334 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



field, making ' express time,' the steam being made so much 

 faster than usual as to be constantly escaping. The peat was 

 cut from near the surface, and simply dried in the old way ; yet 

 a ton and a quarter was found to have produced as much steam 

 as a ton of coal." 



The experiment was considered highly satisfactory ; but there 

 can be little doubt that it would have been much more so if the 

 peat used had been brought into a more condensed form. 



Reports of similar experiments, which have appeared from 

 time to time in the scientific journals of foreign countries, seem 

 to confirm the results which we have already cited. 



In an able and interesting treatise on the subject, by Mr. T. 

 H. Leavitt, published in Boston last year, there is condensed a 

 vast amount of useful information derived from these sources, 

 of which all persons interested in the subject may readily avail 

 themselves. 



A copy of the " London Engineer " of recent date states that 

 at a meeting of the Society of Engineers, at Plxeter Hall, a 

 paper was read by Mr. P. F. Nursey, in which it was shown 

 that " the cost of condensed peat did not exceed that of coal at 

 the mouth of the pit, and that it possessed some qualities supe- 

 rior to coal, especially its heating power. A trial of the con- 

 densed peat had been made by Mr. B. Fothergill on a river 

 steam-boat, in which 12 cwt. were consumed in two hours twenty 

 minutes, the ordinary consumption of coal being 12 cwt. per 

 hour. The peat gave no smoke and left no clinkers. The loco- 

 motive engineer of the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway 

 had tried the condensed peat on that line. In a trip of seventy- 

 four miles, the total quantity of fuel burnt was 14 cwt., one- 

 quarter, fourteen lbs. — the train, including engine and tender, 

 weighing seventy tons. The time occupied was three hours 

 nine minutes. The trial proved satisfactory. An analysis of 

 the peat by Mr. Rickard was given, which showed it to contain 

 but a trace of sulphur, and no phosphorus, which rendered it 

 peculiarly adaptable for iron-smelting and other purposes, where 

 the presence of either of those bodies was so pernicious." 



Particulars were also given of an experiment, on a practical 

 scale, by Mr. G. Murrall, at the Creevelea Iron "Works, Lcitrim, 

 in which condensed peat was used for smelting iron ore. The 

 iron was equal to any charcoal iron. 



