NITEOGENOUS MANUEES. 249 



Wast furnaces, with 20 per cent of total combustibles, are still 

 iitilizable to drive gas engines, the gas, with 28*6 per cent of com- 

 bustibles, yielded by such a wet peat might also be used to drive 

 explosion motors, and, with greater reason, for heating. A measured 

 sample of the normal gas, with 36 to 39 per cent of combustible 

 elements, was taken to a 50 H.P. gas motor, fitted with a Prony 

 brake, and it was found that for one effective H.P. it was necessary 

 to use 2-4: cubic metres. Tar dust was almost completely absent. 

 As 1 ton of peat yields 2800 metres of gas, that gives a yield of 

 1160 horse-hours, and as the gas, escaping at 500° C, suffices to 

 produce the steam required for the producers, and as the air-pumps 

 :and water-pumps, as well as the scrul^ber, require little force, one 

 is safe in counting on a yield of 1000 horse-hours per ton of dried 

 peat, that is, on an amount of energy- sufficient to combine 50 kg. 

 (say 1 cwt.) of atmospheric nitrogen under the form of cyanamide of 

 •calcium, CaN^Ho, or from 16 to 20 kg., 35-2 to 44 lb., of nitric 

 acid. 



But the agricultural utilization of peat is still more advantageous 

 if the ammonia be extracted from the gas generated in the gas pro- 

 ducers. If all the organic substance of the peat be gasified in 

 a mixture of air and superheated steam, a hydrolysis of the nitro- 

 .genous substances of the fuel is produced, i.e. of the peat, and this 

 hydrolysis is so energetic that, if the gas be washed in a sulphuric 

 acid scrubber, 77 to 80 per cent of its nitrogen is obtained as 

 sulphate of ammonia. The peat burnt at Sodingen which contained 

 I'Oo per cent nitrogen gave an effective yield of 40 kg. (88 lb.) of 

 ■sulphate of ammonia per ton. A small lot of peat — gasified in the 

 "Stockton factory — which contained 2*8 per cent of nitrogen in the dry 

 substance gave likewise, according to the experiments of Dr. Caro, as 

 much as 110 kg. (242 lb.) of sulphate of ammonia per ton, whilst coal 

 generally contains 1 per cent of nitrogen. No account was taken 

 ■of the secondary products of the combustion of peat tar for instance, 

 which is obtained in somewhat important quantity, as well as acetic 

 acid and wood-spirit, because time was awanting to estimate the 

 Talue and importance of these bye-products, and afterwards because 

 it was thought that the gasification of peat would not develop on a 

 large scale unless the two chief products which it yielded, motor gas 

 and sulphate of ammonia, offered sufficient profit without it l^eing 

 necessary to instal complicated equipment for the treatment of the 

 bye-products. If afterwards the treatment of the bye-products ap- 

 pears to be profitable, it is believed that it will always be time to 

 examine it, but at the present it has not been taken into account. 

 'To finish, let us quote an arrangement for the extraction of ammonia 



•on the wet peat. It would thus take 100 tons of the weather wet peat to produce 

 •a ton of sulphate of ammonia, — that is, 8 tons of this weather wet peat had to 

 ibe treated to produce £1 worth of sulphate of ammonia. — Tr. 



