibres
can be won on the large scale. In the further treatment to which
they must be subjected before they are capable of being spun
they lose about half of this weight. Four cubic metres of crude
fibrous layer gave, when washed, 2 cb. m. of peat cotton fibres,
and when worked into cotton 1 cb. m. of the latter, weighing
150 kilos, i.e., 1 cb. m. of fibre layer gave 31\ kilos of cotton.

The difficulty encountered in working these peat cotton fibres,
that of converting the woody and to some extent friable and
earthy raw fibres into smooth, elastic, absorptive fibres capable
of being spun and dyed, could only be overcome by chemical means.

The peat fibres, under which term the sifted cotton-grass
{Eriophorum vaginatum) residues alone are understood in this

464 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

section, are digested1 in a solution of caustic soda, potassium
carbonate, or sodium carbonate, or boiled under pressure and
washed with lukewarm water. Dilute sulphuric or hydrochloric
acid may be used instead of the alkaline solutions. When treated
in this way, however, the fibres remained brittle, were only
slightly absorptive, could not be bleached, could be dyed only in
dark shades, and could be spun only into coarse yarn. In the
middle of the nineties, Charles Geige, of Dusseldorf, introduced
a considerably improved process for winning chemically pure peat
fibres which could be spun and dyed. In his process the crude
peat fibres are extracted with alkalis by stirring them for several
hours in a dilute alkaline bath. The fibres are then dried and
split up in machines resembling the ordinary willows of the cotton
industry. The fibres are next placed in a fermenting bath
to decompose the starch contained in them, and then in another
digesting bath containing sulphuric acid to decompose any
vegetable proteins still remaining in the substance. When the
decomposition products have been removed by washing with
water the peat fibres are exposed to the action of hot ether,
benzine, or other fat-extracting solvent in closed digesters
under pressure, until a sample shows that all the resins, oils and
fats of the fibres have been extracted. The fat-free peat fibres,
which are removed from the boiler when cold, are thoroughly
washed, then boiled with dilute acids or alkalis (the last portions
of tannic acid being thus extracted), and finally washed once more,
and, when desired, bleached in the ordinary way.

The peat cotton fibres, treated as above, are chemically pure,
quite neutral, soft, and pliable. They can be bleached, dyed in
bright shades, and spun into very fine yarn. It was intended to
weave the fibres into all kinds of textile articles, clothes, carpets,
covers, &c, and this could, indeed, be done, as was proved at
the time in the experimental factory erected at Dusseldorf for
the exploitation of Geige's peat products.

Wadding, made from peat fibres thus treated, on account of
its purity, innocuousness, and extraordinary absorptive nature,
is an excellent dressing material which can be employed in large
quantities with advantage from the health standpoint, in surgery.2
It can, moreover, be used for making absorptive cushions and
drying cushions for young children and sick persons.

Peat wadding or peat cotton fibres can also be mixed and spun
in any desired proportion with wool, linen, cotton, &c, for the
preparation of mixed fabrics for various uses, such as the manu-
facture of cloth, &c.

Unfortunately commercial success in this case, also, has not
been able to keep pace with the technical success. In spite of the
cheap raw material (fibrous peat), and notwithstanding all the

1 Cf. "Die Abscheidung und die Charakteristik der Torffaser," by
Dr. Karl Linsbauer, in Dingler's Polytechn. Joum., 1900, p. 439, et seq.

- This peat bandaging cotton or wadding, &c, is sold by the apothecary
C. Beckstroem, of Neustrelitz.

OTHER METHODS OF UTILIZING PEAT 465

attempts hitherto made and the support given to Geige's process
by well-known experts of the spinning and weaving industry,
the washing and the purification of the fibres and their conversion
into spinning fibres could not be effected so cheaply that the
peat yarn could compete in price with other well-known spin-
ning materials, even when it was intended for use in combination
with these.

In the case of mixed yarns double dyeing was, moreover,
necessary, as the peat fibres did not take the same tint as the
other yarn fibres in a single dip. The experimental factory at
Diisseldorf was therefore closed several years ago and the
projected erection of larger factories in Holland and Oldenburg
was not proceeded with.

In 1903, a new company was formed in Oldenburg under the
name German Peat Cotton Works the object of which, again, was
to win and utilize peat cotton. It erected an experimental factory
near Moslesfehn, which was visited by various societies. Arising
out of one of these visits the following report has been published
in the General Advertiser for Oldenburg and East Frisia1 : —

" The Eriophorum fibres, from which the peat cotton is won,
are found in large quantities in the middle and lower layers of
peat. The freshly dug peat is first washed in a current of water
to isolate the fibres from the peat. The peat fibres are taken out
of the current of pulp by means of forks, which are fastened like
dredger buckets to an endless chain. The fibres thus obtained
are brought into large vats where they are washed mechanically
several times, taken out, and wrung. The purified fibres are
subjected to a boiling and to a fermenting process by which any
portions of tissues still adhering to them are removed. The mass
is then dried by centrifuging and blowing air through it. The
dried fibres are freed from dust by a sieve and are then ready for
the further treatment to which they are subjected. Several
willows, provided with slender feathering points, effect the
disintegration into the ' fine ' and ' very fine ' fibres required
for the various kinds of peat cotton. The peat cotton is handed
over to the spinning and weaving factories for further working,
alone or mixed with ordinary cotton. Felt and paste-board can
be made from the peat cotton, &c. As the experience gained in
the experimental factory gives rise to hopes for the success of a
large scale industry several peat cotton factories are to be erected
there and elsewhere provided the Government authorities rise
to the occasion. Such an industry could employ many hands
and lead to the utilization of bogs which have hitherto been
valueless ; it would have great significance for a country which is
rich in non-utilized bogs."

So far the report. The factory is, however, no longer in
existence.

In Austria, Charles A. Zschorner, of Vienna, tried to utilize
peat as a spinning and weaving material. In an article in the

1 Mitteilungen, 1903, p. 297.

466 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

Zeitschrift fur die gesamte Textilindustrie1 the statement is made
that " the fibres employed — extracted from certain kinds of peat —
are mainly reed-grass threads (?). The reed-grass, which con
stitutes the upper layers of the bog, after it has been separated (?)
from the peat, dried, and mechanically purified, passes to the
Zschorner carding machine, from which it is wound off as threads
and made into felt, carpets, and other woven fabrics."

This process also, about which much was written and many
opinions expressed at the time,2 did not get beyond the experi-
mental stage, since, as everywhere else in the industry, the decisive
factor in this case also, is not technical success, i.e., the possibility
of manufacturing spinning and weaving materials from peat fibres,
but commercial success, i.e., the suitability and the price of the
products.

2. — Manufacture of Paper and Mill-board

The many attempts to employ peat (light, mossy and fibrous
peat) as raw material, or complement, for paper or mill-board have
not hitherto led to any striking results although some of the
experiments have given mill-board little inferior in quality to
that made with wood or straw and rags. It is difficult to free
the fibrous constituents, by beating, sifting and washing, from
the earthy bodies (fine sand, &c.) mixed with them and from the
humic substances. These cause trouble during the further treat-
ment of the fibres and prejudicially affect the quality and the
durability of the mill-board, especially the elasticity and pliability
that are required for the treatment to which it is later
subjected.

Thus, for instance, experiments conducted on a large scale in
a paper factory at Leer with very porous, light-coloured moss peat
(from the Oldenburg high bogs) have shown that the earthy con-
stituents of the peat are very detrimental and that consequently
the mill-board obtained was too brittle. A considerable propor-
tion of rags would have to be added to obtain a product as fiim as
that from wood or straw and the article would then cost too much.

Experiments formerly carried out at Volprechtsweyer with a
moss peat from Zehlen Bog, near Konigsberg, gave results which
were in general satisfactory for ordinary thick mill-board. The
specimens of packing paper and mill-board submitted to the Poly-
technical Society at Berlin were of good quality. The mill-board
was 8 cm. thick and so firm that it could be polished. The paper
made from pure moss peat was just as short and fragile as that from
pure wood or straw ; addition of 15 kilos of rags to 100 kilos of
moss was sufficient to remove this defect, which, moreover, in

1 1899-1900, Nos. 5 and 6, " Der Torf als Spinn- und Web-stoff," by
Desiderius Schatz, Engineer Assistant in the Mechanical-Technology
Institute of the Technical High School, Dresden. Cf. also " Mikroskopisch-
technische Untersuchungen iiber Torffaser und deren Produkte," by Karl
Linsbauer, in Dingler's Polytechn. Journ., 1900, p. 437.

2 See also the second edition of this book, p. 477.

OTHER METHODS OF UTILIZING PEAT 467

the case of thick, flat boards was scarcely, or not at all, perceptible,
owing to the repeated layering and the inter-connexion of the long
fibres under and over one another.

At present, wherever wood and straw form a relatively cheap
complement for mill-board factories, peat is not able to compete
with them for this purpose, since it is either much too impure or
its fibrous constituents are not uniform enough, or when these are
purified to the required extent they are much too dear.

A large mill-board factory (Scholten in Groningen) erected in
Holland has, it is generally believed, been closed.

A. von Feszty, of Eszterhaza in Hungary, has also carried out
extensive experiments on the manufacture of paper from peat ; he
has also succeeded in making, in an experimental factory, a product
capable of being utilized. Here, however, we have again the same
question, how does its price compare with those of similar pro-
ducts from other materials ? It is a matter of indifference whether
mill-board or paper can be made entirely from moss peat or peat
fibres as is sometimes demanded when the use of peat as half-
stuff for paper or mill-board is under discussion, or whether for
this purpose it requires to be mixed with the other half-stuffs
of the paper and mill-board industry. Mill-board and paper are
not made entirely from wood, nevertheless, wood is a valuable
half-stuff for the paper industry.1 Hitherto almost everywhere
peat fibres, insufficiently treated and purified, have proved
incapable of being utilized, and, on the other hand, purified and
utilizable peat fibres have proved too dear a half-stuff for mill-
board and paper.

Charles A. Zschorner, of Vienna, claims that a fibrous material
suitable for the manufacture of paper can be won by extracting
the previously washed fibrous peat under the highest possible
pressure with a weak alkali solution (not more than 2 per cent.),
or several times with alkali solutions of continually decreasing
strengths, and, after separation of the lye, washing with a weak
solution of an oxidizing agent (calcium hypochlorite or sodium
hypochlorite solution 1 to 2° Be), which at the same time bleaches
the fibres. These are finally extracted with an alkali solution
weaker than that used at first.

On the occasion of the Course on Bog Industry and Peat
Utilization at Admont, in September, 1903, those who participated
in that course visited a peat mill-board factory erected for the
Zschorner process by Esser and Pollak, at Frauenburg, near
Admont, in Styria. According to the report then made2 a very
favourable impression is said to have been produced on the visitors
by the factory and its equipment.3

All the peat mill-board factories erected in Ireland, Scotland,
and America during the period 1904 to 1910 have closed after
loss of their capital.

1 See also " Charakteristik der Torfpapiere," by Karl Linsbauer, in
Dingler's Polytechn. Joum., 1900, p. 441.

2 Zeitschrift fur Moovkultur und Torfverwevtung, Vienna, 1903, p. 99.

3 For failures in the manufacture of peat mill-board see, however,
Mittcilungen, 1907, p. 164.

468 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

3. — Peat as a Substitute for Wood and as a Building Material

Helbing in Wandsbeck-Hamburg, and Hemmerling in Dresden,
have made artificial wood from a mixture of 90 to 95 volumes
of freshly cut peat and 5 to 10 volumes of a cement (slaked lime
with alumina compounds) by subjecting it to a pressure of 450 to
500 atmospheres and then drying the mass. As the product was
supposed to be " proof " against water, temperature, and fire, to
be hard and to resist wear and tear, it was to be used as a material
for street pavement, railway sleepers, ship-building, railway
wagons, inlaid floors, roofs, tables, and all kinds of carpenters'
products, for furniture, &c.

According to statements made at the General Meeting of the
Bog Cultivation Society in 1903, the freshly cut peat is intimately
mixed in machines, and in that state, i.e., containing 80 to 90 per
cent, of moisture, it is compressed into the desired objects,
generally wall-plates and floor-plates, street pavement, &c.
The drying of the plates then requires at most four to five days.
For the same strength and durability with greater resistance
to wear and tear, their price is said to be 33 to 50 per cent, less
than that of oak wood ; if ornamentation is to be carried out, the
price is said to be 75 per cent, that of oak wood. Plates such
as these are extraordinarily difficult to burn, and if they really
could be prepared cheaply enough they could be used as building
plates on account of their dryness, their power of damping
sound, and their low thermal conductivity. Further particulars
with regard to them are not known, especially the fact as to whether
the process is commercially successful or is extensively carried out.

Stuck, cut, or sawed brick-like pieces, plates, &c, from raw
peat are much used for the walls of light buildings, for heat
insulators, and for partitions or roofs. Similarly, thin plates of
peat are used as supports, on which objects of instruction (butter-
flies, beetles) are fixed ; suitably cut or formed pieces of peat are
also used for stuffing, filling, or embedding objects (e.g., loose,
folded, skinny, or fragile bodies).

Lang, at Sebastiansberg in the Erzgebirge, Weigend, at Dux,
Hoffmann, at Heydekrug, amongst others, have manufactured
balls, small pillars and stands capable of being polished from
black, bituminous peat, as well as letter weights, fancy boxes,
cigar cabinets, picture frames, &c, from brown, pressed, moss peat.

Peat for Roofing Purposes. — In order to avoid the evils attached
to paste-board roofs — repeated tarring, tearing of the paste-board,
and then leaking of the roof, frequent repairs, &c. — which are
generally due to the low absorptive power of the pasteboard,
von Wangenheim devised a moss peat roof, originally for his own
buildings, and, when it had proved very successful in his own
case, the commercial utilization of this method of roofing was
handed over to Louis Lindenberg, of Stettin, and the roofing
expert, Duckert, of Freienwald, in Prussia.1

1 Mitteilungen, 1897, p. 107.

OTHER METHODS OF UTILIZING PEAT 469

The roof consists of two portions — the under support and the
c-peat layer. The former is made by rolling a light roofing paste-
board on an ordinary support, glueing it all round at the bottom
and sides, so that no nails are required and it is at the same time
quite tight. The warm peat mixture is thrown on this, levelled
and made smooth with a heavy hot iron. During the operation
care should be taken to see that the peat layer is everywhere at
least 1 to U cm. thick. The moss peat mixture for roofing pur-
poses consists mainly of moss peat mull, coal tar, resin, pitch,
and a substance which tends to make the mixture fireproof. Only
moss peat mull is used ; it should be as free as possible from earthy
matter and contain a large amount of plant fibres. A thin skin
forms on the surface of the mixture during the levelling with the
hot iron. Red-hot gravel, the size of lentils, is then thrown on it.
Owing to its weight and the heat contained in it, the gravel sinks
into the mass, a light crust being formed, which impedes the vola-
tilization of the oils. The latter are retained therefore in the mix-
ture, and the paste-board remains soft and pliable for years and,
therefore, firm and tight. The cost of such a roof is stated to be
2 to 2|M. per square metre while a double-layered paste-board or
wood-cement roof costs about the same amount. When good
materials are used and the costs of repairs and maintenance for
a period of fifteen years are taken into account all the other roofs
are, however, more expensive. The double-layered paste-board roof
suffers, however, from the defect that in hot summers the tarry
mass softens and runs off, and also the paste-board when dry
or brittle in cold winters tears readily ; the wood-cement roof
requires, moreover, a much stronger support. The weight of
a square metre of a moss peat roof, 18 to 20 kilos, is the same as
that of a good paste-board roof. The slope of the roof may be
made 1 : 30 with great advantage.

