n manufacturing and metallurgical establishments, a considerable
economy in both the drying and coking may often be effected in this
manner.

On the bog of Allen, in Ireland, we have an example of this kind. Peat
is placed in iron ovens in the form of truncated pyramids, the bottoms
of which consist of movable and perforated iron plates. The ovens are
mounted on wheels, and run on a rail track.

Five ovens filled with peat are run into a pit in a drying house, in
which blocks of fresh peat are arranged for drying. Each oven is
connected with a flue, and fire is applied. The peat burns below, and
the heat generated in the coking, warms the air of the drying house.
When the escaping smoke becomes transparent, the pit in which the ovens
stand is filled with water slightly above their lower edges, whereby
access of air to the burning peat is at once cut off. When cool, the
ovens are run out and replaced by others filled with peat. Each oven
holds about 600 lbs. of peat, and the yield of coal is 25 _per cent._ by
weight. The small yield compared with that obtained by Weber's method,
is due to the burning of the peat and the coal itself, in the draught of
air that passes through the ovens.

The author has carbonized, in an iron retort, specimens of peat prepared
by Elsberg's, Leavitt's, and Aschcroft and Betteley's processes.
Elsberg's gave 35, the others 37 _per cent._ of coal. The coal from
Elsberg's peat was greatly fissured, and could be crushed in the fingers
to small fragments. That from the other peats was more firm, and
required considerable exertion to break it. All had a decided metallic
brilliancy of surface.

16.--_Metallurgical Uses of Peat._

In Austria, more than any other country, peat has been employed in the
manufacture of iron. In Bavaria, Prussia, Wirtemberg, Hanover, and
Sweden, and latterly in Great Britain, peat has been put to the same
use. The general results of experience, are as follows:--

Peat can only be employed to advantage, when wood and mineral coal are
expensive, or of poor quality.

Peat can be used in furnaces adapted for charcoal, but not in those
built for mineral coal.

Good air-dry peat, containing 20 to 30 _per cent._ of water, in some
cases may replace a share of charcoal in the high furnace.

At Pillersee, in Austria, spathic iron ore has been reduced by a mixture
of fir-wood charcoal, and air-dry peat in the proportions of three
parts by bulk of the former to one of the