The Hardwood Distillation Industry in New York 29 



acetate of lime, etc. The yields, however, are much lower on 

 account of slow firing. These retorts were small cylindrical 

 vessels originally of cast iron and later steel cylinders 50 

 inches in diameter by 9 feet in length. They were placed 

 horizontally in pairs and batteries of 10 to 15 pairs were 

 common in long brick rows in the earlier plants. Each 

 retort was sufiiciently large to hold about five-eighths of a cord 

 of wood. Heating was provided externally by a fire box 

 located underneath the retort. For fuel, coal, charcoal, wood 

 gas, wood oil, wood tar, and wood itself, have been used. The 

 retorts are built and discharged from the single door in front 

 which can be fastened tightly and sealed with clay to prevent 

 the entrance of oxygen after the heating process is started. 

 Along the top of these rows of retorts the surface is bricked 

 over and serves as a drying floor for the acetate of lime. A 

 run, that is the period from the first charging of the retort 

 to the removal of the charcoal after the process, usually 

 requires from 22 to 24 hours. 



Oven Retorts. 



The small round retort is now being rapidly replaced in 

 the larger and more progressive plants by the large rectangu- 

 lar retort or oven retort. This is also known as an oven. 

 Up to about 1900 a large number of these round retort plants 

 were in operation, but about 1895 the oven retort came in 

 which provides for loading and unloading the retort by the 

 use of cars which are run directly into the chamber. This 

 resulted in a considerable saving of labor charges so that all 

 of the new plants now being constructed are introducing the 

 ovens. In several of the states, there are not as many plants 

 active now as there were twenty years ago, but there is a 

 vastly larger amount of wood being consumed per plant, due 

 to the fact that the oven retorts can consume as high as 10 

 to 12 cords in a single oven, whereas the old round retort held 

 only about five-eighths to 1 cord of wood. 