Moss Peat Insulating Walls. — Moss peat sods or plates cut
from moss peat made into walls in the same way as bricks,
earthenware or cork plates, are excellent sound dampers (for
telephone boxes, doors, &c), heat-insulating walls (for ice cellars,
hot rooms, incubators), lagging for boilers and tubes, floors, &c.
Lang, of Sebastiansberg,1 in manufacturing walls for rooms,
cut moss peat sods into plates of a uniform size by means of a
circular saw and morticed these by means of glue into a wooden
frame in place of the wall. The partitions thus formed were
plastered or papered. The walls are excellent dampers of sound,
easily constructed, have a thickness of only 4 cm., are extra-
ordinarily light, and require no supporting walls under them.

Bricks of lime-sand, gypsum, or clay, made from a paste into
which fibrous peat or peat mull has been stirred, give in the dry,
unburnt condition a sound damping, non-conducting structure,
and in the burnt condition one which is very light and permeable
in respect to air. In Sweden, cabins are constructed in bogs by

1 Hans Schreiber, " Neues iiber Moorkultur und Torfverwertung,"
second year, p. 153.

470 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

forming their walls of these peat bricks and mortar and rough-
casting them both within and without.

It may here be pointed out once more that with the technical
aid at our disposal we can overcome all the difficulties encountered
in converting peat into any artistic or useful object, but that in
doing so we have by no means solved the problem of peat utiliza-
tion. It is rather a matter, in the first place, of whether it is
wise to work peat for purposes other than burning, bedding,
filling or packing, or to convert it into objects for which other
substances are more suited by their nature and in general can be
more conveniently obtained ; and, secondly, whether the final
product, however perfect from the technical standpoint, is not
much too dear in comparison with products obtained from
materials that are already used and are as a rule better for the
purpose. Taking into account the well-known nature of peat, the
latter question will generally be answered in the affirmative, and
therefore all new peat discoveries are to be regarded with much
caution, notwithstanding the recommendation that the product
" is only half as dear as hitherto."

4. — Manufacture of Alcohol from Peat

For this purpose the peat is heated under pressure with
dilute sulphuric acid, the vegetable fibres or cellulose of the peat
being converted into fermentable sugar. The acid solution is
neutralized, filtered, mixed with yeast, and the spirit is distilled
from the fermented liquid. The yield of alcohol is about 6 1.
per 100 kilos of dry peat. In Denmark and Sweden exhaustive
experiments have been recently made with the patented process
of Reymud, which resulted, however, in confirming the earlier
conclusion that the spirit made from peat is much too dear in
comparison with that made from ordinary materials. The cost
of producing 1 1. of alcohol from peat was 25 to 35 ore. Peat
alcohol cannot, therefore, compete commercially with the other
substances employed for generating power, light, or heat.

5.— Peat for Mud Baths

Peat is used to a limited extent for mud baths, but only
under certain conditions and when it has a particular composition.
Only a few bogs are suitable for this purpose, and this use of
peat cannot be regarded as a general commercial one.1

1 For further particulars see "Moor und Moorbader, " by Dr. Helen-
kampff, Bad Elster, Leipzig, 1903.

Section VIII

THE AGRICULTURAL UTILIZATION OF
PEAT AND OF BOGS

A detailed description of the agricultural utilization of bogs
and peat would extend beyond the limits of this book.1 The
agricultural utilization of peat or of bogs will therefore be con-
sidered only briefly. It will sometimes supplement the industrial
utilization, but in most cases will immediately follow the latter
process, and take the form of reclaiming the bog cut away, if
the simultaneous tillage of the portion of the bog not immediately
required for industrial purposes does not commend itself.

(a) The Use of Raw Peat as a Manure

It is well known that a sandy ground is not directly utilizable
in agriculture, since it affords neither a firm hold for the roots of
the plants, owing to its loose texture, nor nutritive material for
them. If, however, peat be mixed with the sand, then, as may be
seen from the composition of various peats given in the tables on
pp. 11 and 13, under certain circumstances a soil results which is
well adapted for growing certain plants.

Conversely, many a peaty soil is not directly suitable for
agricultural utilization ; it requires to be improved by admixture
with sand. Details with regard to this are given in subsections
(c) and (d).

Peat ashes as manure for meadows may be considered
wherever, owing to lack of trade and a market, the utilization
of large peat deposits by other methods is not possible.

(b) Moor Burning and the Moor-burning Industry

Moor burning and the cultivation of buckwheat on the burnt
moors associated with it has been known since about the middle
of the seventeenth century, and was probably first carried out

1 Further particulars with regard to this subject are to be found in the
publications on the cultivation of bogs mentioned on pp. xxii and xxiii.
Valuable summaries are also given in the reports of Professor Tacke,
Dr. Fleischer, Beseler, the President of the Hove, Dr. Buhlert, Baron von
Wangenheim, Dr. Ramm, Privy Councillor, and others, on the cultivation
of bogs and moors in Prussia, Bavaria, Oldenburg, Emsland, &c, in the
Miiteilungen 1911, p. 165 et sqq. ; also by E. Stumpfein "Die Beseidlung
der deutschen Moore," Leipzig, 1903; in " Die deutschen Moore und ihre
Bedeutung fur die deutsche Volkswirtschaft," Ministry of Agriculture,
Berlin, 1911; in M. Fleischer's "Die Anlage und Bewirtschaftung von
Moorwiesen und Moorweiden," Berlin, 1912 ; in the article on the culti-
vation of bogs in Prussia by the Minister for Agriculture (No. 56 of the
publications of the House of Deputies, 1912-13).

472 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

in the Wildervank fen colony, which was founded in 1647. Its
object and advantage consist of the temporary removal of those
injurious properties of peaty soil which prejudicially affect the
cultivation of agricultural products on bogs, and of making
fertile, in an easy manner and for several years the otherwise
sterile soil of high bogs. As is well known, peaty soil, owing to
its excessive content of humus and the acid substances contained
in this, is almost barren. Owing to the humus in the soil the
latter is spongy from above downwards, absorbs and retains
water, and is very cold. Vegetable growth on it is hampered by
lack of plant food. Wherever the fire attacks the soil the humus
is destroyed and an ash is produced, which, when incorporated
in the peat, improves the latter both in its external characteristics
and in its composition and alters the food ratio in favour of
plant growth. The power of retaining water is decreased; the
air enters more freely ; the soil becomes more easily warmed ;
and the insoluble earthy foodstuffs partially dissolve and accumu-
late larger amounts, especially after the burning of the humus.

The total area of bog burnt for the cultivation of buckwheat
in North Germany and the Netherlands amounted from 90,000
to 100,000 German acres (2,500 ha.), of which about 30,000 to
40,000 German acres were in the Ems bogs of Prussia, 6,000 in
Oldenburg, and 45,000 to 50,000 in Holland. As a surface, after
being burnt two or three times, must be left fallow for thirty
years, about 900,000 German acres, or 45 square miles (German)
(20,000 ha.), were required for the purpose.

Moor burning is also the chief cause of the atmospheric
phenomenon known as dust-haze, and when we consider the figures
given above with regard to the extent of the industry (often
termed a pirate industry) no further proof of this is required.

The land intended for burning, if it is to be sown in the spring,
is divided in the autumn into beds, 4 to 5 m. in width, which
are separated from one another by parallel drains, 0-6 to 1-0 m.
in depth and breadth. The surfaces are then re-dug or re-hoed,
and left during the winter for the freezing and drying of the soil,
for which purpose it is essential that the layer should be as loose
as possible. In spring the drains are cleared so that the water
may flow away, and the beds are again hoed. More or less large
pieces of peat are placed in rows two paces apart along the
beds, where they dry quickly. The bog is then left until the
middle of May, when night frosts are no longer to be feared and
when, in fine weather, the burning can commence. For this
purpose, when the dew has evaporated, the heaps on the wind-
ward side, which contain the driest peat, are set on fire. When
half the peat contained in these has burnt, the ignited pieces of
peat are scattered on each side over the surface, and in this way
the latter ignites and the whole surface becomes burnt. While
the ashes are still warm the buckwheat is sown and quite lightly
harrowed. The tillage is distributed between May and June ;
if in any year the weather in June is bad, the surface is not sown
in that year.

THE AGRICULTURAL UTILIZATION OF PEAT 473

The burnt ground can be re-burnt and sown for only three to
five successive years, since after frequent hoeing and burning of
the surface of the bog a hard coating is formed which cannot be
made loose and will not burn, the soil, moreover, becoming
impoverished, especially in respect to potash. The exhausted
soil must be left fallow for thirty to forty years, so that the
surface necessary for the burning may again form.

The buckwheat crop on bogs is very variable and on an
average amounts to 8 to 10 bushels an acre (German), that is,
16 to 20 times the quantity of seed sown ; the minimum crop
may be taken as 3 to 4, the maximum is 15 to 20 bushels an acre.1

The disadvantages which moor burning, in its agricultural and
social aspects, inflicts on the population of the districts where
it is practised and the dangers to the public welfare caused
by the burning have, apart from the offensiveness and the
generally admitted injuriousness of the moor smoke or dust-haze,
in recent times obliged the Government and its deputies in the
country to oppose this method of cultivation, to check its growth
by opening up other lines, to limit it, and, where possible, to get
rid of it altogether. For attaining this object one way, which is
not to be underestimated and is perhaps the best of all, is the
industrial utilization of the peat bogs for winning peat fuel and
moss litter, and, for the facilitation of this as well as for the
drainage of the bogs and the creation of a market and transport
route, the construction of canals and waterways at the expense
of the State. Moor burning is therefore no longer practised to
a noteworthy extent.

(c) The Dutch Moor, Fen, or Fehn Industry

The fen industry, which originated in Holland in the sixteenth
century and which has since then systematically embraced all
the Dutch bogs, presupposes the cutting away of the bogs.

It was very necessary in Holland, which is poor in wood and
coal, to win peat as a fuel, and this also was the primary reason
for the utilization of the bogs in that country. Regular,
systematic drainage was a necessary preliminary for the winning
of the peat and the subsequent agricultural utilization of the
cutaway surfaces (fehns). A catchment drainage, i.e., a main
outlet or main canals, had to be formed, into which the drains
(Grippen) would lead and which would at the same time serve
as waterways. As such catchment drains the Ems-Vechte, the
North and South, the Harm-Rueten, and the Rhine-Ems canals
have been constructed. Side canals or catchment drains (Hoof-
dwieken), which are also navigable, discharge at right angles
into these main canals, and into these in turn still smaller drains
(Inwieken) discharge. The former are 1,500 to 2,000 m. and the
latter 200 to 250 m. apart. The bog surfaces, bounded by the
canals, drains, and roads lying between them, have areas of about

1 The prize essay, " Uber das Moorbrennen," by Dr. Birnbaum, Glogau,
1872, contains further particulars about this matter.

(-2595)

2 X

474 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

10 ha. and form the divisions of colonies, which in each case after
the cutting away of the peat and its reclamation form a holding
capable of being tilled by the family of a small peasant without
outside help and at the same time large enough for their support.
When a given area has been cut away the strippings, that is, the
light, fibrous upper layer of peat, which had been first cut and
which is useless as a fuel, is again spread on the sandy subsoil of the
bog, the ground is manured with sand (from the subsoil), mud
and town refuse (brought as return cargo by the peat boats),
and is then worked, sown, and planted in the usual way. It thus
happens that in Holland, and to some extent in East Frisia and
Oldenberg, populous districts, prosperous and fertile, have arisen
where desolate wastes formerly existed. For the attainment of
this result, however, in the case of such bog areas as those
of Holland, hundreds of years have been necessary.

(d) The Rimpau Ridge Industry and other Methods of

Cultivating Bogs

H. T. Rimpau, dissatisfied with the results of the moor-
burning industry and intent on the better utilization of his bogs,
successfully devised, as the result of his endeavours, the ridge
industry, or the so-called " ridge calculation " method. He did
this on his Cunrau estate, which lies north of Dromling (a bog
of 180,000 German acres, situated in Saxony, Brunswick, and
Hanover), containing about 6,650 acres (German) of good land
and about 2,000 acres (German) of grass.

The essence of this method is that a layer of sand, which can
be taken from the subsoil of the bog by means of trenches, is
spread to a height of 10 cm. quite level and uniform over the
bog and this sand layer, in spite of its non-fertilizing character,
is employed for the growth of plants.

In carrying out the process, beds (ridges) 20 to 25 m. in width
are made by cutting parallel trenches in the bog. The trenches
are 5 m. wide at the top and 3-5 to 4 m. at the bottom, and are
so deep that a layer of sand, 10 to 12 cm. in height, for the beds,
can be taken from the sand under the bog, and the water-level
be lowered by at least 1-0 to 1-3 m. The peat won in making
the trenches is thrown on the beds on each side, where it is spread
out, the level of these being thus raised by 15 to 20 cm. This
peat is then covered with a similarfy thick layer of sand, so that,
in fact, " ridges '" in the proper sense of the word, and from
which the name " ridge industry " comes, are formed.

The trenches between the ridges conduct the water which col-
lects in them into a main drain which lies at right angles to them,
but they do not open into it, a rampart of 7-5 to 9-5 m. being left
between them and the main drain. The water from the side-
drains is led into the main drain through wide earthenware pipes
under the rampart. This arrangement is necessary in order that
access from one ridge to the next, during tillage and harvesting,
may not be impeded.

THE AGRICULTURAL UTILIZATION OF PEAT 475

The object of the trenches is to provide the excavated material
necessary to increase the height of the soil surface, to make the
land dry better, and then, when necessary in dry weather, to
irrigate the soil by damming the water. The layer of sand spread
on the surface of the ridge makes this suitable for the growth
of plants. The layer is moist enough for the roots to develop
and compact enough for them to become firmly fixed in it. It
moreover exerts a pressure on the underlying peat, in conse-
quence of which the latter becomes denser and retains its moisture,
so that the roots penetrating into it can obtain a good grip of and
draw their food from the peat.

