Exter's method has been adopted with some modifications at Kolbermoor, near Munich, in Bavaria, at Miskolz, in Hungary, and also at the Neustadt Smelting Works, in Hanover. At the latter place, however, it appears to have been abandoned for the reasons that it could be applied only to the better kinds of peat; and the expense was there so great, that the finished article could not compete with other fuel in the Hanoverian markets.
Details of the mechanical arrangements at present employed on the Kolbermoor, are as follows: After the bog is drained, and the surface cleared of dwarf pines, etc., and suitably leveled, the peat is plowed by steam. This is accomplished in a way which the annexed cut serves to illustrate. The plot to be plowed, is traversed through the middle by the railway _x_, _y_. A locomotive _a_, sets in motion an endless wire-rope, which moves upon large horizontal pulleys _o_, _o_, stationed at either border of the land. Four gang plows _b_, _b_, are attached to the rope, and as the latter is set in motion, they break up the strip of peat they pass over, completely. The locomotive and the pulleys are then moved back, and the process is repeated until the whole field has been plowed. The plows are square frames, carrying six to eight shares and as many coulters.
The press employed at Kolbermoor, is shown in figs. 8 and 9. The hot peat falls into the hopper, _b_, _c_. The plunger _d_, worked in the cavity _e_, by an eccentric, allows the latter to fill with peat as it is withdrawn, and by its advance compresses it into a block. The blocks _m_, once formed, by their friction in the channel _e_, oppose enough resistance to the peat to effect its compression. In order to regulate this resistance according to the varying quality of the peat, the piece of metal _g_, which hangs on a pivot at _o_, is depressed or raised, by the screw _i_, so as to contract or enlarge the channel. At each stroke of the plunger a block is formed, and when the channel _e_ is once filled, the peats fall continuously from its extremity. Their dimensions are 7 inches long, 3-1/2 wide, and 1-1/2 thick.
[Illustration: Fig. 8.--EXTER'S PEAT PRESS.]
Several presses are worked by the same engine at the Kolbermoor, each of which turns out daily 200 to 300 cwt. of peats, which, in 1863, were sold at 24 Kreuzers (16 cents), per cwt.