AN IMPROVED TREATMENT OF PEAT
Year: 1852

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to André Jacques Amand Gautier, of Paris,
in the Republic of France, for the Invention of "AN IMPROVED
TREATMENT OF PEAT."
Sealed the 6th June 1853, and dated the 6th December 1852.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said André Jacques
Amand Gautier at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with his Petition, on the 6th December 1852.
I, ANDRÉ JACQUES AMAND GAUTIER, of Paris, in the Republic of
France, do hereby declare the nature of the Invention for "AN
IMPROVED TREATMENT OF PEAT" to be as follows:-
There is no difference in the manner of extracting the peat. As it
comes from the repository, it is transferred to the preparatory
chamber, placed so that the conveyance may be made as much as
possible by water. There the peat is mixed with plenty of water
very fast in turning metallic cylinders slightly sloped pierced with
holes of an inch in diameter. These cylinders have blades in
the interior, so as to divide the matter better. The water is then
drawn off into a special reservoir, where the liquid which has
already been employed is used again. In passing through the

page_text: openings of the cylinder, (upon which it is necessary that little jets
of water should gush through a pierced pipe to clear out the holes,)
the diluted matter then runs into a trough of several yards in
length, divided into an indeterminate number of compartments, to
hold the dirt mixed up in the peat. All that can escape through
the openings of the cylinder goes out behind. As to the water
mingled with the diluted matter, it goes through the trough just
mentioned by displacing the earth in it's course in the compartments
or dams of the trough. This trough is suspended by swing blocks,
so as to swing to and fro. When the attendant thinks that the
compartments ought to be emptied, the trough is raised on the side
of the repository, or of the tubs, so that the running off may be
made on the opposite side. By this manœuvre, all that is in the
trough is emptied into a reservoir contiguous to the mixing ap-
paratus, where, at the end of the day, the peat, which has rolled
away with the carth, is found again. In its usual position the
trough empties peat mixed with water, and deprived of earth, into
repositories or pans, upon which there have been previously placed
moulds, into which the peat of itself falls in a few hours when the
reservoir is full, and while the trough is draining into a second
reservoir. Before now, peat has never been divided without mixing
or rolling, &c., nor separated by so simple a process the earth
mixed with the peat, nor moulded without manual labor, nor com-
pressed by the weight of the water, instead of rendering the cohesion
of the particles more intense, or diminishing the volume of water
interposed between them, and consequently to abridge the duration
of the drying.
If, notwithstanding the separation of the earthy particles, it be
feared that the peat still contains any element of sulphureous acid,
water mixed with lime must be put into the repositories or pans at
the same time to neutralize that element. So soon as the precipitate
has worked in the first pan, the water which remains is poured off;
and it then goes into a reservoir, and is used to dilute the matter
again, as before described. After the water is poured off, the full
moulds are taken away, as well as the substance they cannot

page_text: contain, which is placed in other moulds. And if the temperature
be favorable, the moulded peat is placed upon the ground. If, on
the contrary, the air is damp, instead of emptying the moulds
into the open air, they ought to be put on a platform formed
either with bricks, or with a canvas placed on a bed of plaster or
mortar, &c., under a dry shed or in an adjacent compartment, to
pile up there the moulded peat as soon as it shall have acquired
sufficient consistency to be placed one upon another without losing
shape. The drying will then be completed without further labor.
This drying ought to be done in a place so as to diminish as
much as possible the expense of carriage from the lying out place
to the drying apartment, and from the drying chamber to the place
of carbonizing, or from the merchant's peat store, when the latter
is not carbonized. If sufficiently strong motive power could be
employed, there would be a great advantage to make use of a
centrifugal apparatus to complete the drying.
Peat thus prepared can be advantageously used instead of wood
and coal for domestic and industrial firing. To render it fit for
cooking fires, it must pass through a last preparation, which turns
it to charcoal, at the same time allowing it to gather the products
hitherto neglected, principally hydrogen gas, the use of which has
not been sufficiently turned to account till now. In order not to
break the peat charcoal, the peat is carbonised either in moveable
cylinders or in earthenware ovens, or heaps covered over, as in
carbonising woods, or even in retorts, with rollers that are put into
the furnace, and taken out after the operation.
For this process retorts ought to be used, which are set in a
fixed manner in the furnaces, made of iron, brass, or reverbatory
earthenware, and placed vertically or horizontally, so that they can
be filled and emptied without displacement. To fill the vertical
retorts a kind of basket of a proportionate dimension to the
interior is employed, which is made of bars of iron placed longi-
tudinally, kept together about the middle of it's height by a
circular strip of iron, upon which it is held without being rivetted,
so as to enlarge or diminish in the form of pincers at the bottom,

