i873-l PeaL 4 Sl 



of the 24th of January last, that he had seen mantel-shelves 

 made of peat finely passed through sieves, and that it was 

 as little subject to fire as an ordinary piece of stone. It 

 must be remarked also that dense peat ripens by age, and 

 acquires a greater value in proportion to the length of time 

 it has been made ; thus, in May, 1872, advertisements in 

 the journals of the Department of the Somme, in France, 

 quoted the price of peat fuel of 1871 at 16s. 4d. per ton, whilst 

 that of 1870 was 18s. per ton. Peat, if properly prepared, 

 may be used after about two to three months' drying, but it 

 is not then hard enough to bear the weight of iron ore in a 

 blast-furnace, nor would it resist the blast for a sufficiently 

 prolonged period of time. 



The chief peculiarity in Box's process is, that he employs 

 a Carr's disintegrator in preference to any other kind of mill 

 for pulping the peat; and this he has adapted to the tearing 

 up and disintegration of raw peat mixed with water, it being 

 found that it would not disintegrate the peat unless it was 

 worked in water, and this is the principal change which he 

 has made in Mr. Carr's mill. 



With this machine the raw peat is torn up and divided 

 as it comes from the peat bog, the supply of water to it 

 being so regulated as to produce a pulp of a certain and 

 equal consistency. The raw peat is supplied to the side of 

 the opening of the mill by a hopper or funnel of a peculiar 

 form; it is allowed to escape from the mill with considerable 

 velocity, and falls a height of 4 or 5 feet on to a sieve of 

 considerable dimensions, and rushing through it leaves all 

 undecayed vegetable remains on its surface, from whence 

 they are roughly raked by a man placed at its side. The 

 pulp runs into reservoirs, which are merely spaces of ground, 

 surrounded by planks, about 60 feet long by 40 feet wide ; 

 the bottom of these reservoirs is specially prepared, and 

 rendered porous by under draining. The peat pulp is run 

 into these reservoirs to a depth of about 9 inches, and within 

 twelve hours it will often be found to have shrunk to 5 inches 

 in thickness, and to have assumed about a consistency of 

 prepared brick clay ; at this moment a stamper, worked by 

 a man, cuts the solidified pulp into pieces 9 inches by 4 inches. 

 These pieces shrink from one another, and about the third 

 day they are sufficiently dry to be handled. They are then 

 carried away in specially constructed wheelbarrows, and 

 placed on shelves formed of laths in small sheds or frames, 

 some 400 to 500 feet in length, 6 feet high, and 4 feet deep, 

 where they are left to harden. This hardening, in summer 



