42 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



heretofore the expense of coking has been so great as to prevent 

 its use. 



Methods of preparing peat for fuel. The methods of cutting and 

 preparing peat for fuel are many and varied, and the following 

 description of the processes used is a condensation of articles by 

 Percy, Mason, Dal and Garter. 



Extraction of peat?- " Peat is usually of such consistency that 

 when the bog in which it occurs adpiits of being suitably drained 

 by the cutting of trenches or 'otherwise, or does not require arti- 

 ficial drainage at all, it can be extracted by hand with the use of 

 simple and appropriate tools ; and, for the most part, it has been 

 so extracted from time immemorial. 



" Peat, in being extracted by hand, is cut into prismatic pieces, 

 which will be designated by the word peats. The superficial 

 covering of living, or only slightly decomposed, coarsely fibrous 

 vegetable matter must be pared off and thrown aside, as it is 

 comparatively valueless for fuel. A straight trench with vertical 

 sides, and a convenient length, breadth and depth, is dug in the 

 parts so cleared, after which the peat may be cut from each side 

 vertically downward, which is the usual course, or horizontally 

 and parallel t'o the trench. The peats are carefully removed and 

 arranged so that they may be gradually air-dried. 



" It is obvious that the thinner peats are cut, the more quickly 

 will they dry. It is stated that in Bavaria much of the peat there 

 used for locomotives is less on an average than 2 inches in 

 thickness." 



Cutting peat hy hand in Hanover.^ The bog having been 

 drained by simple trenching, '' the peat is gotten in lengths 10 

 feet wide and from 100 to 1000 paces long, excavated cross- 

 wise, i. e. in the direction of the width, so that the working face 

 is 10 feet broad. It is wholly extracted, either in one working or, 

 if the bed be too thick for that method, in one or more successive 

 courses. Usually 'only one length of the dimensions given is cut 

 in a year from the same bog. Five workmen are employed, whose 



^ Percy, John. Metallurgy, p. 220. 

 ^ Percy, .John. jNIetallurgy. p. 220-22. 