page_text: in widening or closing slightly the upper extremity of the upright
pieces. The peat is placed in this basket, the upper part of which
is widened, in order to tighten the lower part, which then
contains the turf; and afterwards the basket is introduced into the
retort by means of a crane, or a block and tackle. After that, the
rods are put in their vertical position; the basket is then taken
away, which leaves the peat.
When it is time to empty the retort, a frame is drawn, which
shuts the bottom by means of a frame sticking to the basket and to
the masonry, and the coal slides into an extinguisher interposed
between the frame and the retort, in the form of an elbow; which
issue is shut by a door, which is used for an outlet. After taking
the coal out by this opening, it is carried to the store after it is
perfectly extinguished. Should it not be extinguished, it must be
placed in a second extinguisher, or extinguished by water. As
soon as all the coal has slipped into the elbow-shaped extinguisher,
which is above the register, the latter is closed from the outside, so
as to shut up the bottom of the vertical retort; and it is again filled
with peat by means of a basket used for this purpose, as before
described. The register and the extinguisher are not to be placed
in contact with the fire.
To fill the horizontal retorts a sheet iron concentric basket is
filled in the same way, which can be easily put into the retort; and
by making it slide upon an inclined plane or upon moveable rails,
and pushing it in with a fire iron, afterwards the door of the retort
is shut, and the peat is heated. The carbonization being com-
pleted, the door is opened. The basket is then covered with a lid,
which is used as an extinguisher. It is drawn back by the fire iron
in the same way as it was introduced; and after having taken it
out, it is replaced by another load of turf in the retort, of which the
door is shut as before. The retorts are furnished with brass
obturators to support the door and the distilling pipe. Carboniza-
tion could be obtained by means of over-heated steam at a very high
temperature, which can be obtained in chambers of fire proof bricks
closely shut, except the pipe for the escape of the gas. The pipe of

page_text: these chambers, as well as that of the retorts (just spoken of) leads
into a barrel, which communicates by a discharge pipe with other
repositories, so as to collect the water interposing. The volatile
substances and the gases of the last repository, the gases which have
not been condensed, are collected, and the cover of an ordinary
gasometre, from whence they are made to enter by a current of air
into the furnaces of carbonization or heating of the steam, so as to
economise the fuel. If the purified peat destined for domestic use
should exhale by combustion a bad odour, it can be disinfected by
plunging it in water acidulated with the acid that is collected when
carbonizing the peat destined for culinary preparations, quite as if
the charcoal arising from this last peat could still contain hydro-
sulphuric acid, it would suffice in drawing it back from the retort
to put it under the action of damp chlorine. It will produce then
sulphuric acid, which is inodorous, and hydrochloric acid, which has
less smell than hydrosulphuric acid, and loses completely any kind
of sinell by being diluted with water. The two new acids may be
taken away from the peat by laxiviation. This charcoal, besides it's
superiority over the ordinary peat charcoal as a combustible,
possesses antiseptic properties, disinfecting and discoloring, more
efficacious than those of vegetable and animal charcoal.
When charcoal for discoloring liquids is wanted, it is necessary to
impregnate the peat, before laying it out, with about T of it's
weight of chlorydric acid (acide chlorydrique) mixed with water, so
as not to separate the carthy parts containing the element of the
sulphureous acid, nor to neutralize this said clement in the basins
by lime wash.
The advantages of the described process consist,
1st. In great economy of manual labor.
2nd. In being able to work it in all seasons.
3rd. In the appropriation of peat to every kind of heat.
4th. In the preparation of excellent charcoal exempt from bad
smell, endowed with calorific and disinfecting properties more
energetic and more durable than those of any other charcoal.
5th. In obtaining substances till now wasted, principally hydrogen