When suitable sand is not present in the subsoil or when too
much of the useful surface of the bog would be lost in raising the
required amount of sand, the layer of the latter may be obtained
from other places in the neighbourhood. Preliminary experiments
have also been made with the object of introducing a system of
closed pipes instead of the open trenches.

After investigations extending over a long period, the follow-
ing conclusions have been reached with regard to the rotation and
the manuring of the crops.

Just as the preparation of the bog ridges is exceedingly easy
and simple, so also are the rotation and the selection of fertilizers
for them. At Cunrau, attempts were at first made to grow most
of the cultivated plants with suitable artificial and farmyard
manure, and finally those crops were selected which gave the
surest return and at the same time fodder and litter for the
cattle in largest amount. All the crops which gave uncertain
returns or together with the direct gain from them too small
an amount of fodder or litter, or required too much labour for
their cultivation, were gradually excluded, e.g., crops of poppies,
yellow mustard, caraways, and beans, which are otherwise very
remunerative. In manuring, the rule holds that when the first
crop is drilled oats, plenty of potash and soluble phosphates should
be applied, about one and a half times the amount removed by
a good crop, i.e., 20 kilos of pure potash and 15 kilos of soluble
phosphoric acid per acre (German), or 80 and 60 kilos per hectare.

Addition of nitrogen in the form of artificial manure is nowa-
days quite out of the question, since abundant manuring with
potash and phosphates and the vigorous plant growth produce an
amount of ammonia and nitrates from the undissolved nitrogen
of the Dromling bog more than sufficient for the rankest growth
of the plants, which, as a matter of fact, in good harvests has
the disadvantage of making the corn lodge. Dromling bog con-
tains an abundance of all the plant foods except potash and
phosphates ; the latter can, however, without hesitation be given
in the above-mentioned large quantities if good crops are to be
always obtained until the plants grow too vigorously, when it is
advisable to give only so much of it as, according to Wolff's
tables, the last crop will have removed. As it is well known that
peat has a very strong absorptive power for potash and phosphates,
there is no danger that any excess of these applied will pass to the

2 12

476 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

subsoil and be removed with the drainage water. A few inches of
peat are sufficient to absorb the above fertilizers, even when these
are very heavily applied, and to retain them in an easily soluble
form for the succeeding crops.

Farmyard manure is applied only for certain crops and only to
a small extent, 3 to 5 m. tons per acre (German), i.e., 12,000 to
20,000 kilos per hectare. Generally some potash and phosphates,
about half the above quantities, are applied at the same time. The
crops raised consist of peas, vetches, potatoes, beet, rape, oats,
and clover.

Generally the first crop was oats, the second peas or vetches,
the third rape, followed by rape or winter barley, oats, or potatoes.
The latter crops preceded peas or summer corn, and, together with
rape, occurred the most frequently in the rotation.

At Cunrau, later on, 50 per cent, of the surface of the bog was
laid out in grain crops, 46 per cent, in root crops, and only 4 per
cent, with grass or hay, the chief rotation being root crops, grain.

As necessary conditions for the successful prosecution of the
ridge industry we have : —

(1) A bog depth between 0-4 m. and 1 -5 m.

(2) Certainty of drainage to a depth of 1 -0 m.

(3) A subsoil suitable for covering the bog (a sandy bottom,
loamy sand or sandy loam).

As a rule, a moor is, moreover, all the better suited for the ridge
industry the denser, firmer and the more decomposed the peat.
A loose, spongy, moss peat (the upper surface of high bogs) is
scarcely, or not at all, adapted for this system, for which meadow
or grass bogs alone are suited.

The basis of the fertilizer used every year at Cunrau for all the
crops was 250 kilos of kainit and 50 kilos of Thomas phosphate
per acre (German), or ^ ha. The potatoes received 100 kilos less
kainit in order that the starch formation should not be decreased
too much. The yield of potatoes per acre (German) in 1900 was
7,900 kilos.

According to the Bog Experimental Station at Miinster, the
amount of manure, which is best spread in the autumn, varies
per hectare from 200 to 600 kilos of kainit and 100 to 300 kilos
of Thomas phosphate according to the amount of potash and
phosphates contained in the bog.

A large number of ridge fields were laid out according to this
method in different years in districts of various types, and
the good returns have fully established the value and the
appropriateness of the ridge industry.1

According to an experience extending over more than ten years,

1 Details with regard to these are contained in " Die moderne Moor-
kultur," by W. Peters, Osnabruck, 1874, and in the Zeitschrift fur Kultur
des Moor-und Heidebodens, by W. Peters, Osnabruck, and in von Massen-
bach's " Praktische Anleitung zur Rimpauschen Moordammkultur," 2nd
edition, Berlin, Paul Parey, 1904, in " Der forst- und landwirtschaftliche
Anbau der Hochmoore," by K. Briinings, Berlin, Springer, 1881, and in the
Mitteilungen, 1901, especially p. 61, &c.

THE AGRICULTURAL UTILIZATION OF PEAT

477

the net gain at Cunrau averaged 36M. per acre (German), or 142M.
per hectare. The conditions were, however, specially favourable
there, but nevertheless in all cases good net profits should be
expected, since the gross profit is generally not less than that from
good heavy soil or reclaimed and marshy ground, while the working
costs of the peat ridge fields are very much less than those of the
heavier soil.

The initial costs are redeemed, as a rule, by the crops of the
first two years, certainly a favourable result.

The costs of the tillage, in wages, artificial manures, drilling,
harrowing, rolling, seed corn, mowing, drawing to the barns,
threshing and sifting, marketing, and interest were 412M. at
Cunrau, 320M. at Zion, and 480M. at Minister per hectare,
while the produce (per German acre) amounted to : —

Marks.

27 bushels of oats at 3 • 70M = 99-90

900 kilos of straw = 27-00

126-90

According to this, there was a gain of 6 • 40M. per acre (German)
even in the first year after deducting all the initial costs.

Under other and less favourable conditions, the initial costs
may be assumed to be even double those at Cunrau without
endangering the profit of the undertaking.

The average returns per acre (German) for various crops
suitably manured are given as follows : —

Oats

27-30 bushels.

Victoria pea

Rye

13

16-22

Wheat

16-19

Potatoes

100-110

Barley
Beet (fodder)
Clover

18-20

15,000-20,000 kilos.

750 kilos (first crop).

In recent years, owing to improvements in the ridge cultivation
method, the returns from some of the crops at Cunrau have been
greatly increased.

At Drdmling, near Cunrau, labourers prepare the ridges for the
farmers in return for one or two years' use of these ridges.

Ridge cultivation can also be employed in most cases for the
reclamation of cut-out high bogs, so that these extensive areas,
after their use for industrial purposes, can be handed over to
agriculture, which by suitable treatment will again be able
to utilize them.

Great extensions of the ridge cultivation industry and elaborate
experiments on various details of the process, manures, rotations
of crops, &c, have recently been made in many places, especially
at Cunrau itself. The results have shown that what was found
suitable for Cunrau Bog could not, without trouble, be applied
to other bogs. The depths of draining, ploughing, and covering,
the nature of the fertilizers, and the crops selected, with their
rotation, must be varied with the nature of the bog and that of the

478 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

covering material at hand if good harvests are to be won every
year. Further discussion of these results would, however, exceed
the limits of this book. Details with regard to them are contained
in the writings mentioned above, in which they can be consulted.1
The ridge cultivation method cannot, however, be employed
under all circumstances. If ridge fields are to work well and give
continuous satisfaction, the depth of the completely decomposed
and mouldy layer must be at least 30 cm. in the case of shallow
bogs (1^ m. deep) and at least 40 cm. in that of deep bogs. Good
drainage and side aeration of the upper layer of the bog by means
of deep tillage, deepening and loosening of the bottoms of the
furrows, careful disintegration of the material thrown up from the
trenches and the furrows, &c, are important conditions which
should be observed.

(e) Reclamation of Low Bogs for Meadows, &c.

Large bogs in the State forests, which have resisted attempts
at afforestation made regardless of expense, have been converted
into excellent meadows by a suitable treatment partly with and
partly without the use of sand.

In most cases drainage to a depth of 50 cm. suffices for those
grass and low bogs which are to be used as meadows, and this
necessitates the lowering of the water-level in the main drains to
a depth of 0-8 to 1 -0 m. A covering of coarse sand or earthy soil,
loam, marl, limestone, or mud to a depth of 10 to 12 cm., is to be
recommended.

A germinating bed better than that formed by harrowing can
be obtained in the case of " uncovered " surfaces more cheaply
by ploughing. Closet or farmyard manure is used as a fertilizer.
For " covered " surfaces an artificial manure can be used, and, as
a matter of fact, 400 kilos of Thomas phosphate and 800 kilos of
kainit can be distributed over each hectare in the autumn. In
following years the Thomas phosphate can be cut down to
200 kilos, and in the case of bogs rich in iron and phosphates it
may even be omitted altogether. Special seed mixtures are to
be recommended.2

(/) Reclamation of High Bogs 3

The methods mentioned above, which have proved efficient for
the reclamation of " low" and " transition" bogs, are not applic-
able to high bogs on account of their different nature. The
amount of plant food in the high bogs being small (on an average
there is 1 -2 per cent, of nitrogen, 0-35 per cent, of lime, and 0- 10

1 A balance sheet for a ridge cultivation farm, 108 ha. in area, at
Lobeofsund, for 1900, is given in the Mitteilungen, 1901, p. 124.

2 Mitteilungen, 1901, p. 258.

3 " On the Utilization of Prisoners of War for the Reclamation of Bogs."
See report on the 33rd, 34th and 35th meetings of the Verein zur Forderung
der Moorkultur in the Mitteilungen, 1915, 1916 and 1917.

THE AGRICULTURAL UTILIZATION OF PEAT 479

per cent, of phosphoric acid in the peat), a greater amount of
manure is required, and, moreover, the sand necessary for the
" ridge process " is not, as a rule, available. For these reasons
extensive agricultural industries on high bogs were rare up to the
beginning of this century. The chief object aimed at was the
conversion of the coarse soil into a finer one by repeated ploughing,
harrowing, and rolling, and the preparation of it in this way for
growing plants. An important factor in this case is the correct
amounts of farmyard and artificial manure to be added. The
Experimental Bog Station at Bremen owns at Meybusch a large
high bog experimental field of over 100 acres (German), i.e., 25 ha.

The Experimental Agricultural Station at Munster was the first
to discover a method of cultivating high bog1 by which it is
possible to render high bog fertile without removing the peat, burn-
ing, or sanding the surface. The method consists in dividing the
bog, when the water-level is high, into banks 8 to 10 m. in breadth
by means of small drains similar to the "ridge cultivation method "
at Rimpau. The drains are 50 to 60 cm. in depth, 50 to 60 cm. wide
at the top, and 30 to 40 cm. at the bottom. After laying out the
drains, the levelling and the working of the humic layer of heather
and the loosening of the " soil " to a depth of 15 cm. are commenced
in the spring. From the end of May to the beginning of June the
ground is limed with 4,000 kilos of slaked lime for each hectare,
and the lime harrowed in.' After harrowing two or three times,
from the beginning of July to the beginning of August, the
soil is manured at the end of August or the beginning of September
with 1,200 to 1,500 kilos of kainit and 600 to 800 kilos of Thomas
phosphate meal. At the end of September or the beginning of
October the cultivation of winter grain can be commenced, or
the surface may be left fallow until the following spring. Unlike
low bogs, high bogs require, in addition to the above-mentioned
manures, treatment with nitrogenous manures. For summer
crops Chili saltpetre and for winter crops ammonium sulphate
are employed ; 200 to 400 kilos of Chili saltpetre or 150 to
300 kilos of ammonium sulphate are applied to each hectare.
The amount of manure applied can be decreased later on.

The costs for 1 ha. are given as follows : —

(1) For levelling, opening drains, dividing into banks, &c,
90-100M.

(2) For lime and artificial manures in the earlier years,
120-130M.

(3) For lime and artificial manures in the latter years, 80-90M.
As a set-off against this expenditure the produce in the earlier

years realizes from 280M. to 400M. per hectare. The crops har-
vested, for instance, are for each acre (German), i.e., I ha., as
follows : Potatoes, 4,250 to 6,000 kilos ; rye, 450 to 550 kilos ; oats,
350 to 450 kilos ; peas and beans, 250 to 500 kilos ; and hay, 1,250
to 2,000 kilos.

This method has been further improved and has also been

1 Mitteilungen, 1901, p. 273.

480 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

employed for many years with success on a large scale. By its
means the vast amount of waste land in our German high bogs
has been made available for agricultural use, securing the nation's
foodstuffs by means of home-grown products.1 Mechanical or
motor ploughs (such as those constructed by J. Kemna, of Breslau,
the Locknitz Iron Co., of Stettin, Eberhardt Bros., of Ulm, on
the Danube, amongst others) have become very important and are
much employed in the agricultural utilization of large bogs.

1 Compare reports on the cultivation of the Wiesmoor, p. 440.

Section IX

PATENTS1 RELATING
TO THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT2

Extracts from the German Letters Patent

{The numbers prefixed are those of the various Letters Patent.)3

1. — Peat Furnaces

P. 287837, May 8th, 1913, Charles Hjalmer William von Porat,
of Stocksund, Sweden : — A peat powder furnace for locomo-
tives, in which the supply of the fuel is regulated by the
starting contrivance for the admission of steam to the
cylinder of the engine and the auxiliary steam blower in
such a way that the peat powder is not let in until the draught
in the fire-box and the fuel supply tube is of the required
strength ; the supply of the powder ceases when, or before,
the draught falls off. Details of the furnace are given.

2. — Peat Carbonization, Carbonizing Ovens, and Carbonizing

Presses

P. 14923, December 14th, 1880, Schott, of Kreiensen :— Prepara-
tion of peat charcoal for the purification of liquids from
coloured and other foreign admixtures, as well as for the
purification of air in closed rooms.

P. 16961, June 5th, 1881, Count zur Lippe, of Villa Friedegg
(Austria) : — A peat-carbonizing oven, containing a boiler
furnace, in conjunction with a boiler and a super-heater,
with steam nozzle and iron charging cars, the boxes of
which consist of a lattice-work, thus allowing the steam to
act on their contents from all sides.

P. 28512, August 29th, 1883, Angerstein, of Schalke :— A peat-
carbonizing oven, consisting of a number of vertical muffles
which are heated by the carbonization gases from auxiliary
muffles. They have cooling chambers under them and pipes
to supply the air required for the combustion.

P. 53617, January 5th, 1890, Ekelund, of Jonkoping : — A peat-
carbonizing oven with three chambers lying over one another,
the middle one of which can be filled from the upper and

1 See the footnote on p. 287.

2 See the corresponding section at the end of Part I, on " The Winning
of Peat."

3 The Letters Patent may be procured from the Imperial Patent Office
at Berlin at a cost of 1M. each.

482 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

emptied into the lower one, while the hot air, introduced
into a side chamber, can pass through the middle chamber
and then, together with the gas evolved, pass, either direct
or through a condenser, into the upper chamber.

