200 TORBITE AND ITS USES. 
The fatty matter separated by distillation forms an excellent lubri- 
cating grease, the yield of which averages about five per cent, of the 
weight of charcoal produced ; in its crude state it has been sold for 12/. 
per ton at Horwich. 
The charcoal made from torbite is extremely dense and pure ; its 
heating and resisting powers have been amply and severely tested, and 
with the most satisfactory results. At the Horwich works pig iron has 
been readily melted in a cupola. About eighty tons of superior iron 
have been made with it in a small blast furnace measuring only six feet 
in the boshes, and about twenty-six feet high. The ore smelted was 
partly red hematite, and partly Staffordshire, and the quantity of char- 
coal consumed was one ton eleven hundredweight to the ton of iron 
made, but in a larger and better constructed furnace, considerably less 
charcoal will be required. It has also been tried in puddling and air 
furnaces with equally good results, considerably improving the quality 
of the iron melted. For this purpose the fuel was only partially 
charred, in order not to deprive it of its flame, which is considerably 
longer than that from coal. Some of the pig iron made at Horwich was 
then converted into bars, which were afterwards bent completely double 
when cold without exhibiting a single flaw. Messrs. Brown and Lennox, 
in testing this iron for chain cables, have reported that its strength 
was proved to be considerably above the average strength of the best 
brands. 
In Germany, peat mixed with wood charcoal is very extensively 
used in the production of iron, the peat as prepared there not being 
sufficiently solid to do the work alone, but it is found that the greater 
the proportion of peat that can be used, the better is the quality of the 
iron produced. The gas delivered from the high furnaces has also been 
satisfactorily employed in the refining of iron and the puddling of steel. 
The value of peat in the production of iron has long been established. 
Iron metallurgists are agreed in the opinion that iron so produced is of 
very superior quality. In every stage of iron manufacture, and in weld- 
ing, peat charcoal is most valuable. At Messrs. Hick and Son's forge, 
in Bolton, a large mass of iron, about ten inches square, was heated to a 
welding heat with peat charcoal made at Horwich. The time occupied 
was less than the operation would have taken with coal ; the whole mass 
was equally heated through without the slightest trace of burning on 
the outside, and in hammering out the mass as much was done with one 
heating as ordinarily required two heatings to effect. 
The importance of obtaining an abundant supply, at cheap rates, of 
peat charcoal cannot, therefore, be too highly estimated. 
For the generation of steam the fuel made at Horwich has also been 
well tested, and its superiority over coal practically demonstrated both 
in locomotives and stationary engines. On the Northern Counties Rail- 
way of Ireland a train was driven with it from Belfast to Portrush, a 
distance of seventy miles. The result at the end of the journey showed 
