HKB
The effects of the mechanical treatment and drying on the Staltach peat, are seen from the subjoined figures:
Lbs. Specific per Cubic Per cent of Gravity. Foot. Water.
Peat, raised and dried in usual way, 0.24 15 18 to 20 Machine-worked and hot-dried 0.65 35 12
Vogel estimates the cost of peat made by Weber's method at 5 Kreuzers per (Bavarian) hundred weight, while that of ordinary peat is 13-1/2 Kreuzers. Schroeder, in his comparison of machine-wrought and ordinary peat, demonstrates that the latter can be produced much cheaper than was customary in Bavaria, in 1859, by a better system of labor.
Weber's method was adopted with some improvements in an extensive works built in 1860, by the Government of Baden, at Willaringen, for the purpose of raising as much fuel as possible, during the course of a lease that expired with the year 1865.
Gysser's method.[25]--Rudolph Gysser, of Freiburg, who was charged with the erection of the works at Willaringen just alluded to, invented a portable hand-machine on the general plan of Weber, but with important improvements; and likewise omitted and varied some details of the manufacture, bringing it within the reach of parties of small means.
In the accompanying cuts, (figs. 12, 13, and 14), are given an elevation of Gysser's machine, together with a bird's-eye view and vertical section of the interior mechanism.
It consists of a cast iron funnel c d i of the elevation, (fig. 12), having above a sheet iron hopper a b to receive the peat, and within a series of six knives fastened in a spiral, and curving outwards and downwards, (figs. 13 and 14); another series of three similar knives is affixed to a vertical shaft, which is geared to a crank and turned by a man standing on the platform j k; these revolving knives curve upwards and cut between and in a direction contrary to the fixed knives; below the knives, and affixed to the shaft a spiral plate of iron and a scraper m, (fig. 13), serve to force the peat, which has been at once minced and carried downwards by the knives, as a somewhat compressed mass through the lateral opening at the bottom of the funnel, whence it issues as a continuous hollow cylinder like drain-tile, having a diameter of four inches. The iron cone i, held in the axis of the opening by the thin and sharp-edged support g h, forms the bore of the tube of peat as it issues. Two men operate the machine; one turning the crank, which, by suitable gearing, works the shaft, and the other digging and throwing in the peat. The mass, as it issues from the machine, is received by two boys alternately, who hold below the opening a semi-cylindrical tin-plate shovel, (fig. 15), of the width and length of the required peats, and break or rather wipe them off, when they reach the length of 14 inches.
The formed peats are dried in light, cheap and portable houses, Fig. 17, each of which consists of six rectangular frames supported one above another, and covered by a light roof. The frames, Fig. 16, have square posts at each corner like a bedstead, and are made by nailing light strips to these posts. The tops of these posts are obtusely beveled to an edge, and at the bottom they are notched to correspond. The direction of the edges and of the notches in two diagonally opposite posts, is at right angles to that of the other two. By this construction the frames, being of the same size, when placed above each other, fit together by the edges and notches of their posts into a structure that cannot be readily overturned. The upper frame has a light shingled roof, which completes the house. Each frame has transverse slats, cast in plaster of Paris, 20 in number, which support the peats. The latter being tubular, dry more readily, uniformly, and to a denser consistence than they could otherwise.