P. 56492, September 12th, 1890, Burgdorf Bros., of Altona :—
A peat- carbonizing oven with several gas combustion
chambers, lying over one another, from which the hot gases
enter the adjacent layers of peat and then escape with the
steam from the zone at the top of the oven.

P. 59237, October 19th, 1890, Challeton, of Montauger :— A con-
trivance for purifying and carbonizing peat for the manu-
facture of a fuel similar to coke. It consists of a steam
vat, from which the steamed peat is led to a roller and then
passes to a mixing vat provided with a stirrer. After removal
from the vat it is dried and then brought into closed muffles,
which are moved on rails through a gas-fired carbonizing
oven, divided into two compartments. The finished product
is exposed to a steam blast, with which alkali is sprayed
in order to fix any sulphurous acid still present, the charcoal
being in this way freed from any bad odour it may have.

P. 59455, December 5th, 1890, Soetje and Kahl, of Hamburg : —
A drying oven in which the peat to be dried and carbonized
is brought in thin layers between open-work walls, so that
the drying surfaces may be large, and the peat allowed to
sink slowly between these walls. The portion of the oven
which is not occupied by the peat contains heating pipes.
Suitable exits for the water, formed during the drying, are
arranged in the oven.

P. 63407, December 24th, 1891, Ekelund, of Jonkoping :—
A contrivance, for carbonizing ovens by means of which the
hot combustion gases may be led upwards through the peat
from the fireplaces.

P. 63409, of January 1st, 1892, Angel, of Jonkoping : — Formed
peat is to be first heated in tightly closed vessels with the
object of carbonizing it and is then allowed to cool in such a
way that the volatiles developed, instead of being let out,
are retained as far as possible in the vessels so that they
condense to tarry products during the cooling, which, owing
to their very intimate contact with the particles of peat
charcoal, are absorbed by the latter, binding these together
so that the product, without any further addition of cements,
forms a compact mass.

P. 70010, October 1st, 1892, Dr. Steimer, of Berg, and Ziegler, of
Nachterstedt : — A peat charcoal igniter, made by saturating
peat charcoal with saltpetre.

P. 78312, November 1st, 1892, Liander, of Petrograd, and Haig,
of Paisley : — A step plate oven in which uniformity in
charging the oven is attained by means of several scrapers
placed under the cover, the fixed and rotating discs.

P. 85837, October 18th, 1895, Schoning, of Stamsund :—
Carbonization of peat by pressing the peat between plates

PATENTS RELATING TO THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT 483

or rollers which are heated so highly that carbonization
takes place.

P. 88947, April 10th, 1896, Jebson, of Dale (Norway) :— Carboniza-
tion of peat by means of electrical heaters, which are fixed
inside the vessel containing the peat.

P. 98007, April 18th, 1897, Vilen, of Gothenburg :— A peat-
carbonizing oven, in which flap valves, differing in weight
and separated by partitions, are so connected inside the
muffle to the gas exit leading to the fireplace, that the
lifting of the lighter valve connects the interior of the muffle
with a tube, which can be closed by a stopcock, so that the
gases can be led from the muffle outside its fireplace, into
the gas-duct leading to the fireplace of another muffle, while
the heavier flap valve regulates the connexion of the muffle
with a gas-duct leading to its own fireplace.

P. 100414, April 3rd, 1897, von Heidenstam, of Skonvik (Sweden)
— Peat carbonization in which the raw peat, led or pressed
into tubes or channels, is heated gradually during the
pressing, the evolved gases being at the same time removed.
The product emerges as a continuous, firm band of charcoal,
retaining this consistency even when it has left the tube.

P. 101482, June 27th, 1897, Ziegler, of Berlin :— A peat-carbonizing
oven, with winning and utilization of the gaseous and liquid
by-products. It consists of two adjacent shaft-muffles, the
lower halves of which are made of fire-brick and the upper
of cast-iron, with fire channels between their opposing walls.
They are built on a common, boiler-like, cast-iron foundation,
surrounded by air-ducts. These air-ducts are arranged in
the cast-iron middle and lower portions so that as the burnt
peat charcoal contained in the lower portion cools the air
required for the combustion becomes heated.

P. 103507, June 27th, 1897, Ziegler, of Berlin :— A peat-carbonizing
oven, with recovery of the by-products (see No. 101,482), in
which the hot gases escaping from the muffles are led through
channels, lying side by side, which are used in turn, and
to each of which a super-heater or boiler and a chamber for
kiln-drying the peat are connected.

P. 103922, March 15th, 1898, von Heidenstam, of Stockholm :—
An appliance for manufacturing firm pieces of charcoal from
formed peat under pressure, in which the pressure can be
adjusted as required, so that it always acts with the same
force on the substance to be carbonized, thus forming pieces
of charcoal of the desired strength and firmness.

P. 106960, January 21st, 1899, Osann, of the Concordia Iron
Works, near Bendorf-on-Rhine : — A muffle oven with a
draught reverser for peat carbonization, in which two
furnaces facing one another let the fire gases into the left
and right fireplaces alternately.

P. 114551, February 3rd, 1900, von Heidenstam, of Skonvik
(Sweden) : — Peat carbonization with a piston in the car-
bonizing muffle, the pressure of which can be adjusted. The

484 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

substance to be carbonized is filled into the muffle in layers,
separated by plates, so that it does not touch the sides of the
muffle, and jamming is thus prevented. (See No. 100414.)

P. 132961, July 4th, 1900, Holm, of Aalborg :— A multi-chamber
peat-carbonizing oven with a mixing and distributing chamber
in the centre, in which gases produced outside the oven are
mixed with cold gases and from which the mixed gases are led
to the carbonizing compartments, where carbonization is
effected at a temperature neither too high for nor injurious
to the process.

P. 133832, March 3rd, 1901, Hartmann, of Munich :— The defects
alleged to exist in the process for carbonizing press peat, or in
the heating of air-dry peat to redness in the absence of air, are
to be overcome by increasing the calorific power of disinte-
grated peat by heating it slowly to about 220° C. in open
vessels in the presence of air. The less volatile, tarry sub-
stances, which have a high calorific power, are to remain in
the roasted and carbonized product. The peat powder thus
roasted is to be pressed in moulds in the ordinary way.

P. 141807, August 12th, 1901, Laurenius, of Goteborg :— The fuel
gases developed in the carbonization of peat, issuing from
a burner fixed in the bottom of the muffle, are to be used for
heating the muffle, and by lowering the rotating grate the
flame from the burner of the muffle is to be led through a duct
connecting the ash-pit with the chimney, so that the hot
gases, when the carbonization is finished, may be allowed to
escape directly into the chimney.

P. 142251, August 28th, 1901, Laurenius, of Goteborg: — A gas-
burner for peat-carbonizing ovens, in which the gaseous
products are led into the fire for heating the muffle through an
inlet in the lower part of the latter, so arranged that the
bottom of the muffle is provided with cup-shaped depressions
at the inlet for the gaseous products into which the cover of
the inlet is so fitted by means of ribs that a zigzag passage is
formed through which the gaseous products pass into the fire.
The spaces between the depressions and the ribs are filled with
asbestos. In this way the temperature of the fuel gases
passing through the intervening spaces is raised.

P. 144149, September 27th, 1901, Ziegler, of Schoneberg, near
Berlin : — A vertical muffle oven in which partitions are fixed
in the upper portion of the oval muffles. These contract, step
by step, towards the bottom, so that lattice-like openings
are formed and the fuel chamber increases in width towards
the base.

P. 149959, July 8th, 1900, Fritz, of London : — Carbonization in the
absence of air in such a way that the peat still retains the tarry
substances evolved above 400° C. and is sent to the press in
this condition. The mass is pressed and aerated alternately
so as to remove the gases and vapours still contained in it.

P. 151136, April 30th, 1901, Bamme, of Leer : — A peat-carbonizing
oven with an inclined sole fired from below upwards, and with

PATENTS RELATING TO THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT 485

a nose which presses back the unfinished pieces of charcoal, the
object of the oven being to make the carbonization uniform.

P. 157338, June 10th, 1902, von Groling, of Vienna : — A peat-
carbonizing press, consisting of two endless chains of plates
in which only the returning portions of the chains are directly
heated so as to spare the tracks and the rollers of the chains,
and the members of the chains of the press tracks, which are
provided with ventilating grooves, are intermittently raised
and lowered so that at every discharge of the peat exits are
left free.

P. 157691, January 14th, 1905, Mavcotty, of Schoneberg, near
Berlin, and Karlson, of Copenhagen : — A contrivance for
holding forming boxes in peat-carbonizing presses provided
with conveyers.

P. 159415, August 22nd, 1902, the same : — A carbonizing press
with heated press plates arranged in the hearth of a furnace.

P. 158032, June 27th, 1903, Dr. Hoering, of Berlin, and Dr. Ujoen,
of Christiania : — Carbonization, in which the water vapour
developed from the fresh fuel in the colder zone of the oven is
led into the carbonizing zone and is drawn off along with
the gaseous products.

P. 163266, September 30th, 1903, Sellnow, of Berlin :— A vertical
peat-carbonizing oven, with heating tubes inside it which have
openings at their lower ends, through which the flue draught
exerts a suction on the interior of the oven, drawing the gases
and vapours through the layers of peat charcoal.

P. 169924, December 20th, 1903, Wiesner, of Otzsch-Gautzsch,
near Leipzig : — A muffle oven for carbonizing peat, consisting
of a number of vertical muffles separated by hot walls and
arranged round a central axis, in which the intervening space
is divided by means of horizontal floors into a number of
groups of channels lying over one another.

P. 172677, September 10th, 1905, von Hatten, of Lemitten, near
Wormditt : — A shaft oven in which the gases are led into
the fire. To make the gas pass more easily, steam, which
is produced by the heat of the carbonizing chamber and is
super-heated in a tube, is led into the gas outlet and inlet tubes.

P. 173237, January 20th, 1905, Miiller, of Sundbyberg, Sweden :
— A chamber oven in which each compartment contains one
or more shafts (open above and below) for receiving the sub-
stance to be carbonized, the walls of which are formed of
hot bodies superimposed on one another.

P. 175786, May 21st, 1905, The Upper Bavarian Cokeworks and
Chemical Products Co., of Beuerberg : — Peat carbonization
in a shaft oven, consisting of an upper and a lower portion,
in which alternately hot gases are led through the peat, at
about 250° C. when it is in the upper, and at 350° C. when it
has reached the lower portion. The hot gases and vapours
are led off separately.

P. 176364, June 15th, 1905, supplementary to No. 158032, Peat
Charcoal Co., Ltd., of Berlin : — Carbonization according to

486 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

No. 158032, in which only part of the water vapour developed
in the colder zone of the oven is led, either directly or after
super-heating, through the carbonizing zone itself or through
a neighbouring oven, from which it is drawn off together with
the gaseous products.

P. 176365, January 15th, 1905, supplementary to No. 158032, Peat
Charcoal Co., Ltd., of Berlin : — Carbonization according to
No. 158032, in which the water vapour developed in the colder
zone of the oven is introduced into the carbonizing zone at the
centre of its cross-section, and is withdrawn from the zone
together with the gaseous products at the circumference of
the oven chamber.

P. 186935, May 1st, 1906, The Upper Bavarian Cokeworks and
Chemical Products Co., of Beuerberg : — A vertical carboniz-
ing muffle with a cellular gas shaft inside it and with a star-
shaped cross-section for the muffle and gas-clearing shaft.

P. 196603, December 14th, 1905, Kittler, of Memel :— A process for
manufacturing gas from press peat in muffles with recovery of
the by-products. The muffles are charged from a feeding
chamber by means of movable slides ; the gas and air which
penetrate into the feeding chamber when one slide is opened
are drawn out by a pump before the other slide of the feeding
chamber is opened in its turn.

P. 196935, October 21st, 1906, The Upper Bavarian Cokeworks and
Chemical Products, Ltd., of Beuerberg : — A muffle carboniz-
ing oven in which the part of the muffles intended for the
body to be carbonized is divided by a contraction in the centre
into two partially separated shafts.

P. 204399, February 2nd, 1908, Lorenz, of Berlin :— A distilling
oven with distilling cylinders pushed into one another and
heated externally, and with funnel-shaped bells having a
special arrangement for leading away the distillation gases.

P. 210342, August 26th, 1906, Miiller, of Gothenburg, Sweden :—
A carbonizing plant with several oven chambers, in which
several carbonizing shafts are combined in sections and are
connected at their lower ends by collecting tubes, of which
there is one for each section.

P. 229606, October 16th, 1909, Wolters, of Weimar, Westphalia :
— A peat distillation oven with a gas producer built into it
so that both the producer and the distilling retort can be
charged separately.

P. 238254, September 30th, 1909, von Mentzer, of Regenhildsborg,
Sweden : — A carbonizing press with an oscillating press plate,
which has special air-duct inlets in addition to special heating
channels.

P. 245309, January 19th, 1909, Wengler, of Zwickau, Saxony :—
A carbonizing shaft oven with gas-accelerating nozzles, in
which the gas reservoir is placed underneath in the cooling
chamber of the oven. The gas serves for the generation of
steam for the glowing charcoal and for the concentration of
the by-products.

PATENTS RELATING TO THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT 487

P. 245310, June 21st, 1910, the same : — A multi-compartment
oven with a removable partition between the two parts of
the oven, one of which is fixed behind the other.

P. 247774, February 12th, 1911, The Pluder Chemical Factory,
Ltd., of Pluder, East Silesia : — A carbonizing oven with an
inclined sole and a hood-shaped tongue fixed on this, which is
made hollow for letting in the fuel gases, required to heat the
oven chamber, through gas inlets on its sides.

P. 253561, February 10th, 1911, Societe Anonyme Huilerie et
Savonnerie de Lurian, of Salon, France : — A carbonizing oven
divided horizontally into two compartments, the upper of
which serves for burning the gases evolved and the lower
for the carbonization.

P. 260095, October 25th, 1911, Hart and Deschamps, of Beulach,
Austria : — A pile oven, in which openings, capable of being
closed by slides, lie over one another in the sides of the walls
and serve to introduce the air required for the combustion and
to remove the gases evolved.

P. 260800, May 25th, 1911, Dr. Bergius, of Hanover :— The win-
ning of peat charcoal in the form of powder in the following
way : The peat is heated above 300° C. with water under
pressure until complete separation of the solid residue (char-
coal in the form of powder) from the aqueous portion takes
place in the closed vessel.

P. 265041, August 31st, 1911, Fritz, of Bremen : — A pile oven with
several chambers lying side by side and with openings in their
side walls, which can be closed when required.

P. 274780, February 11th, 1912, Wet Carbonizing, Ltd., of London :
— Heating of wet carbonized peat, whereby in a separate
boiler furnace such a quantity of fuel is burnt that sufficient
heat for a boiler and for the contrivance for the wet carboniza-
tion is produced, the combustion gases from the furnace
being led into the carbonizing contrivance.

