56 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



oven is filled up, then the shaft is filled with peats and on the 

 top are laid twigs and charcoal which are lighted. When the 

 peats at the top become regularly Idndled, the open space 

 around the chimney is closed, so that the smoke is compelled to 

 descend through the peat and pass into the chimney near its 

 base and thence rise into the atmosphere; as soon as the con- 

 tents have become red-hot at the bottom of the shaft, all open- 

 ings are carefully closed and luted and the oven is left to cool." 

 Charring in closed vessels hy external fire} About 1873, a coke 

 oven, or rather a still, was invented by Lottmann of Chlumetz in 

 Bohemia. The oven consisted of " an arched mufiflelike chamber 

 heated by two fires, one on each side, and by a third fire at one 

 end under the floor. The central fireplace opens into a flue 

 running under the floor to the chimney at the opposite end of the 

 oven. In the top of this flue are inserted two siphonlike sets 

 of cast iron pipes, of which the legs are parallel and which rise 

 within the oven to about half its hight. Midway between the legs 

 of each of these sets of pipes, the flue is stopped by a vertical 

 partition, by means of which the gases from the fireplace are made 

 to pass in their course to the chimney through all the four legs 

 of the two siphon-like sets of pipe in succession. Provision is 

 made for collecting liquid products evolved from the peat during 

 its carbonization. The peat which is charred in this oven is hand- 

 cut, air-dried peat."^ 



Manufacture of peat fuel in Canada^ 

 Two methods of preparing peat fuel are at present in use in 

 Canada, which are in reality but two applications of the same 

 process. This process as described by Carter and termed by him 

 ^' the Canadian process," consists of three steps, excavating, dry- 

 ing and compressing. At the Welland bog, a modification of 



^ Reports on the Vienna Universal Exhibition in 1873 ; presented to both 

 houses of Parliament. Lond. 1874. pt 2, p. 308-10. Report on peat by 

 Mr 0. Paget. 



^ Percy, John. Metallurgy, p. 508. 



3 Garter, W. E. H. Peat Fuel: its Manufacture and Use. Ontario 

 Bureau of Mines. Bui. 5. Toronto 1903. p. 23-35. 



