Fig. 12.—GEYSSER'S PEAT MACHINE.
Gysser's method.[25]—Rudolph Gysser, of Freiburg, who was charged with the erection of the works at Willaringen just alluded to, invented a portable hand-machine on the general plan of Weber, but with important improvements; and likewise omitted and varied some details of the manufacture, bringing it within the reach of parties of small means.
In the accompanying cuts, (figs. 12, 13, and 14), are given an elevation of Gysser's machine, together with a bird's-eye view and vertical section of the interior mechanism.
Fig. 13. Fig. 14.
Fig. 15.
It consists of a cast iron funnel c d i of the elevation, (fig. 12), having above a sheet iron hopper a b to receive the peat, and within a series of six knives fastened in a spiral, and curving outwards and downwards, (figs. 13 and 14); another series of three similar knives is affixed to a vertical shaft, which is geared to a crank and turned by a man standing on the platform j k; these revolving knives curve upwards and cut between and in a direction contrary to the fixed knives; below the knives, and affixed to the shaft a spiral plate of iron and a scraper m, (fig. 13), serve to force the peat, which has been at once minced and carried downwards by the knives, as a somewhat compressed mass through the lateral opening at the bottom of the funnel, whence it issues as a continuous hollow cylinder like drain-tile, having a diameter of four inches. The iron cone i, held in the axis of the opening by the thin and sharp-edged support g h, forms the bore of the tube of peat as it issues. Two men operate the machine; one turning the crank, which, by suitable gearing, works the shaft, and the other digging and throwing in the peat. The mass, as it issues from the machine, is received by two boys alternately, who hold below the opening a semi-cylindrical tin-plate shovel, (fig. 15), of the width and length of the required peats, and break or rather wipe them off, when they reach the length of 14 inches.