P. 283535, January 21st, 1911, Industrial Ovens Manufacturing
Company, Poppe and Co., of Berlin : — Pressure carbonization
of unformed moist peat by means of a combination of air-
drying and storage in mounds.

3. — Peat Gasification and Peat Gasifiers

P. 120051, May 10th, 1900, Martin Ziegler, of Schoneberg, near
Berlin : — A gas producer for peat in which two or more flat
grates, accessible from one side, are arranged in steps with
a partition between every two grates. The grate can also
be made in the form of a basket grate, as in No. 164438.

P. 136884, August 10th, 1901, Dr. Mond, of London :— Production
of gas from moist fuel, in which a part of the generated gas is
again led through the glowing zone, in which, moreover, the
gases before being led away pass through a chamber contain-
ing a chequered filling which is strongly heated so as to

488 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

convert the volatile products into permanent gases, while
avoiding loss of ammonia.

P. 157729, January 22nd, 1904, Deutz Gas Motor Factory, of
Cologne-Deutz : — A gas producer with an upper and lower fire,
the gas exit being between the two. The gases are led away
through a vertical grate which forms part of the side wall.

P.-164571, December 15th, 1903, P. 176645, May 6th, 1904,
P. 202375, September 26th, 1905, Korting Bros, and Co., of
Linden, near Hanover. A gas producer with air inlets at
top and bottom and with an upper (second) grate which is
inclined, but so slightly that the fuel cannot slip down into
the shaft, and sliding of the fire under the upper zone where
air is admitted is thus prevented.

P. 169008, June 3rd, 1905, Deutz Gas Motor Factory, of Cologne-
Deutz : — A gas producer with an upper and a lower fire. The
power gas and the distillation gas are drawn off between the
two fires, but the mouth of the pipe for the distillation gas is
so far removed from that for the power gas that the layer of
glowing fuel between them is sufficiently thick to bring about
the combination of any oxygen entering the shaft, through
a leak in the gas-duct, with carbon before it reaches the point
where the gas is to be utilized.

P. 169378, September 20th, 1905, the same : — A gas producer with
an upper and lower fire, the gas being taken off between the
two. The shaft of the gas producer is pierced at a suitable
height by a trough (or pipe), open below, and the gas is with-
drawn through the passage formed by the channel and the fuel
sloping towards it. From the trough, however, one or more
shafts, with stops, are led to the bottom layer of the fuel so
that the fire can be stirred through these shafts.

P. 176231, January 31st, 1905, Dr. Hoering and Dr. Wielandt,
of Berlin : — Gasification of peat which has been previously
carbonized, whereby the carbonized peat is cooled in the
carbonizer, thus becoming loose before it is introduced into
the gasifier.

P. 176233, February 18th, 1905, Stauber, of Konigsberg, Prussia,
and Buck, of Berlin : — A producer for power gas from peat, in
which the tarry constituents of the gas are partly separated by
a water-seal and partly decomposed by heating. The gas exit
tube, which is cooled by water, passes down outside the gasifier
and then up through the middle of the latter.

P. 177988, May 5th, 1905, The Gorlitz Machine Manufacturing and
Iron Foundry Co., of Gorlitz : — A grateless gas producer
with a gas exit tube in the middle of the gasifier, an air pipe or
water pipe being so arranged round the gas pipe that the air
becomes heated and streams through a pipe into the fuel layer,
or the water becomes evaporated by the escaping gases and the
steam enters through several openings into the hottest zone of
the gasifier.

P. 198295, August 26th, 1905, Dr. Caro, of Berlin :— An applica-
tion of the Mond gas process, wherein substances containing

PATENTS RELATING TO THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT 489

nitrogen and carbon are treated in a gasifier with a limited
amount of air and excess of water, for the recovery of
ammonia from the waste products.

P. 206576, May 2nd, 1907, Jabs, of Zurich :— A gasifier in which the
moist fuel is dried and deprived of its gas in a shaft which is
pierced fanwise and lies outside the gasifier. It has also heating
chambers, which are situated between the shaft and its wall.

P. 209387, August 21st, 1908, Julius Pintsch and Co., of Berlin :—
A gas producer for moist fuel with a drying chamber heated
by the evolved gases and a pumping contrivance in circuit
with the duct for removing the water vapour.

P. 213852, May 6th, 1908, The Upper Bavarian Cokeworks Co., of
Beuerberg, Upper Bavaria :— For gasifying peat with more
than 45 per cent, of water, three gasifiers are arranged in
series in such a way that one works at a high temperature,
another acts regularly, and the third receives the fresh fuel,
the water vapour evolved from the latter is led into the glowing
layer of fuel in the hottest gasifier and there reacts with the
glowing carbon, forming " water gas," while the tarry and
ammoniacal vapours are collected separately.

P. 238554, January 5th, 1908, and its supplementary Patent
No. 243810, of July 16th, 1911, Asmusjabs, of Zurich :— Before
gasifying peat for gas engines the moisture is to be removed
from the peat by direct contact with the waste gases of the
engine in the following manner : The hot gases first meet the
wettest portion of the peat at the mouth of the drier, passing
through the latter in the same direction as the peat and
leaving it, together with the water vapour, at the exit for the
dried peat.

P. 238829, December 18th, 1906, Dr. Caro, of Berlin :— Winning of
ammonia from peat by gasifying peat in shaft gasifiers by
means of a mixture of air and an excess of water vapour in such
a manner that separation of the processes of distillation and
formation of producer gas does not occur, and also that air
and water vapour are present in every part of the gasifier.

P. 255291, January 24th, 1909, Dr. Caro, of Berlin :— Gasification
of peat for winning ammonia and power gas by addition
of limited quantities of air and excess of water vapour
(No. 238829) in such a way that by addition of the air-steam
mixture, in a super-heated condition, or by increasing the size
of the combustion zone in the gasifier a temperature of at
least 250° C. is maintained in the dehydrating zone and,
therefore, the decomposition of the peat and the formation
of the ammonia occur in the same place and at the same
time as the dehydration of the peat.

P. 274011, December 13th, 1912, Sachs, of Carlsruhe :— In order to
increase the yield of ammonia the gases of a producer are led
through tubes from the interior of the fuel layer, where they
are formed, the temperature of the tubes being kept, by means
of condensers, so low that decomposition of the gases does
not occur.

(^595) 2 K

490 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

P. 279550, September 20th, 1913, Koppers, of Essen :— In the
Mond gas process in gas producers, with addition of a
combustible gas as a diluent, in order to increase the yield
of ammonia, the process is to be carried out at so high
a temperature that the combustible gas (hydrogen, producer
gas) burns continuously, and thus maintains the temperature
of the decomposition zone.

P. 282579, August 18th, 1911, Klinner, of Berlin-Carlshorst :— The
gas formed in the gasifier is led through the fresh fuel, con-
tained in the drier, by mean of one or more spiral tubes, set
in the wall of the shaft, while the volatiles are driven out of the
fuel in a separate lower chamber and burnt under the grate.

4. — Peat as a Fibrous Material for Paper, Paste-board,

Textiles, &c.

(For the winning of peat fibres, see the list of Patents on p. 307)

P. 96540, October 20th, 1905, Charles Geige, of Diisseldorf :—
Manufacture of chemically pure fibres from peat by extracting
raw peat fibres with alkalis, drying and loosening the fibres,
which are then brought into an acid bath with the object of
converting the starch contained in the fibres into sugar and of
decomposing the proteins. The sugar is then fermented into
alcohol and carbon dioxide. The residual product is freed
from fats, again washed, boiled with dilute acids or alkalis
and, after another washing, is bleached.

P. 102616, July 3rd, 1897, Zschdrner, of Vienna : — Paper material
for peat prepared by extracting the washed peat under the
highest possible pressure first with a weak alkali solution
(not more than 2 per cent.), or several times with alkali
solutions of continuously decreasing strengths, then washing,
breaking up the fibres with a weak solution of an oxidizing
agent which at the same time bleaches them and then
treating them once more with an alkali solution (about
1 per cent.).

P. 123785, January 1st, 1901, Societe Templed et Dumartin, of
Paris : — A spun material from peat which contains peat
fibres on the outside and one or more threads of cotton, or the
like as an inner core.

P. 144830, January 30th, 1901, Kalmann, of Rabenstein (Lower
Austria) : — Breaking up and working peat fibres. The cut
peat is to be first purified by washing and rubbing and the
product is to be converted into half-stuff by repeated grinding
and soaking in water for short intervals. The half-stuff
is to be converted into paper pulp and finished paper by
repetition of this treatment under increased pressure.

P. 172288, April 13th, 1905, Kirner, of Admont (Styria) :—
Preparation of half-stuff from peat by grinding and rubbing
the disintegrated and sifted peat between several pairs of
rollers which are adjusted to correspond with the sizes of the
different sifted materia] s.

PATENTS RELATING TO THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT 491

P. 173357, September 24th, 1905, supplementary to No. 172288,
the same : — In the case of the roller press mentioned in
No. 172288 the rollers which rotate with different velocities
are pushed towards one another longitudinally during their
rotation.

P. 180397, July 9th, 1905, Dr. John, of Cothen (Anhalt), and Henry
Wollheim, of Grunewald (Berlin) : — Breaking up and bleaching
peat fibres by dilute hydrofluoric acid and subsequent bleach-
ing of the well-washed fibres by means of hydrogen peroxide.

5. — Utilization of Peat in the form of Mull, Litter,

and Manure

P. 13143, August 20th, 1880, Duke, of Plains Totnes (England) :—
Sewage, gas water, urine and other waste waters containing
fertilizing materials are absorbed by means of soluble
silicates, phosphates, peat charcoal or peat powder, with the
object of winning a manure.

P. 14016, May 23rd, 1880, Ernst, of Beesenlaublingen : — A process
for converting " molasses waste ' into a dry mass, with
retention of its nitrogen content, by addition of sulphuric
acid and peat mull.

P. 20590, January 14th, 1882, Cobley, of Dunstable (England) :—
A process for the preparation of horse manure by addition of
peat ashes, peat powder, and the like to wet stable litter.

P. 23251, November 12th, 1882, Starch, of Mayennes :— Manu-
facture of a fibrous, tanning agent by saturating moss peat
with extracts of tannins.

P. 25995, April 24th, 1883, and P. 31330, September 19th, 1884,
Starch, of Mayennes : — Moss peat as an admixture for
petroleum, fats, and oils, when these are being treated with
superheated steam, and when they are being bleached or
when they are being converted into lampblack.

P. 29564, 42071, January 30th, 1884, Dr. Karsch, of Berlin :—
A precipitating powder for artificial manures is made by
slaking freshly burnt lime with a vegetable fibre paste (peat
pulp, urine, wood refuse, &c), or the plant, or peat, fibres
are broken up by strong acids and then freed from acid by
magnesia, alumina, iron, or manganese compounds.

P. 40360, October 27th, 1886, Rohhrdmer and Son, of Erfurt :—
Use of peat for the manufacture of a nitrogenous manure
which can be spread.

P. 44510, November 15th, 1887, Classen, of Ansbach : — An
odourless sewage valve with a peat mill sieve.

P. 52834, February 17th, 1890, Dr. Weigelt, of Berlin :— Prepara-
tion of dry manures from fish and flesh refuse. When drying
the fleshy parts, which decompose owing to the action of
potash or magnesium salts, the salted parts are mixed with
peat, peat litter, peat mull, or bog stuff.

P. 82580, July 14th, 1894, von Domarus, of Barmen : — A dis-
infectant from peat mull and calcium chloride.

492 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

P. 88519, March 1st, 1895, Riensch, of Wiesbaden :— Boiled peat
mull as a clarifying agent.

P. 121526, February 21st, 1900, Wenck, of Magdeburg :— Manu-
facture and dehydration of manures from sewage by produc-
tion from calcium carbonate and acid of a continuous current
of carbon dioxide in the liquids to be dried.

P. 165976, January 17th, 1902, Gerdes, jun., of Bremen : — Peat
and the like treated with alkalis are mixed, while moist,
with alkali silicates or phosphates.

P. 209157 February 12th, 1904, supplementary to No. 165976,
the same : — The humic substances are made soluble by
alkaline phosphates instead of by caustic alkalis.

P. 220213, June 5th, 1909, Julia Wolters, of Ildehausen-on-
Haardt : — Manufacture of manures from peat mould by
mixing this with carbonates of the alkaline earths or generally
with such substances which although they are neither acid
nor alkaline are nevertheless able to neutralize acids.

P. 282532, March 19th, 1914, Louis Wilkening, of Hanover :—
A process for preparing a stable manure, which can be spread
and will not absorb water, by subjecting any kind of " molasses
waste," mixed with peat, to fermentation with a view to
destroying the water-absorbing constituents.

P. 283461, December 2nd, 1913, A.Gasser, of Neumiihle (Wiirtem-
berg) : — Peat and wood are ground up together and the
mass is further treated in the same way as cellulose for the
manufacture of bodies having high anti-putrefactive and
bactericidal properties.

6. — Peat for Building Purposes, Artificial Wood, &c.

P. 2872, January 17th, 1878, Gercke, jun., of Hamburg : — Fibrous
layers of peat are to be strongly compressed after drying,
and after impregnation with tar, asphalt, &c, or milk of
lime, water-glass, or cementing substances, they are to be
employed for the manufacture of substitutes for wood,
paste-board, paper, or roofing material.

P. 27472, December 21st, 1883, Vibrans, of Ufingen :— Heat-
insulating covers from moss peat.

P. 36751, January 15th, 1886, von W end-land, of Bernied : —
A jelly-like, compressible or mouldable, "setting" mass
made from disintegrated peat by boiling it with addition
of glue, water-glass, or the like.

P. 39335, April 18th, 1886, Nussbaum, of Munich :— A filling
material consisting of disintegrated peat, which is impregnated
with milk of lime and then dried in the air.

P. 77178, August 10th, 1893, Geige, of Broich, near Mulheim-on-
Ruhr : — Manufacture of artificial wood from peat by digesting
the raw peat and breaking up its fibres, then mixing the moist
felty mass, when dry, with calcium sulphate solution and
pressing it in moulds.