page_text: gas, which is found to be of great use for manufacturing peat
largely. The differences of this new method of treating peat from
pre-existing processes, consist in the manner of diluting the peat, of
purifying, straining, rolling, drying, and carbonising it, and of
gathering the hydrogen gas, which, according to the new process,
is made use of.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said André Jacques Amand Gautier in the Great
Seal Patent Office on the 6th June 1853.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I,
ANDRÉ JACQUES AMAND GAUTIER, of Paris, in the Empire of France,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Sixth day of December, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-two, in the
sixteenth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and
successors, give and grant unto me, the said André Jacques Armand
Gautier, Her special license that I, the said André Jacques Armand
Gautier, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said André Jacques Armand Gautier, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no
others, from time to time and at all times during the term therein
expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,
the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "AN
IMPROVED TREATMENT OF PEAT," upon the condition (amongst others)
that I, the said André Jacques Amand Gautier, by an instrument
in writing under my hand and seal, should particularly describe and
ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the
same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the
Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said André Jacques Amand Gautier,

page_text: do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be perforined, to be particularly described
and ascertained in and by the following statement (that is to say):
My Invention consists in taking peat as it is dug out, and con-
veying it to the preparatory chainber. There it is divided, either
by the action of a rasp turning, armed with toothed knives, the
cylinder of which should be sprinkled with a continuous jet of
water, either by cast-iron balls rolling in a cylinder, which should
receive the peat with the water, which cylinder, lightly inclined
behind, is like the washers of beet root, or Californian machines
used for washing the auriferous earths in coming from the
cylinder; where, in escaping by the openings of the cylinder, the
diluted matter passes upon a gutter of many yards in length,
divided into a number of compartments like those of the amalgamat-
ing cascade, joined to the Californian machine already mentioned.
These compartments retain the earth which may have been mingled
with the turf. As to the water charged with the diluted matter, it
runs away by the gutter of which I have just spoken, depositing the
carth on its way in the compartments or divisions of the gutter.
This gutter is suspended at the middle part by bearings, which
allow it to be moved up and down. When the workman thinks that
the compartiments are full, and should be emptied, he raises the
gutter to the side of basons or coppers, in order that the flowing
may occur on the opposite side. By this means all that was in the
gutter is emptied into a reservoir at hand to the diluting apparatus,
where, at the end of the day, the peat is found which may have
escaped with the earth.
In its normal condition the gutter conducts the peat diluted and
deprived of earth into basins or coppers, where moulds placed one
above the other have been previously deposited, into which the peat
is itself deposited in some hours, when the reservoir is full, and
whilst the gutter is emptying into a second reservoir. Hitherto the
moulding peat by itself, or of compressing it by the weight of water,
with the view of rendering the cohesion of the particles more
intense, of diminishing the volume of water interposed between

