A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins. Johann Beckmann

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Sweden turf was first made known at a very modern period by some navigators in the district of Halland; and in the time of Charles XI. much trouble was taken to introduce it as fuel. In 1672 the town of Laholm obtained an exemption from duty for the turf dug up in the lands belonging to it.

In later times turf began to be burned to charcoal, sometimes in kilns, and sometimes in furnaces built for that purpose, by which this advantage is obtained, that it kindles sooner, burns with less air, and forms a more moderate and uniform fire without much smoke. This method of reducing turf to charcoal, which is still practised in some parts of Bohemia, Silesia, and Upper Saxony, was, it appears, proposed about the year 1669, by the well-known John Joachim Becher, who recommended at that time a method of depriving coals of their sulphur by burning them, and the use of naphtha or rock-oil procured from them by that process591. The burning of turf to coal seems to have been first made known in Germany by Hans Charles von Carlowitz, chamber-counsellor, and principal surveyor of the mines of the electorate of Saxony592. To save wood and promote the benefit of the mines he sought for turf; and having discovered it, he then endeavoured to find out some method of rendering it fit to be employed in the melting-houses, and this was the reducing to coal, which, as he himself says593, he first attempted in kilns at Scheibenberg, in the year 1708. At the Brocken the first experiments were made in 1744, with turf which had been dug up several years. This was announced by F. C. Brückman in 1745594, as a new invention; but an anonymous writer stated595 soon after, that this charring had been long used in the district of Hadeln, and that the smiths there employed no other kind of coals for their work.

      [In 1842 a patent was taken out by Mr. Williams for compressing peat into a dense mass, resembling coals. It is said to be superior to coal in its properties of producing heat by combustion, forming an excellent charcoal or coke. It is asserted that this charcoal is much more combustible than that of wood, and very useful in the manufacture of fire-works. The process is as follows:—Immediately after being dug it is triturated under revolving edge-wheels faced with iron plates perforated all over the surface, and is forced by the pressure through these apertures, till it becomes a kind of pap, which is freed from the greater part of its moisture by a hydraulic press. It is then dried, and converted into coke in the same manner as pit-coal. The factitious coal of Mr. Williams is made by incorporating pitch or rosin, melted in a caldron with as much peat-charcoal ground to powder as will form a tough doughy mass, which is then moulded into bricks.]

      FOOTNOTES

573 In Siberia, a village which stood on a turf-moor was, on account of its marshy situation, removed to another place; and that the remains might be more easily destroyed, they were set on fire. The flames having communicated to the soil, which was inflammable, occasioned great devastation; and when Gmelin was there, it had been continually burning for half a year. See Gmelin’s Reisen durch Russland, vol. i. p. 22.

574 The rustics, in despair, when they found the fire was unquenchable either by rain or by the river-water which they poured over it, threw in heaps of stones, beat down the flames issuing from the interstices with clubs, and as the fire became subdued flung on their clothes, which being made of skins and wetted, eventually extinguished the conflagration. See Tacitus, An. xiii. 57.

575 Hist. Nat. lib. xvi. c. 1.

576 “The foresters, who had then got a new employment, that of turf-digging, which had been before unknown, or at least very uncommon, gave as a present to the monastery of Mariengard, in 1215, several turf-bogs in and near Backefeen.”—Chronique van Vriesland door P. Winsemium, 1622, p. 158. That monastery was situated at the distance of two miles from Leeuwaarden.

      In Kronijck der Kronijcken, door S. de Vries, printed at Amsterdam in 1688, the following passage occurs, vol. v. p. 553:—“About this time (1221) the digging of turf was first practised, which in some measure made amends for the damage occasioned by the sea-water, and by which several acquired great riches.”

      Some Dutch writers make turf-digging to be of much higher antiquity, and in support of this opinion quote an old chronicle in rhyme, in which mention is made of a donation by Gerolf count of Friesland; but I am not acquainted with the antiquity of that chronicle, and of the letter of donation there is only a Flemish translation. See Berkhey, Nat. Hist. v. Hol. vol. ii. p. 552.

577 The use of turf was first made known in France in the year 1621, by Charles de Lamberville, advocate of the parliament of Paris, who resided some time in Holland, to which he had been sent by the king on public business. See Anciens Mineralogistes, par Gobet, i. p. 302.

578 Voyages de Monconys. Lyons, 1666, 2 vol. 4to, ii. p. 129. C’est lui (Erasme) qui a donné l’invention de la tourbe, qu’on brusle au lieu du charbon. See also Misson’s Travels.

579 Scaligerana, ii. p. 243; Je ne sçache aucun ancien, qui fasse mention de tourbes.

580 Voyages, vol. iii.

581 Leges Salicæ, ed. Eccardi, p. 42.

582 Lindenbrogii Codex Legum Antiquarum. Franc. 1613.

583 Trotz Jus Agrarium Fœd. Belgii, ii. p. 643.

584 Historia Episcopatuum Fœderati Belgii. Lugd. Bat. 1719, 2 vols. fol. i. p. 130.

585 Wiarda Altfrisisches Wörterbuch; where it is conjectured, not without probability, that the name Finland is thence derived.—Du Cange, Glossarium, under the word Venna.

586 The words are, “Morum dedit dictus comes dictæ ecclesiæ ad turfas fodiendas.”

587 Britonis Philippidos lib. ii. v. 144.

588 These lives are in Matthæi Veteris Ævi Analecta, Hag. 1738, v. p. 247.

589 I find quoted for this conjecture the Dissertation, Eelking de Belgis sæculo xii. in Germaniam advenis, Gottingæ, 1770, pp. 162, 164. But nothing further is found there than that the right of digging turf was in all probability confirmed to the colonists. This important Dissertation was written by Professor Wundt of Heidelberg.

590 This information may be found in Crymogæa, sive rerum Islandicarum libri iii. per Arngrimum Jonam Islandum. Hamburgi (1609), 4to, p. 50. “Torf cujus inventor perhibetur СКАЧАТЬ