P. 78047, May 27th, 1893, von Wangenheim, of Klein-Spiegel,

PATENTS RELATING TO THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT 493

near Grossmellen (Pomerania) : — A peat product for roofing
purposes from peat mull and tar, to which cements such as
resin, pitch, gum, and the like are added.
P. 114414, November 11th, 1898, Zeland, of Stockholm :— Peat
as a building material. The raw peat is to be pressed and
warmed between bands or plates, pierced with holes, and the
drying of the more or less large plates, &c, which are thus
made is to be completed by electrical decomposition of the
moisture.
P. 115145, August 3rd, 1899, Reif, of Hanover : — A process and a
contrivance for manufacture from peat and the like of articles
resembling those made of wood or stone, substances being
added to the peat while it is being dried and disintegrated
which, during the preparation, pressing, and forming, afford
the necessary cementing or impregnating materials either
alone or in combination with those already existing in
the peat.
P. 128728, October 31st, 1900, Helbing, of Wandsbeck :— Manu-
facture of artificial wood by mixing the washed peat, while
preserving its fibrous nature, with milk of lime and an alumina
compound, and then compressing the moist product.
P. 130238, May 29th, 1901, John v. d. Kammer, of Chicago:—
A germinating material made mainly from peat or peat
moss, with substances inserted in it made of material
permeable to the air.
P. 133253, November 20th, 1900, Decker, of Mittweida, in
Saxony : — Artificial wood from wood shavings, sawdust,
chopped straw, and the like, which are boiled in a solution
of a metallic salt and are then mixed with powdered brown
coal and peat with addition of aluminium sulphate, whereby
the mass, when dried, is acted upon by a bath of sodium
borate and is then mixed with cements and formed in the
ordinary way.
P. 142432, July 11th, 1902, Dr. Classen, of Aix :— In order to be
able to compress peat into a dense, heavy material capable
of being worked, the raw material is moistened and heated
with a mineral acid so dilute that a chemical change in the
body is excluded and the product is then washed and dried.
P. 145251, October 5th, 1902, Factonite Works of Reif and Co.,
Ltd., of Wunstorf : — A substance capable of being worked
is made from peat by pressing liquid cements such as tar,
or its mixture with oil and resin, under high pressure in
a finely divided condition, into the fibrous material, which
is kept in continuous motion, and converting them when
necessary into the solid state by the addition of oxidizing
agents, in order to provide the fibres in a simple and cheap
manner with a very thin coating of cement. The fibres are
then pressed, according as required, in moulds.
P. 159651, March 19th, 1903, Stolzel, of Thorn :-- Building
materials, pipes, and the like from peat, mixed in such a
quantity and in so moist a state with cement that setting

494 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

takes place with the aid of the water withdrawn from
the peat.

P. 286082, January 17th, 1913, Charles Nan, of Munich :—
Manufacture of artificial stones from peat mull, which is
prepared from frozen peat.

P. 287704, June 5th, 1914, William Schiitz, of Konigsberg, in
Prussia : — Manufacture of peat stones with suitable cements
by first partially dehydrating the peat, then grinding it well,
mixing it intimately with cements, moulding the mixture,
allowing it to dry in the air, and thus become loose in the
moulds.

7. — Peat for the Manufacture of Alcohol, Feeding Stuffs, &c.

P. 66158, November 15th, 1891, Kappesser, of Carlsruhe : —
Manufacture of solutions containing sugar and alcohol from
peat.

P. 79932, June 5th, 1894, Wagner, of Sehnde, near Lehrte :—
Disintegrated peat is mixed with molasses or the like in any
desired proportion for feeding purposes, and is then pressed
in moulds of any desired form.

P. 88546, December 22nd, 1894, M. de Cuyper, of Mons :—
Manufacture of alcohol by fermentation of molasses and
peat.

P. 112617, November 21st, 1897, Schwartz, of Hanover :— A feed-
ing stuff consisting of skim milk mixed with peat and
molasses.

P. 237806, October 20th, 1908, Joseph, of Berlin :— Manufacture
of peat molasses with addition of alkali, whereby the peat,
before it is mixed with the molasses, is made very faintly
alkaline by means of alkali lyes (soda lye).

P. 241380, April 14th, 1909, supplementary to No. 237806, the
same : — A process similar to No. 237806, whereby, after the
addition of the soda lye, part of the liquid is separated with
the object of removing to some extent the humic acid salts
which are formed.

Section X
NOTES

From the Sections on the Utilization of Peat *

{The figures given in parentheses indicate the pages on which
further particulars are to be found.)

Hitherto in great commercial industries peat has been used
with success only in the following ways : —

(1) As fuel, in competition with wood, brown coal, and coal,
especially when converted into fuel gas or power gas.

(2) In the form of charcoal, as a substitute for wood charcoal
and coke, but not as a substitute for brown coal and coal.

(3) In the form of fibrous peat, as peat litter and peat mull for
stables and closets, and as a preserving agent and a packing
medium.

(4) In the form of peat, peat mull and peat wool as a bandaging,
packing, insulating, and drying material.

The use of peat fibres (cotton-grass, Eriophorum vaginatum)
as raw material for paper and paste-board for spun and woven
fabrics and the like has hitherto proved to be indeed technically
possible, but in spite of every effort and great sacrifice of money,
no striking success has yet been obtained commercially in this
way. Great care should be exercised with regard to new experi-
ments of this type (pp. 466-467).

See what has been stated on p. 470 with regard to the treatment
and the utilization of peat for various purposes and the manu-
facture of articles of the most diverse nature.

The calorific powers of various fuels may be seen on pp. 320-323,
326-331, and that for peat on pp. 326-327. The percentages of
water and ash in peat have an extraordinary effect on its calorific
power (pp. 328, 332).

By no method of treatment can peat be made a fuel equal in
value" to good brown coal or coal. By no method of treatment,
including that of carbonization, can either the calorific effect of
a given weight of the dry peat be increased, or its ash content
be decreased (pp. 325, 388).

Peat cannot, without alteration, be burnt in a furnace adapted
for coal with the same degree of success as the latter fuel. If
this is to be attained a special furnace, in the construction of
which the peculiarities of peat are taken into consideration, is
always necessary.

Furnaces well adapted for peat may be divided into : —

{a) Ordinary grate furnaces (p. 343), peat powder furnaces
(pp. 349, 432).

1 See the Notes from the sections on the Winning of Peat, p. 312, et seq.

496 THE UTILIZATION OF PEAT

(b) Semi-gas furnaces (pp. 398, 424) ; locomotive furnaces
(pp. 349, 432).

(c) Pre-heater gas furnaces (pp. 396, 425).

(d) Fuel gas and power gas installations (pp. 392, 397, 400).
In various branches of industry perfectly satisfactory results

have been obtained with peat furnaces — for instance with semi-
gas and gas furnaces for steam-raising and boilers (p. 424), for
glass-works (p. 418), as well as for lime-kilns and potteries
(p. 421). The use of peat as a fuel in the railway industry of
Germany is out of the question (p. 431). Similarly in iron and
steel works— in so far as it is not a question of peat charcoal as
a substitute for wood charcoal (p. 389) — peat has fallen and more
more out of use (pp. 415-418) in recent years.

Artificial drying of fuel peat — i.e., the manufacture of kiln-
dried peat — is not economically sound (p. 355).

Peat charcoal or peat coke is equal in value to wood charcoal,
and in general may be more cheaply prepared than the latter
(pp. 356, 379-382). Although the calorific power of peat charcoal
is greater than that of the same weight of air-dry, cut, machine,
or press peat for the same raw material, the heating effect of
a given weight of air-dry peat can never be increased by carboniza-
tion. The heating effect of the weight of peat charcoal obtained
from it (only 30 to 40 per cent, of that of the peat) is always less
than that of the peat from which it is obtained, although the
calorific power of 1 kilo of peat charcoal is considerably more
than that of 1 kilo of air-dry peat (pp. 386-391). Only machine
peat, as dense and firm as possible, should be used for the
manufacture of peat charcoal (p. 389).

In order to make the selling price of peat charcoal for large
deliveries as low as possible, carbonizing ovens should be installed
in which the waste, combustible gases from the charge of peat
could be used for heating the ovens while the by-products (tar-
water, tar, gas) could be recovered and utilized (pp. 374, 385,
408, 451).

Only under favourable conditions and in exceptional cases
can semi-carbonized peat, powdered and pressed in moulds,
compete with press brown coal, as a clean, pressed, peat charcoal
for household use, unless the press brown coal is abnormally dear
owing to high freightage (pp. 372, 383).

By means of power gas installations a new way is opened up
for the utilization of peat for illuminating and power purposes
(p. 400), especially for electric stations erected at or in a bog
(p. 432).

Peat litter and peat mull have hitherto, without exception,
proved excellent for the absorption and the winning of manures
in stalls, closets, &c. (p. 452 et seq.). In this case also the raw
material should be subjected to expert examination before
factories for commercial products are erected.

Fibrous peat, waste peat, and peat mull are good packing,
storing, and preserving agents (p. 461).

Peat as a building material has hitherto found only limited

NOTES 497

use. The same remark applies to peat for mud baths (pp. 468
and 470).

The manufacture of peat gas for illuminating purposes is
technically possible, but is as a rule too expensive in comparison
with that of coal gas (p. 444 et seq.).

The use of peat fibres or fibrous peat as a spinning and weaving
material and for the manufacture of paper and mill-board has
not yet proved commercially remunerative (pp. 463 and 466).

The winning of tar, tar products, pitch, wax, &c, from peat
is commercially remunerative only when it is combined with the
winning and utilization of peat charcoal (pp. 378, 451).

Both uncut and cut-out bogs can, when suitably worked and
manured, be used with great advantage for agricultural purposes.
In the industrial utilization of bogs, therefore, the improvement
of the surface of the ground for agricultural purposes should not
be left out of consideration (pp. 471-480).

In Section IX, on Patents (p. 481), &c, it may be noted
that in the case of furnaces and carbonizing and gasifying plants
we should accept as suitable for peat not those which can be
used in common for different fuels (wood, coal, coke, and peat),
but only those contrivances exclusively or specially intended for
peat and therefore peculiar to it.

(2595) 2k

INDEX

Note. — Only the more important proper names or those most frequently-
referred to have been indexed.

Abjorn Anderson machine, 152.

Absorption of water by anhydrous peat,
244, 247, 355.

Absorptive power of peat, 262-265,
283, 317, 452-462.

Absorptive power of peat charcoal, 391.

Acetic acid. See By-products.

Age of bogs, 3.

Agricultural implements used for win-
ning peat, 35.

Agricultural utilization of bogs, 410,
434, 440, 471-480, 497.

Agricultural utilization of peat, 471-
480.

Air-dried peat, water content, 58.

Air-dried peat, yield from a bog, 62.

Akermann peat machine, 117, 120.

Alcohol from peat, 470. Patents, 494.

Alder peat, 326.

Algae as "peat formers," 1.

Ammonia. See By-products.

Ammonium sulphate. See By-products.

Analysis of peat, 7-14.

Anhydrous peat, 58, 67, 72, 351-355.

Anrep machine, 87, 117, 120, 122, 301,
442.

Anrep - Jakobsson - Svedala machine,
151-152.

Anthracite, 322, 336, 402, 403.

Antiseptic bandages from peat, 461,
495.

Area of peat bogs, 6.

Artificial drainage, 20-22.

Artificial drying, 72, 264, 267, 313,
351-355.

Ash in peat, 5, 15, 245, 246, 252, 264,
266, 283, 312, 319, 322-331, 334,
339, 356, 370, 374, 378, 387-388,
389, 390, 454, 495.

Asphalt from peat tar, 445, 448, 450.

Augustfehn peat industry, 53.

Augustfehn Steelworks, "416, 417.

Aussee Peat Industry, 36, 55-57.

Aussee Salt Works, 430.

Austria, winning of cut peat in, 31-35,
64.

Automatic machines {see also Ma-
chines). 154-167.

" Autumn peat," 436.

Bactericidal action of peat mull, 454-

455.
Bales of peat, 274-279.
'* Ball peat," 68, 72, 91-93, 330.
Bamme's peat - carbonizing process,

379-381.
Barrows and barrow tracks, 203-2(15.
Baumann-Schenck peat - dredging

machine, with sod spreader, 54,

161-164, 191.
Beeck, peat willows, 270, 273, 277.

Birch peat, 326.

Birnbaum, K., 388.

Blast furnaces, use of peat in, 370, 379,

389, 418.
Bogorodsk electric power station, 433,

442-443.
Bogs, agricultural utilization of, 410,

434, 440, 471-480, 497.
Bogs, classification of, 4-9.
Boilers, use of peat in steam, 400,

413, 424-430, 435, 438, 439, 443,

4S6.
Bolzano's grate, 346.
Bomb calorimeters, 321.
Born's " mound-carbonizing " process,

383-385.
Born's peat gasifer, 411.
Brick manufacture, use of peat for,

421-424.
Briquettes, peat, 23, 70, 78.
Brosowskv, peat-cutting machine, 38-

41, 294-298.
Brown peat. 14, 63.
Buchscheiden peat works and iron

works, 34, 43,44,46,415.
Buckwheat, cultivation of, 24, 471.

472.
Building material, use of peat as,

468-470, 4S6. Patents, 492-494.
Burning of moors, 471-473.
Butyric acid. See By-products.
By-products (ammonia, tar, &c),

356, 366, 367, 370, 374, 375, 378,

382, 385, 399-403, 408-413, 441,

444-451, 497.

Calcium acetate, 377, 378, 381.

Calcium cyanamide, 410.

Calorie, 320.

Calorific powers, 65, 320-329, 352-355,

378, 386, 388, 495.
Carbolic acid. See By-products.
Carbonization of peat, 356-391, 451,

4S6.
Carbonization of peat by pressure,

383-385. Patents, 481-487.
Carbonization of peat by pressure in

heaps, 88.
Carbonizing plants, 370-371, 497.
Carbonizing processes —

Bamme, 379-38 1 .

Born, 383-385.

Ekelund, 372-373.

Ekcnburg and Larson, 67, 87, 3S5.

Fritz and Scheming, 382-383.

Gumbert and Loe, 372.

Heine, 385.

Jebsen, 374.

" Wet," 67, 87,385.

Wielandt, 381-382.

Zieglcr, 374-379.

500

INDEX

Carbon monoxide. See Power and fuel

gas.
Carex peat, 1, 261, 326.
Carinthia, drying of peat in, 43, 45,

218.
" Castling " peat, 32, 54.
Cegielski peat machine, 104, 105, 124.
Centrifuges, dehydrating peat in, 73.
Challeton process, 67, 72, 74-75.
Charcoal, peat, 351, 353, 356-391, 418,

444-446, 449, 495, 496.
Chemical composition of peat, 8-13,

264, 388, 454.
Chemical process for conversion of

fibres into cotton, 463-464.
Chopping contrivances, 187-190.
Clamping peat, 27, 32, 33, 53.
Clamps, carbonization in, 360.
Classification of bogs, 4-9.
Clayton peat machine, 109, 110-112,

188.
Clogs for horses, 197, 198.
Closets, use of peat mull in, 457-459,

495.
Coal compared with peat, 79, 223, 322,

323, 329-331, 336, 338, 356, 384,
394, 495.

Coal, distillation of, 446, 447.

Coal mixed with peat for firing, 348.

