REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR AND STATE GEOLOGIST 1901 r71 



in operation near Welland Ont. It is operated by the Canadian 

 Peat Fuel Co. of Toronto, which has a peat bog of about 5000 

 acres. 1 



At the Trent Valley Peat Fuel Works, Kirkfield Can., the peat 

 is raised by means of a dredge and conveyed to the works, where 

 it is pressed and then dried in a sloping cylinder 5 feet in 

 diameter and 30 feet long. The yield is 3 tons of dried peat per 



* 



hour, and the product, which has 12$ moisture, is compressed 

 into cylinders 1^ by 1-J inches. 



One form of drying chamber which is in use near St Peters- 

 burg, Russia, consists of a series of cast iron trays, placed one 

 above the other, and heated by exhaust steam; the pulp is con- 

 veyed along these trays, being stirred all the while, and is then 

 delivered finally to the pressing machines. 2 



Peat coal. By heating peat to about 200° C, or till combustible 

 gases begin to come off, peat coal is formed. 3 In one patented 

 process known as a Mrs Angel's, the peat is placed in closed 

 vessels without gas exit and burned at comparatively low tem- 

 perature, whereby the products of distillation are retained in 

 the coal. The peat used should be previously freed from the 

 larger part of its moisture. The apparatus is heated to a tem- 

 perature of 50° to 400° during 1 to 6 hours. The coal is said 

 to then have a metallic luster and to be hard and free from soot 

 and compare favorably with bituminous coal. The following 

 table, taken from a report by Professor Klasson 4 shows the 

 average composition of different coals and peat, together with 

 the mean calorific value of the absolute dry and ash-free fuel, 

 and the average percentage of moisture in its dried state. 



Carbon Hydrogen Oxygen Sulfur 



Wood 52 6.2 41.7 



Peat 58 5.7 35 



Brown coal... 66 4.6 28 



1 Ontario Bureau of Mines. Rep't. 1896. p. 188. 



2 Bach, A. Inst. Civ. Eng. Proc 1900. p. 147. 



3 Mineral Industry, 7:191. 



4 Jubilee number for 1896 of Tecknisk Tidskift. 



Nitr. 



Calories 



Moist. 



.1 



49 



20 



1.2 



57 



22 



1 



60 



25 



