In Holstein, a French company constructed, and in 1857 worked successfully a portable machine for preparing peat on this plan, but were shortly restrained by legal proceedings. Of their later operations we have no information.
No data are at hand regarding the cost of producing fuel by Challeton's machinery. It is believed, however, that his own works were unremunerative, and several manufactories on his pattern, erected in Germany, have likewise proved unprofitable. The principle is, however, a good one, though his machinery is only applicable to earthy or pitchy, and not to very fibrous peat. It has been elsewhere applied with satisfactory results.
_Simplified machinery_ for applying Challeton's method is in operation at Langenberg, near Stettin, in Prussia.[23] The moss-meadows along the river Oder, near which Langenberg is situated, are but a foot or so higher at the surface than the medium level of this river, and are subject to frequent and sudden inundations, so that draining and partial drying of the peat are out of the question. The character of the peat is unadapted to cutting by hand, since portions of it are pitchy and crumble too easily to form good sods; and others, usually the lower layers, at a depth of seven feet or more, are made up to a considerable extent of quite firm reeds and flags, having the consistence of half decayed straw. The earthy peat is manufactured after Challeton's method. It is raised with a steam dredger of 20 horse power, and emptied into flat boats, seven in number, which are drawn to the works by an endless rope operated by horse power. The works themselves are situated on a small sand hill in the middle of the moor, and communicate by canal with the dredger and with the drying ground. A chain of buckets, working in a frame 45 feet long, attached by a horizontal hinge to the top of the machine house, reaches over the dock where the boats haul up, into the rear end of the latter; and, as the buckets begin to raise the peat, the boat itself is moved under the frame towards the house, until, with a man's assistance, its entire load is taken up. The contents of one boat are six square yards, with a depth of one foot, and a boat is emptied in 20 minutes time. Forty to forty-four boatloads are thus passed into the pulverizing machine daily, by two chains of buckets.