Coal, press, compared with press peat,

79-82.
Coke, 322, 323, 329, 336 356, 393,

402, 446, 448, 451.
Coke, peat. See Charcoal.
Combustion, 335-341.
Combustion, heat of, 319-323, 388.
Commercial values of peat as a fuel,

331-335.
Competitions between peat machines,

30, 257-259.
Composition of peat, 7, 8-13, 264, 322-

324, 327, 328, 335, 388, 454.
Compression of peat, 314, 385.

" Condensation " of peat on drying,

59, 62, 63, 71.
Condensed machine peat, 69.
Condensing action of machines, 241-

254, 315, 316, 387.
" Condensing effect," 62, 63, 241, 244,

245, 246.
Conditions of peat formation, 2.
Conductivity, thermal, 461, 468, 469.
Constituents of peat, 7-14.
" Contraction effect," 241, 244-246, 252.
Contraction of peat on drying, 59, 62, 71.
Conveyers, chain and belt, 214.
Costs, large-scale machines and ordinary

peat machines compared, 230-232.
Costs of peat in hand peat industry,

36, 51-57.
Costs of peat plants, installation and

working, 224-229.
Cotton from peat, 461, 463-466.
Cotton-grass, 260, 463, 465, 495.
Counter-knives, 172, 173-180.
Creosote. See By-products.
Cross-stops, 172-180.
Crossings for light railwavs, 206.
Crumb peat, 35-37, 324, "398, 408, 411.
Crushing of peat, 171.

Cultivation of bogs, 24, 25, 433, 439,

474-480.
Cut peat, 62, 63, 64, 322, 323, 325,

327, 329, 331, 336, 387, 398, 408,
Cut peat compared with machine peat,

244-253.
Cut peat machines, 37-42, 54.
Cutting away bogs, advantages of, 433.
Cutting contrivances, mechanical, 187-

190.
Cutting disc for pulp peat, 148, 149,

164-167. -
Cutting peat, 23, 26, 31, 37, 49. 53,

170-180.

Decomposition of plants, products of,

2, 3.
Defects of hand peat, 64-66.
Dehydration, electrical, 89. Patents,

293-294.
Dehydration of peat, 67, 72, 313, 314,

351-355. Patents, 288-293.
Density of raw and air-dried peat, 14,

15, 63, 77, 244, 245, 247, 252,

266, 322, 323, 370, 386, 389.
Deodorizing powers of peat, 452-459.
Depreciation of peat machines, costs,

225. 227.
Disc for cutting pulp peat, 148, 149.
Disinfecting powers of peat, 453-459.
Disintegrating machines, 75, 77-78.
Disintegrating mill for peat litter, 456-

457.
Disintegration of peat. Patents, 294-

295.
Distillation of peat, 444-451.
Dolberg, automatic sod cutter, 190,

296, 298.
Dolberg, elevator for clamping peat,

437.
Dolberg, large scale peat machine,

164-166.
Dolberg, macerating machine, 41-42,

99, 106, 117, 119, 122, 123, 296.
Dolberg, peat litter machine, 270-273.
Dolberg sod spreader, 191-192.
Domestic use of peat, 414-415.
Double-shaft peat machines, 119-123,

134, 135, 255, 256.
Dough peat, 2, 4, 14, 29, 30, 68, 136,

327.
" Dowson gas," 400.
Drainage of bogs, 17-22, 24, 25, 31, 36,

76, 261-262, 313, 433, 473-479.
Dredged peat, 7, 30, 323, 408.
Dredgers, 42, 54, 74, 154-167, 316, 318,

435, 441, 442.
Driers for peat, 422.
Driving of peat machines, 192-203,

316.
Dry peat from raw peat, yield of,

57-59, 60, 61.
Dry press processes, 67, 78-85.
" Dry volume ratio," 59, 62, 63, 242,

244-246, 253.
Drying, artificial, 264, 267, 313, 496.'
Drving contrivances for peat, 42-52,

221-224.
Drying, Gehrcke's tubular steam boiler,

215.

INDEX

501

Drying ground required, area of, 50,
221, 253, 313.

Drying, Hannemann's peat-drying pro-
cess, 216.

Drying in open air, 216-223.

Drying, machine and cut peat, com-
pared, 219, 220, 245, 2-18-250.

Drying machine, suction, 85.

Drying of machine peat, 215-224.

Drying peat by pressure, 78-89.

Drying peat. Patents, 306-307.

Dulong formula for calorific power, 321.

Dust, peat, 69, 167-169, 349.

Dutch moor fen industry, 473-474.

Earthenware, use of peat for burning,

421-424.
Economic calorific power, 322.
Eichhorn's " ball peat," 68, 91-93.
Ekelund, 50, 82, 84, 167, 169, 372, 373,

418, 431, 481, 482.
Ekenberg-Larson wet carbonization

process, 67, 87, 385.
Electric power for driving machines,

22, 199, 202, 203, 233-234, 254,

255, 316.
Electric power stations in bog districts,

432-433.
Electrical dehydration, 67,89. Patents,

293-294.
Electro-Peat-Coal Syndicate, 374.
Electrosmosis, 67, 89.
Elevators, peat, 110, 120-122, 129, 135,

138, 139, 196, 197, 214.
Elisabethfehn Peat Works, 239-240.
Erica, 1, 4.
Eriophorum peat, 1, 4, 269, 326, 327,

463, 465, 495.
Evaporative powers of peat, 329, 332,

439.
Evaporative powers of various fuels

compared, 329-331.
Evaporators, 424, 426-430.
Exter— Gwynne dry press process, 67,

78-79, 324.

Factories, peat litter, 280-281.
Fairbairn double grate, 343-344.
Feeding stuff s from peat. Patents, 494.
Feilenbach Peat Factory, 53, 235-237.
Feilitzen, von, 264, 265, 327.
Felt from peat cotton, 465.
Fen canals, 24.
Fen industry for cultivation of

473-474.
Fermentation of peat, 384.
Fertilizers for cultivation

475-477.
Fertilizing properties of peat
Fibres from peat. Patents,

490-491.
Fibres in peat, 77, 463-466.
Fibrous peat, 4, 14.
Field railways, 202, 203, 205, 213, 316,

437.
Filling material, peat mull, 461-462.
Filtering liquids, use of peat mull for,

462.
Fireplaces for burning peat, 325, 335,

342.

bogs,

of bogs,

453-460.
307-311,

Firing peat, 342-351, 414-443.

Flat bogs, 4, 5.

Fleischer, 5, 9, 17, 263, 265, 453, 454.

Flue gases, 335, 338, 439.

Forest peat, 1, 10, 11.

Forging, use of peat for, 415, 444.

Fork, placing, 25.

Formation of peat, 1-2, 4.

" Forming barrow," 143, 144.

Forming machines, peat, 59, 63, 68-71

77-78, 98-135, 170, 180.
Forming pieces, 180-186.
Frames for moulding peat, 29, 30, 150.
Frank-Caro-Mond process for gasifica-
tion, 408-411, 412, 439, 441, 451.
Freudenberg bog, 34, 45-46.
Friability of hand peat, 65.
Fritz and Schoning's carbonized press

peat process, 382-383.
Frost, effect on peat, 22, 34, 87, 249,

251, 261, 265, 266, 313.
Fuel gas, 397-400, 413.
Fuel, peat, 16, 53, 58, 314, 315, 318-

355, 495.
Furnaces, 325, 335, 350, 392-413, 417,

422, 424-430, 495, 496.
Furnaces for peat powder. Patents,

481.

Galecki's " washed-out peat," process,

67, 72, 77, 152-154.
Gampermoos drying huts, 47-49.
Gardens, use of peat mull in, 462.
Gas-firing, 341, 391, 424-430.
Gas, fuel and power, 397-413.
Gasfurnaces,392-413, 417, 422, 424-430.
Gas producer or generator, 392, 397-

413.
Gases from various fuels, composition

of, 403-404.
Gasification for illuminating purposes,

445-447.
Gasification. Patents, 487-490.
Gasification of peat, 16, 320, 351,

392-413, 419, 439, 451.
Gasifier, 392-413, 422-424, 497. Patents,

487-490.
Gasifier, Korting Bros.', 400-403.
Gasifier, Ziegler's, 399-400.
Gehrcke's tubular steam boiler, 215.
Glass industry, use of peat in, 418-421,

496.
Gorlitz machine factory, gasifier, 405-

407.
Grass peat, 1,14.
Grates, 338, 339, 342-34S, 438.
Gress's patent cut peat machine, 38, 54.
" Grid cutter," 186, 188-189.
Griendtsveen press peat factory, 83.
Grinding mills, 76, 271.
Growths of plants in peat formation, 2.
Gumbert and Loe process for carbon-
ization, 372.
Gwynne dry press process, 73, 78.
Gysser's improved peat machine, 94, 96.

Hahnemann's oven, 361-362.
Hand implements for winning peat, 25.
Hand peat, winning of, 23-66, 314,
335-341.

502

INDEX

Hannemann's peat-drying process, 216.
" Hanover peat " or mud peat, 30.
Hanoverian pulp peat machine, 138-

140, 192.

*' Hard peat," 67, 89-90.

Harrow, Kemna, 440.

Hearths, 339, 340.

Heather peat, 1, 10, 11, 326.

Heating of peat, spontaneous, 3S3-384.

Hebert's forming machine, 75, 97-98,

181.
Heine and Rudeloff process, 67, 88.
Heine, " carbonization in mounds,"

88, 385.
Heinen's peat litter factory, 270, 278,

279.
Heinen's peat machines, 124, 134-135,

141, 172, 184-185.
Hencke separator, 85.
Hendune machines, 442.
High bog, 4, 7, 9.

High bogs, reclamation of, 478, 479.
Hochrunst factory, 38, 53, 54.
Hodge's peat boat, 144-145.
Hoering, Dr., 447, 449, 451.
Hoering-Wielandt gasifier, 408.
Hoffmann kiln, 85, 421, 422.
Hoofs of horses, effect of peat litter

on, 456.
Horizontal cutting of peat, 23.
Horizontal peat machines, 99, 106-114.
Horse-clogs, 197-198.
Horse-driven peat machine, 99-102,

103-107, 196-198.
" Horse poles," 47.
Horses for driving machines, 196-198,

199, 254, 255.
" Horses " for drying peat, 46-47, 52.
Humic substances in peat, 2, 3, 7, 8,

71, 472.
Humification, 2, 4, 384.
Hurdles for drying peat, 47, 52, 224.
Huts for drying peat, 47-49, 52.
Hydrocarbons from peat, 320, 356, 393,

394, 407, 444, 446.
Hypnum peat, 1, 261, 326, 327.

Illuminating oil from peat, 378, 382.
Illuminating purposes, use of peat for,

444-451,496.
Implements for hand winning of peat,

25.
Industrial use of peat, 414-443.
Ingermann's pulp peat machine, 141-

143.
Insulating material, peat as, 469, 495.
Intermediate peat, 10.
Iron industry, use of peat in the,

415-418, 493.
Irrigation, 24, 474.

Jakobsson's peat machine, 152.

Jebsen's electrical process for carbon-
ization, 374.

Jrinowka press peat factory, 83, 84.

Jungst's peat-carbonizing oven, 367-
368.

Kahl's Machine Company, method of
drying peat of, 85.

Kainit as a fertilizer for bogs, 459
476, 478, 479.

Kemna steam ploughs, 440.

Kiln-dried peat, 351-355, 496.

Kiln for brick burning, 421-424.

Kittler, 67, 89.

Kneaded peat, 29, 62, 63, 68, 170, 171,
315, 316.

Knife-shafts of peat-forming machines,
98, 106-115, 255, 257.

Knives, peat machine, 170-180.

Kobylinski-Wbterkeim, 182, 183, 184.

Koch and Mannhart, wet press process,
67, 85-86.

Kolbermoor glass-works and earthen-
ware factory, 420, 422.

Korting Bros.' gasifier, 402-404.

Langen step grate, 346-347.

Langenberg peat factory, 75-77, S3, 84.

Larson, 67, 87, 433.

Laws for the preservation of bogs, 17.

Levellers of pulp peat, 164-167.

Lignite, 57.

Lime as a fertilizer. 459, 478, 479.

Lime burning, use of peat for, 421-424.

Liss peat, 62, 63.

Litter from peat. Patents, 491-492.

Litter, peat, 51, 53, 235, 260-286, 314,

317, 452-462, 495, 496.
Liver peat, 4, 10, 11, 326.
Locomotives, firing with peat, 349-351,

431-432.
Lottmann's peat-carbonizing oven,

368-370.
Low bogs, 4, 5, 9.
Low bogs, reclamation of 478.
Lucht peat machine, 124-127, 172.
" Lump peat," 35, 324.

Maceration of peat. See Mixing.
Machine-cut peat, Gress's patent, 38, 55.
Machine dough peat, 68, 70, 136-138.
Machine peat, 63, 67-71, 314-316, 386.
Machine peat, composition and calorific

power of, 322-335.
Machine peat, drying of, 215-216.
Machine pulp peat, 68, 70, 136-138,

173-174.
Machine peat compared with cut peat,

244-254.
Machine peat, factors affecting quality

of, 173-174.
Machines —
Anrep, 87.

Anrep-Jakobsson-Svedala, 151-152.

Baumann-Schenck peat - dredging

machine, with sod spreader, 161-

164.

Brodnitz and Seydel, centrifugal

pump for draining, 19, 20.
Brosowsky, 38-41, 42.
Cegielski, 124.
Clayton, 109, 110-112.
Dolberg, 41-42, 117, 119, 122, 123,

435, 436.
Dolberg automatic peat machine,

164-167.
Eichhorn's " ball peat," 91-93.
Galecki's peat pulp machine, 152-154.

INDEX

503

Machines — cont.

Gehrcke's tubular steam boiler, 215.
Grotjahn and Pieau, 119.
Hannemann's peat-drying process

216.
Hanoverian pulp peat, 138-140.
Heinen, 124, 134-135.
Hodge's peat boat, 144-145.
Ingermann's pulp peat machine,

141-144.
Takobsson's peat machine, 151-152.
Lucht, 124-127.
Mecke and Sander's peat-dredging

machine, 145-147.
Oldenburg pulp peat machine, 140-

141.
Ros, 108-110.

Schlickeysen, 83, 99-110, 127-134.
Seydl, 115-117.
Strenge automatic peat machine,

158-161.
Strenge peat - dredging machines,

147-149.
Stiitzke, 124.
Sugg, 55.

Weber, 94-96, 98.

