and in a few days, they are ready to remove and arrange for
further desiccation.

The finished peats from Challeton's works, as well as those made by the
same method near Neuchatel, Switzerland, by the Messrs. Roy, were of
excellent quality, and in the opinion of the Commission from Holstein,
the method is admirably adapted for the purification and concentration
of the heavy kinds of peat.

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,