On peat as a substitute for coal Author:Ralph Richardson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: peat could only be profitably used when it was of the quality that is obtained in good seasons; and that if bad or damp, its evaporative power was reduced one- t... more »hird and more. Turning to the Continent, we find that at the present day in Sweden, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Bohemia, iron of the finest quality is made with peat, more or less condensed, alone. Indeed, as we were informed by our chairman (Mr Cadell) at last meeting, peat is preferable to coal in the smelting of iron ; and he mentioned that it was no uncommon thing for scraps of old Scotch iron to be shipped to Sweden, and there undergoing smelting by means of peat, to be returned to us under the name of fine Swedish iron.t In North America, again, various lines of railway use manufactured peat instead of coal. Seven hundred tons of this peat are said to be daily used by the Grand Trunk Railway, all furnished by the bog factories near Montreal, at 9s. to 10s. per ton, whilst coal would cost 40s. per ton. " On a train running 177 miles, the coal expenditure was £6, wood £6, 3s., and peat-coal only £1, 10s."J Peat, both common and compressed, is in general use on the state railways of Bavaria. § Especially, therefore, where our railways run (as nearly all the Scotch and Irish do) through or near peat bogs, ought this question of peat versus coal to be seriouslyconsidered by their directors and shareholders. The only reason why peat should not be used for railway locomotives here as in America and Bavaria, is the humid state of our atmosphere and the difficulty of drying the peat; but all years are not so wet as last, and it is to be hoped some reliable system of drying within a reasonable time may yet be arrived at, if indeed it is not already known, and only awaits trial. See old Highland practice referred to in Note...« less