Wielandt automatic peat machine,
155-158.
Machines, automatic peat, costs,

230-232.
Machines, choice of, 254-257.
Machines, costs of peat, 230-232.
Machines, double-shaft, 119-123, 255,

256.
Machines for winning peat under

water, 42.
Machines, horizontal and vertical, 99-

112.
Machines, installation of peat, 192-195.
Machines, patents for peat, 295-303.
Machines, peat-forming, 69, 99-135.
Machines, rate of rotation of knife

shafts in peat, 255, 256.
Machines, willows for peat litter,

268-273.
Magdeburg presses, 77, 79.
Manufacture of peat litter, 267-281.
Manure, peat. Patents, 491-492.
Manure, peat charcoal as a, 444.
Manures, peat litter, 459-460.
Manuring of crops on bogs, 440, 475-

479.
Marine peat, 1.
Marsh peat, 1, 4, 10, 11.
Measurement of peat for sale, 332, 334.
Mecke and Sander's peat-dredging

machine, 145-147.
Methyl alcohol. See Distillation of

peat.
Mill-board from peat, 466-467, 497.
Mill for grinding peat, 76.
Mill for grinding peat litter, 456-457.
Mixed bogs, 5.
"Mixed gas," 400.
Mixing action of machines, 71, 113,

241-245, 316.
Mixing contrivances of peat machines,

122, 170, 171.
Moist peat from raw peat, yield of,
57-61.

Moisture in air-dried peat, percentage

of, 8, 12, 57-61, 64, 244-248, 252,

267-268, 312, 370, 3S0.
Moisture in peat for producers, 413.
Moisture in peat litter, 283-2S4.
Moisture in raw peat, percentage of,

57-61, 252, 312.
Moisture, its effect on calorific power,

319-329.
Moisture, its effects on selling price,

331-335.
Molassine meal, peat, 462.
Moller and Pfeifer's method of drying,

83.
Mond process for gasification, 408, 409.

412, 413.
Moor-burning industry, 25, 471-473.
Moss litter peat, area of ground

required for drying, 50.
Moss peat, 1, 4, 8-11, 14, 452.
Mould peat, 14, 30, 65, 260, 3S8, 4C8,

452.
Moulding frame, 150.
Mouthpieces, 180-186.
Mud baths, peat, 470, 497.
Mud peat, 2, 4, 10, 11, 14, 30, 68.
Muffles, carbonization in, 366-371.
Mull from peat. Patents, 491-492.
Mull, peat, 235, 260-282, 314, 317,

452-462, 495, 4P6.
Muller's contrivance for moving ma-
chines, 193.

Nessler, 13, 265.

Nitrogen, 5, 8-13, 374, 378, 388, 408,

409, 442, 454, 478.
North German Peat Moor Company,

232, 233.
Nystrom, 167.

Oil, addition to peat fuel of, 248.
Oil, illuminating, 378, 382.
Oils from peat, 445, 447-451.
Oldenburg, 5, 6, 14, 19, 24-27, 53, 83,

140-141, 416.
Origin of peat, 1-4.
" Osmosed peat, " 67, 89, 3 74.
Ostrach Peat Briquette Factory, 83, 84.
Output of hand-cut peat, 35, 51-57.
Output of machines, factors affecting,

172-175.
Output of machines, theoretical, 224.
Output with different methods of

drying peat, 51.
Ovens —

Hahnemann's, 361-362.

Jungst's, 367-368.

Lottmann's, 368-370.

Thenius's, 370-371.

Wagenmann's, 363-365.

Weber's, 365.
Ovens, carbonization in, 360-365.
Ovens, carbonizing. Patents, 481-487.
Ozonized air, its effect on humincation,
385.

Packing, use of peat in, 461, 495, 496.
Paper from peat, 466-46S, 495, 497,
Patents, 490-491.

504

INDEX

Paraffin from peat, 378, 379, 382, 402,

445,447-451.
Paste-board from peat, 465, 495.

Patents, 490-491.
Patents. Utilization of peat, 481-494.
Patents. Winning of peat, 287-311.
Peat-firing, 342-351, 414-433.
Peat-forming plants, 1 .
Peat litter, 16, 235, 260-286, 314, 317,

452-462.
Peat machine competitions, 257-259.
Peat meal, 235.

Peat mixed with coal for firing, 348.
Peat mull, 16, 235, 260-281, 314, 317,

452-462.
Peat oil, 447-451.
Peat powder, 167-169, 348.
" Peat presses," 69, 70.
Peat pressing. Patents, 303-306.
Pentosanes, 71.
Persson sod spreader, 192.
Pettenkofer, 445.

Phanerogams as " peat formers," 1.
Phenol. See By-products.
Phosphorus, comparative freedom of

peat from, 418.
Photogen, 444, 445, 450.
Piles, carbonization in, 358-359.
Pintsch Co., gasifier of, 407.
Piston presses, 72. Patents, 303-306.
Pitch from peat, 381, 382, 390, 497.
Pitch peat, 4, 14.
Plant gum in peat, 71.
Ploughs, electrically driven, 440, 480.
" Poles, horse," 47.
" Poling," 29, 32, 42, 43, 50, 52, 54.
Porous bodies, effect of their admixture

with peat, 86, 87.
Powder, peat, 69, 167-169, 348, 418,

432.
Power gas, 393, 397,400-413, 496.
Power station, electrical, 233-235, 432-

443.
Powers required on various roads and

railway tracks, 214-215.
Preserving power of peat, 3, 453-462,

495, 496.
Press coal compared with press peat,

79-83.
Press, peat, 67, 69, 70, 71-73, 315-324,

330, 331, 387, 432.
Presses, carbonizing. Patents, 481-486.
Presses for baling peat, 274-280.
Presses, peat, 69, 70, 71, 79.
Pressing of peat, dry and wet, 67, 78-89.
Pressing. Patents, 303-306.
Pressure for drying peat, 72, 89.
Producer, gas, 323, 400-413.
Producer gas plant, 441.
Producer, Raul's gas, 421, 422.
Production of peat on a large scale,

summary of methods, 67-6S.
Proteins in peat, 464.
Pulp peat, 30, 50, 68, 71, 149-151,

173-174, 327.
Pulp peat machines, 136-144.
Pulp peat process, Galecki, 152-154.
Pulsometers, use of, in drainage, 20, 21.
Pumps, centrifugal, use of, in drainage

19, 20.

Putsch gas furnace, 425.
Pyrometric heat effect, 322.

Rails in bogs, 193-194, 206-211, 316,

437.
Railway industry, use of peat in, 431-

432, 496.
Ramparts for drying, 50.
Rate of drying in different countries,

218.
Raul's peat gas producer, 421, 422.
Reclamation of bogs, 471-480.
Reclamation of Wiesmoor Bog, 439.
Reed peat, 1, 10, 11, 261, 326, 327.
Regenerative gas furnace, 395-396.
Reich's semi-gas peat furnace,427-428.
Resin, 7, 8.

Ridge cultivation of bogs, 474-478.
Rimpau ridge industry for cultiva-
tion, 474-478.
" Ringing " of peat, 27.
Roller, presses, 72.
Rolling table with running boards, 187-

189.
Roofing purposes, peat, for, 468-469.

Patents, 492-494.
Ros, " tube peat " machine of, 108-

110.
Rosenheim and Reichenhall Salt

Works Peat Factorv, 38, 53, 55,

430.
Rotation of crops, 475-479.
Rotation of knife shaft, rate of, 242-

24.3.
Rottenmann Peat Works, 55.
Running board, 187-188.
Ruschmann machine, 140, 141.
Rush peat, 1, 261.

Sale of peat, measurement for, 332-

333.
Sand, 7,11, 15, 454, 471, 474, 478.
Saturation of the air, effect on drying

of peat, 218, 219.
Sausage peat, 330.
Schenck peat machine, 117, 119, 122,

191.
Scheuchzeria peat, 1, 261, 326.
Schlickeysen peat machines, 83, 99-

108, 127-134, 172, 181, 188, 217,

248, 295.
Schreiber, Hans, 50, 51, 68, 150, 252,

267, 268, 459, 469.
Schussenried Peat Factory, 237-239.
Schweger Moor Electric Power Station,

410, 433, 441-442.
Screw knives with curved and radial

edges, 174-179.
Screws in peat machines, action of,

170-180.
Seaweed as " peat former," 1.
Sedge peat, 1, 10, 11, 261, 326.
Separator, Hencke, 85.
Sewage, use of peat mull, 457-459. .
Seydl's peat machines, 115-117.
Shaft, double, peat machines, 117-123,

134-137, 255, 256.
Shafts, construction of, 170-180.
Sheds for drying, 46-47, 215, 223, 224.
Shrinkage effect, 242, 244-246, 252.

INDEX

505

Shrinkage of hand peat on drying, 59,

62, 63.
Siemens' regenerative furnace, 396, 415,

416, 420.
Sieve process, Versmann's, 67, 77-78.
Sieves for mull willows, 272, 273.
Sifting of peat. Patents, 294-295.
Slane, 23, 25, 26.
Sluices in drainage, use of, 22.
Smelting, use of peat for, 54, 55,

351, 353, 370, 375, 386, 388,

389, 390, 415-418.
Sod cutters, automatic, 190.
Sod spreaders, automatic, 54, 55, 154-

167, 190-192, 316, 318, 442.
Sods of peat, standard size and form

of, 185-186, 218.
Sound damper, use of peat mull as a,

461, 468, 469.
" Spearing " peat, 42, 52.
Sphagnum peat, 1, 4, 8, 10, 11, 260,

326, 327.
*' Spiking " peat, 29, 43-45, 50-51.
Spinning of peat fibres, 463-466, 497.
Spiral, double, peat machines, 117-123.

134-137, 255, 256.
Spiral knives, 174, 177.
" Split-free quick drying," 217-220.
Spreaders, automatic, 54, 55, 154-167,

190-192, 214, 316, 318, 442.
Spreading board, 189.
Spreading peat, 23, 26, 167.
Stables, use of peat litter in, 455-457,

496.
" Stage " of step-pressing, 88.
Stamp presses, 79.
Stamp pressing. Patents, 303-306.
Stauber, 67, 79, 80, 86, 288, 294, 303,

306, 309.
Steam dredger, 74.
Steam power for driving peat machines,

41-42, 103-110, 193-195, 199, 254,

255.
Steam production from peat, 400, 413,

424, 430, 435, 438, 439, 442, 443,

496.
Steam turbines, 435, 442.
Steel industry, use of peat in, 415-418,

496.
Steinmuller pre-heaters, 435.
Step grates, 346-351.
Stones in raw peat, effect on machines,

256-257.
Stoves for peat-firing, 414-415.
Strenge automatic machine with sod

spreader, 158-161.
Strenge forming machines, 117, 119,

122, 435-436.
Strenge peat-dredging machine, 85,

147-149, 435.
Strenge sod spreader and cutter, 55,

190, 191.
Stripping spade, 25.
Stroked peat, 29, 30, 31, 59, 62, 323.
Stroking frame, 29, 30, 150.
Styrian peat works, 34, 47-49, 218.
Suction drier, 85.
Suction gas plants, 401, 405-406.
Sugg peat machine, 55, 117, 119.
Sulphur, 319-321, 341, 351, 374, 378,

389, 404, 418.

Sun drying of peat, 216-217.
" Sweating," 358.
Sweden, drying of peat in, 46-47.
Switches in field railways, 206, 207, 209,
210,213.

Tannic acid in peat, 464.

Tar from peat. See By-products.

Temperature effects on the drying of

peat, 219.
Temperature of combustion, 321, 328.
Textiles from peat, 463-466, 497.

Patents, 490-491.
Thickening lyes, use of peat mull for,

462.
Thomas phosphate as a fertiliser for

bogs, 460, 476, 478, 479.
Tile manufacture, use of peat in, 421 -

424.
Timber in bogs, 38.
Tipping cars, 211, 212, 214.
Tracks in bogs, 193-196, 197, 198, 206.
Transition bogs, 5, 9.
Transport of machines, 127, 128, 192-

196.
Transport of peat, 65, 203-215, 313.
Transport railways, 205-213.
Tree roots in bogs, 38.
Trestles for drying of peat, 45-46, 217,

221-222.
Trials of peat machines, 257-259.
Triple-shaft pulp peat machines, 138-

140.
Trodden peat, 30, 31, 324.
Turntables in transport railways, 206-

211, 213-214.

Vacuum used for removing water from

peat, 73.
Varieties of peat, 1.
Verschuer's, Baron von, process for

dehydration of peat, 67, 89-90.
Versmann's sieve process, 67, 72, 77-78.
Vertical cutting of peat, 23.
Vertical peat machines, 99-105.
Vogel, Dr., 73, 75, 86, 97, 253, 357,

361, 366, 452, 454, 459.
Vohl, Dr. H- 447, 448, 451.
Volatile products of peat, 447-451.
Volume ratio, dry, 59, 62, 63, 242,

244-246.
Volume ratio to weight affecting use

of peat, 65.
Volume, selling peat by, 332, 333.

Wadding from peat, 461.
Wagenmann's oven, 363, 365, 447.
Wagons for transport of peat, 205, 206.
" Washing out process " of peat, 67,

72-77.
Water-closets, use of peat mull in,

457-459.
Water content of saturated air, 219.
Water from peat, pressure used to

remove, 72, 89.
Water in peat, effect on economic

value. See Moisture.
Water in raw and air dried-peat. See

Moisture.
Water-retaining properties of peat,

62, 64.

506

INDEX

for transport
451,

38^

affecting

peat

Waterways, a necessity

of peat, 65.
Wax from peat, 7, 8, 379,

497.
Weather conditions

drying, 62, 64, 65.
Weaving material from peat, 463, 464,

466, 497.
Weber's oven, 364-365.
Weber's process, 68, 73, 94-96, 98.
Weber-Gysser process, 187.

to volume affecting use

peat, 65.

selling peat by, 332-333.
Wet carbonization of peat," Eken-

berg and Larson, 67, 87, 385.
Wet-press process, 67, 85-89.
Weilandt automatic sod cutter and

spreader, 190-191.
Wielandt dredger, 54.
Wielandt peat-carbonizing process, 381-

382.
Wielandt peat dredger and forming

machine, with sod spreader, 117,

119, 155-158, 239.
Wiesmoor electric power station, 148,

240, 434-441.

Weight ratio

Weight

Willows, 268-274.
Winning of hand peat, 23-66.
Winning of machine peat, 66-260.
Winning of machine peat, erroneous

explanation of facts, 69-71.
Winning of peat litter, 260-282.
Winning of peat. Patents, 287-311.
Winning of peat under water, 38, 42.
Wire ropes for driving of peat machines,

198-199, 211.
Wood compared with peat, 322, 323,

329, 330, 336, 393.
Wood from peat, artificial, 468-469.
Wood from peat. Patents, 492-494.
Wood in bogs, 38.
Wood peat, 1, 2, 11.
Wool grass peat, 1.

Zailer, 25, 248, 267, 328.
Ziegler, 449, 451, 482, 483, 484, 487.
Ziegler's peat charcoal, 418.
Ziegler's peat gasifier, 399-400.
Ziegler's process for carbonization,

374-379.
Ziegler-Frank condenser, 451.
Zschorner, Charles A., 465, 467.

' 2 v

1% i:

FACULTY OF FORESTRY
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

TN
837
H313
1921

Hausding, Alfred

A handbook on the
winning and the utilization
of peat

DEC - 9 1995

n