Weber's _Drying house_ is 120 feet long and 46 feet wide. Four large flues traverse the whole length of it, and are heated with the pine roots and stumps which abound in the moor. These flues are enclosed in brick-work, leaving a narrow space for the passage of air from without, which is heated by the flues, and is discharged at various openings in the brick-work into the house itself, where the peat is arranged on frames. The warm air being light, ascends through the peat, charges itself with moisture, thereby becomes heavier and falls to the floor, whence it is drawn off by flues of sheet zinc that pass up through the roof. This house holds at once 300,000 peats, which are heated to 130° to 145° F., and require 10 to 14 days for drying.
The effect of the hot air upon the peat is, in the first place, to soften and cause it to swell; it, however, shortly begins to shrink again and dries away to masses of great solidity. It becomes almost horny in its character, can be broken only by a heavy blow, and endures the roughest handling without detriment. Its quality as fuel is correspondingly excellent.
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 12.--GEYSSER'S PEAT MACHINE.]
_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.