page_text: them, and consequently of facilitating the drying, has not been per
formed. As soon as the precipitation is effected in the first in the
first reservoir, the water is poured off which is on the top, and which
passes into the reservoir for dilution, to serve indefinitively for the
same purpose if necessary. After the pouring off of the water the
full moulds are withdrawn, as well as the material which they have
not been able to contain, which is placed in empty moulds for this
purpose; and if the weather be favorable the peat is moulded upon
the ground, as is practised at the present time.
The dessication can be also completed either in stoves or in an
apparatus working by centrifugal force, or even by compression.
When it is wished to dry the peat without moulding it previously,
it may be moulded in the state of dry powder in the following
manner: The powder is placed in a cauldron with a double bottom,
heated by vapour; the proportion of resin requisite to fix it and
forin it into a paste is added, and then it is moulded and pressed.
The purified peat, as before said, whether or not mixed with resin,
may be substituted advantageously for wood and coal for domestic
usc. To render it fit for use for cooking, it must be submitted to
a latter preparation, which, transforming it into charcoal, allows of
collecting products up till now neglected, and principally hydrogen
gas, which has not yet been sufficiently used. In order not to
break the charred peat it is carbonised either in moveable cylinders,
or in pottery furnaces, or in heaps covered as for carbonising wood,
or even in retorts on rollers, which are introduced into the furnace,
and withdrawn after the operation.
After this process, for which use must be made of retorts con-
structed or erected upon furnaces, either vertically or horizontally,
in sheet or cast iron, or in refractory earth, arranged in a manner
so as to be able to be filled and emptied without displacement by
means of moveable receivers in sheet iron, which are introduced and
withdrawn in the form of slides. These recipients are only emptied
when the charcoal is extinguished, which may be accelerated by
injecting vapour or steam into the recipient.
The retorts may be heated either by a common fire, or by heated

page_text: vapour, brought to a red heat, which may be conveyed into the
interior; they are furnished with cast iron obturators, to support
the entrance and gutter of distillation. This last gutter plunges
into a barrel scaled hermetically, which communicates by a large
pipe with the other recipients, so as to collect the waters interposed,
the volatile substances, and gas. From the last recipient the gases
which have not been condensed flow under an ordinary receiver of
a gazometer, whence they are conveyed with a current of air into
the furnaces of carbonization, to economise the combustible materials.
The same gas may
also serve for lighting purposes; but then it is
necessary to purify it, and to carburate it. It is to be remarked
that if, contrary to all expectation, the purified peat intended for
domestic use should emit an unpleasant odour, it may be disinfected
by plunging it into a water bath acidulated with pyroligneous acid,
which must be withdrawn in carbonizing the peat employed for
cooking purposes, as if the charcoal proceeding from this last kind
of peat might still contain yet more hydrosulphuric acid, it would
then be sufficient in withdrawing it from the retort to submit it to
the action of a damp chloride. It will then produce sulphuric acid,
which is inodorous, and chlorhydric acid, which, sinelling less than
sulphuric acid, ceases to be so when a little diluted with water.
Besides, the two new acids may be expelled by means of washings.
It is still to be observed that when it is desired to obtain de-
colorizing charcoal, it will be necessary to take care to submit the
paste of purified peat to the action of hydrochloric acid diluted with
water, by stirring the mixture, and then leaving the whole to rest
for one hour or less.
For one cubic yard of paste, seven cubic feet of water, and from
twenty to forty pints of acid should be used, according as the peat
may contain more or less of calcareous or ferrugineous matter.
After it has rested as above said, the peat intended for the
manufacture of decolorizing charcoal is poured off and moulded.
One essential condition of success is not to withdraw the same
peat from the retorts, till it is certain that the charcoal evolves no
more carbon. This charcoal, besides its superiority over the

page_text: ordinary charred peat as a combustible, also possesses antiseptic,
disinfecting, and decolorizing properties, more efficacious than those
of vegetable and animal charcoal. The advantages of the above
process are as follows:
First, a great economy of work by hand.
Secondly, the faculty of being able to work the peat in every
season.
Thirdly, the appropriation of peat to all kinds of heating.
Fourthly, the preparation of an excellent charcoal free from bad
odours, endowed with calorific, decolorizing, and disinfecting
properties more energetic and more durable than those of all other
charcoals.
Fifthly, the obtaining substances wasted in a great measure till
this period, and principally hydrogen gas.
In witness whereof, I, the said André Jacques Amand Gautier,
have hereunto set my hand and seal, this Second day of
June, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred
and fifty-three.
A. J. A. GAUTIER. (L.S.)