248 CHEMICAL MANUEES. 



are utilized, not only to produce gas to drive motors, but also to 

 utilize their nitrogen as sulphate of ammonia by giving to the gas 

 producers an appropriate arrangement. Experiments made in this 

 direction at Stockton by Mond for the utilization of peat have given 

 very satisfactory results, and as a sequel to these an experimental 

 factory was installed in Germany capable of treating 50 to 60 tons 

 of humid peat daily. That factory commenced to work in 1908 by 

 utilizing 350 tons of peat placed at its disposal by the Prussian 

 ministry of agriculture. The peat, a portion of v^hich had been 

 delivered as far back as 1907, and another part in the spring of 

 1908, after having been kept in the open air was very wet ; certain 

 parts showed a percentage of 42*47 per cent of water, others 65*70 

 per cent. The average percentage of nitrogen calculated on the 

 dry sample w^as 1-05 ; the percentage of ash was, on an average, 

 3 per cent with the daily treatment of 45 tons of peat with 42 to 

 47 per cent of water. 1000 kg. (one metric ton) of dry substance 

 yielded in the gas producer 2800 cubic metres of gas, containing 

 17'4 to 18*8 per cent of carbonic acid by volume, 9*4 to 11 volumes 

 per cent of carbonic oxide, 22*4 to 25*6 volumes per cent of hydrogen, 

 2'4 to 3*6 volumes per cent of methane, 42*6 to 46*6 volumes per 

 cent of nitrogen, and only traces of oxygen. The combustible 

 elements of the producer gases rose, therefore, to 36 to 39, and 

 their calorific intensity was, on an average, 1400 calories per cubic 

 metre. For peat, with 65 to 70 per cent of water, the percentage 

 of carbonic acid and the volume of gas was higher, but the total 

 amount of combustible elements fell to 28"6.^ Now, as the gas from 



^It cannot be too much insisted upon that there is peat and there is 

 peat. On the one hand, it may approach lignite, but peat of that nature only 

 occurs in pockets and is the remains of buried timber, etc. Again, there is the 

 fibrous sphagnum peat of bogs, the moss litter style of peat, which holds water 

 like a sponge, and which when cast contains 200 to 300 per cent of water, and 

 which when dry shrinks to about a quarter of its bulk. This is the most widely 

 distributed form of peat, but even it is not distributed to the extent imagined. 

 If any of those inclined to invest in peat companies saw the gap made in a peat 

 moss by the extraction of 300 tons of dry peat, they would more than hesitate. 

 But when the average investors see an analysis of peat with 2*8 nitrogen 

 par cent = 3-4 per cent of ammonia, closely approaching that of bones, they 

 begin to imagine what a grand thing peat is and what a wonder it has never been 

 utilized before. The fact of the matter is, however, that every now and then 

 history repeats itself, and there is a rejuvenescence and recrudescence of peat 

 patents, so that now in 1910 we may exclaim' with the editor of the " Chemical 

 News " in 1860, " yet another peat patent ". But if matters have improved in 

 extracting ammonia and gas from peat since 1860, so also have methods im- 

 proved in regard to coal, and it is not a question of the products that can be got 

 from peat nor of their calorific strength alone, but it is a question of the cost of 

 production. The Stockton experiment is out of the reckoning altogether, and it 

 is not fair to compare gas and ammonia from peat by the water gas process with 

 the same from coal by coke ovens. The author has himself shown that Mond 

 obtained 32 kg. of sulphate of ammonia per ton of coal. With his process 

 applied to peat 40 kg. were obtained, calculated to the dry peat, or about half that 



