200 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM « 



of excellent agricultural land. The eastern section of the swamp \ 

 is reported by Parsons to have the greater thickness of peat, but j 

 apparently little of it would be available for working in view of \ 

 the value of the soil for other purposes. j 



Uses of peat. A great deal of experimentation has been carried i 

 on with a view to the industrial utilization of the peat beds of the i 

 State. Plants have been erected at one time or another in the | 

 principal bogs, but apparently attained little commercial success i 

 as in most instances operations were discontinued after brief trials. | 

 Among the causes leading to failures, no doubt, one of the most j 

 common has been the lack of experience on the part of the designers ; 

 of plants in regard to the methods of preparation and handling i 

 peat as worked out in other countries which have an established ; 

 industry. Much wasted effort has been directed to the designing \ 

 of new types of machinery for harvesting, briquetting and drying , 

 the peat which a little inquiry into the matter would have proved j 

 futile at the outset. i 



Peat in its natural condition is not a fuel. As it comes from the ' 

 bed it carries 90 per cent, and often more, of water. That is 100 ] 

 pounds of the wet peat will yield only 10 pounds of water-free 

 material. It is a difficult and expensive operation to expel all of ; 

 the water and to do so mechanically with artificial heat is imprac- ; 

 ticable, as it entails a consumption of heat units in the drying j 

 apparatus that is comiisnsurate with, or in excess of, the heating 

 value of the dried peat that is recovered. Consequently the drying ' 

 must be carried out for the most part at least by natural means, i 

 that is by air- drying, the method employed in the peat bogs of { 

 Ireland and Sweden for converting the peat . into domestic fuel. 

 By air-drying the moisture content may be reduced to 25 or 30 ' 

 per cent. The remaining water seems to be held in chemical com- : 

 bination with the cellulose and its expulsion is accomplished only j 

 at temperatures above the normal. When peat is heated at high ! 

 temperature in a retort to drive off the moisture there is a loss of j 

 combustible matter in the peat itself. ! 



This problem of the drying of peat has been the principal stumbling I 

 block in the road of commercial enterprises. Mechanical drying, 

 so far, has proved a failure, and the only practicable method seems 1 

 to be that of air drying which means of course an intermittent ! 

 operation confined to a few months of the year. Peat that has ' 

 been air-dried, containing around 25 to 30 per cent water, has about ; 

 one-half the heating value of good commercial coal. i 



