different cases; in that of peat, the task is
very easy.

Fill the bowl of a common tobacco-pipe with
some peat, and cap it with pipe-clay. Put the
bowl of the pipe into a red-hot fire. In a few
minutes a smoke will issue from the end of
the stem. That smoke contains all the
products which are the riches of the peat.
Nothing more is necessary than to collect it,
separate its components, and purify them.
Mere heat has disengaged the elements of the
peat, and recombined them in the new
arrangements of paraffine, oils, and other matters
already enumerated. Thus has been described
a schoolboy's experiment;  but that experiment
is, in little, the process termed "Destructive
Distillation," by which peat is decomposed,
and converted into those materials.

Now, to effect the destructive distillation of
peat, as by the tobacco-pipe, on a large scale,
it would be necessary that the huge retort,
corresponding to the bowl of the pipe, should
be made of iron, because any other materials
would be too thick and cumbrous, or otherwise
inconvenient. But as the retort would have
to be placed in a furnace, and heated red-hot,
it would speedily share the fate, well known
to all good housewives, of a kitchen boiler in
which no water is kept. To speak chemically,
it would quickly become oxidised; in ordinary
language, it would soon be spoiled. Moreover
the furnace would require an immense quantity
of fuel, the cost of which, added to that
of the used-up retorts, would come to more
money than the proceeds of the concern would
be worth. These difficulties, and some others,
till recently stood in the way of obtaining
from peat those important commodities which
it had for some time been suspected to be capable
of affording. They appear to have been
completely surmounted at last by Mr. Reece.
He dispenses altogether with a retort, and at
the same time economizes fuel to the utmost
extent, by the following very ingenious, and
equally simple contrivance.

A large furnace is built of brick. It is
closed at top by a moveable cover. On one
side, near the base, it has an aperture
connected with a blowing-cylinder, through which
air is injected by means of a steam-engine,
acting as a great pair of bellows. On the
other side of the furnace, near the top, is
another aperture, whereto is fitted a convoluted
pipe, or worm, terminating in a receiver,
or condenser, immersed in cold water. The
furnace is filled with peat, and closed down;
the peat is ignited at the lower aperture; to
this the blowing-cylinder is attached: the
steam-engine is set going, and air is pumped
in at the rate of three thousand cubic feet
per minute, for the consumption of one
hundred tons of peat in twenty-four hours. A
comparatively small stratum of peat, lying
immediately above the blast-hole, is all that
is burnt, in the ordinary sense of the word.
This is converted chiefly into carbonic acid
gas, and the other gaseous products of the
combustion of vegetable matter. These are
forced up by the continued pressure of the
steam bellows through the superincumbent
mass of peat. They cannot burn it, because
in order to do that it would be necessary that
they should contain free oxygen. But the
combustion going on below, combines all the
air impelled into the furnace with carbon to
form carbonic acid; which extinguishes
fire. The ascending vapours, therefore, hot
as they are, absolutely prevent the peat from
burning. But they decompose it and distil it,
precisely as fire would from actual contact
with which it was defended by a closed retort.
It is here to be remarked, that the hot
carbonic acid gas combines in its ascent with an
additional proportion of the carbon of the
peat, and becomes converted into carbonic
oxide. The products of the decomposition
and distillation escape, in the form of smoke,
from the upper aperture of the furnace into
the worm, and so pass on to be condensed
in the receiver.

These products are:—- 1. Paraffine; which
is a peculiar compound of hydrogen and
carbon. 2. Naphtha, or wood spirit; an
oxygenised combination of the same elements.
3. A volatile oil; and 4. An oil less volatile,
being further combinations of those elements.
5. Acetate of Ammonia, which is a compound
of all four of the elements—oxygen, hydrogen,
nitrogen, and carbon. 6. Carbonate of
Ammonia, composed of the same elements in
different proportions. 7. Water; or hydrogen
combined with oxygen. 8. A mixture of
inflammable gases, consisting chiefly of various
aeriform combinations of hydrogen and
carbon, and of carbonic oxide, the constituents
of which are carbon and oxygen. 9. Carbon
itself, in a minute state of subdivision,
together with impurities, giving the whole
mingled proceeds of the combustion their
appearance of smoke; a result in which it
will be soon seen that the process by no
means terminates.

For convenience sake, however, we will still
call the mixture of gases and vapours which
pass out of the furnace, smoke. This smoke
is conducted by the "worm" into the refrigerator,
or receiver, essentially just as the
vapour of the still is treated in distilling
spirits. In this receiver so much of it as is
condensible is condensed by the cold fluid
surrounding the vessel, and collects in the
form of tar and water. The rest of it, which
is gaseous, passes away through another pipe
to a destination which will be described by-
and-by.

In the mixed mass — or mess — of fluid
condensed in the receiver we have all the marketable
and most important products of the peat,
only blended, confused, and jumbled together,
in what, seemingly, is a mere medley of dirt
and dregs; and the question now is how to
get them away, and separate them, and purify
them.

The water is drawn off from the tar, which