“The stove, situate on the first floor, is externally 20 metres long (65 feet 7½ inches), and 5 metres (16 feet 5 inches, nearly) wide; it is divided lengthwise into five chambers, 85 centimetres (2 feet 9½ inches, nearly) wide. Each of these chambers contains in its length twenty frames or trays, 1 metre (3 feet 3⅓ inches) long, and 85 centimetres (2 feet 9½ inches, nearly) wide, having a bottom of coarse linen. These trays rest upon two bars, which run the whole length of the chamber. Five series of such trays are superimposed in each chamber, which makes one hundred in each chamber, or five hundred in the whole stove. At each end of these chambers is a number of openings, which can be closed by a door; each opening corresponds with a series of trays.
“When the rasped fish-cake is put upon a frame, it is introduced into the stove through one of the openings just mentioned; a second is then introduced, which causes the first to slide along the bars; then a third, and so on until twenty have been placed. The second series of trays is then introduced in the same way by the opening next above. The operation is proceeded with in this way until the five series are introduced into each of the five chambers. It takes about two hours to two hours and a half to fill the stove with the five hundred trays which it is capable of receiving.
“A current of air heated by the coccle-oven of Chaussenot to a temperature of from 140° to 158° Fahr., circulates through the five chambers, according as each is filled with the trays of fish, the draft being maintained by a chimney.
“As soon as the last tray is introduced into the stove, the first is fit to be withdrawn. This is effected in the simplest manner; a child placed at one extremity of the stove introduces a tray freshly charged, this pushes without any effort the whole series ranged upon the bars, and causes the last in the series at the lower end of the stove to slide out, where it is received by another child; a fresh tray is again introduced, and another is pushed out, and so on for the whole stove. In this way the action of the stove is constant, being filled as fast as it is emptied, without the workpeople being exposed to the action of the heat, and without suffering in the least from it, and being nevertheless able to communicate to one another the details of the work, the chambers acting as conductors for the voice.
“This stove constitutes one of the most important features in the system of M. de Molon; it dries rapidly, regularly, and with comparatively small expenditure of heat, since 100 kilogrammes (220 lbs.) of coal a day are sufficient for heating the coccle; and the continuity of its action is perfect.
“According as the dried fish is withdrawn from the chambers it is thrown into a heap, on a board close by, from which it is put with a shovel into the mill-hopper by a child. The mill reduces it to a sufficiently fine and perfectly dry powder, which is at once put in sacks or casks, and sealed in order that there may be no means of adulterating it.
“To any one acquainted with the processes and machinery employed in the manufacture of beet-sugar, it will at once be evident that the organisation of the process just described was the result of an acquaintance with that manufacture. This is another instance of the benefits conferred upon France by the beet-sugar industry, for to that branch of manufacture it may be truly said to owe the rise of its present manufacturing system. A branch of industry requiring a combination of chemical and mechanical skill carried on in the midst of a rural population, especially if connected with agriculture, has far more influence upon the permanent prosperity of a people materially and intellectually, than the greatest branch of industry entirely confined to the civic population.
“To carry on all the operations just described, only six men are employed at Concarneau, who receive about 1s. a day, and ten children, who receive from sixpence to sevenpence. Under those conditions, and without working at night, this factory is capable, as we have already remarked, of producing from four to five tons of dry manure a day, representing about eighteen to twenty tons of fish or offal; that is, one hundred parts of fresh fish yield about twenty-two parts of fish-powder. By working at night, which will be done during the ensuing year, when the fishery shall have been better organised, this establishment will be able to produce from eight to ten tons of manure. M. de Molon estimates the number of days in the year during which the fishermen could fish at from 200 to 250. In only counting 200 working days, the establishment at Concarneau could thus produce from 1600 to 2000 tons of manure annually, which, at the rate of three cwts. per statute acre, would suffice to manure from 10,000 to 13,000 acres of land, and would represent, at 22 per cent of dried manure, a fishing of 9000 to 10,000 tons. The sardine-fishery and the offal of the curing-houses, formerly lost, would furnish about one-half of that quantity; but M. de Molon has pointed out a fact from which would appear to result the incontestable facility of obtaining at Concarneau far greater quantities of fish than those mentioned above, by the fishery of the coal-fish, which is sometimes found in immense quantities on the coast, but which the fishermen do not often take, as they could find no sale for them.
“The factory of Concarneau, with the organised fishery which M. de Molon intends to establish (sixty to seventy-eight well-equipped boats), and by doubling its present plant, which is also intended, will quadruple the quantity of dry manure which is now produced in working only ten hours per day.
“In addition to the 180 kilogrammes of coal burned in heating the stove, we may add that 130 more (286½ lbs.) are consumed by the steam-engine, making a total of 230 kilogrammes, or little more than four and a half cwts., or about one cwt. of coal to one ton of manure.