NOTES 297 



content to 70 percent. — i.e., will only remove three-quarters of the water 

 associated with a given mass of anhydrous peat, the remaining part being 

 held very firmly by the colloidal matter present. Air-drying thus remains 

 at present the only commercially successful method. It is cheap but very 

 slow, and limits the peat-winning period to the five or six months of the year 

 during which climatic conditions are favourable. For the manufacture of pro- 

 duced gas 33^ per cent, water content is desirable, while for domestic purposes 

 or for use in a steam boiler the content must be reduced to 25 per cent. It 

 is in any case useless to reduce the moisture below 16 per cent., since anhydrous 

 peat rapidly absorbs this amount when exposed to the air. The successful 

 development of mechanical cutters and spreaders is an essential factor 

 in the large-scale use of peat fuel. In Ireland each worker per day will cut 

 and spread the raw material for only one ton of standard air-dried peat ; 

 in Holland the figure is three tons instead of one, but with the best 

 mechanical cutters now available, this becomes 15 tons per worker per 

 day, a figure which could no doubt be much improved. The Irish output 

 for the whole of the year 1913 was as follows : 130 tons of 25 per cent, wet 

 peat per worker with hand-cutting, and 230 tons by machine. The calorific 

 value of this peat is only half that of average coal, so that the 230 tons are 

 only equivalent to 115 tons of coal — a figure which compares badly with the 

 259 tons of coal won per man in Great Britain (in 1913 I) and the 681 tons 

 similarly obtained in the U.S.A. 



It is interesting to note that the largest user of peat fuel in Ireland is 

 the Marconi Co., which burns 5,000 to 6,000 tons per annum for steam- 

 raising purposes at the Clifden wireless station. In Germany, however, the 

 large Central Power Station at Wiesmoor Friesland consumed 30,000 tons 

 in 1913 for the generation of the electric current used to operate the Ems- 

 Jade Canal, and the naval yards at Emden and Wilhelmshaven. However, 

 even this consumption was exceeded by Bogerodzk Power Station, near 

 Moscow, where plant having a capacity of 10,000 kilowatts has been laid down 

 to supply the weaving factories in the neighbourhood, the surplus being 

 transmitted to Moscow, forty-three miles away. 



We have received the first few numbers of a new Indian fortnightly journal, 

 the Scientific World, published at Lahore by L. Chaman Lai, B.Sc, from 

 March i, 1920, and give a warm welcome to the venture, which appears to 

 be the first of its kind in India. Under British inspiration, education there 

 has hitherto been almost entirely of a literary character, and journalism has 

 therefore been mostly devoted to the usual futile and unproductive politics. 

 We wish success to the new effort. 



