Chapter 568: The Dry Distition Tower
Trantor: TransN Editor: TransN
"Um..." Sylvie carefully examined the shell and checked it against Rnd’s design for a long time. She pointed at the detonator and said, "It seems this bronze tube is not aligned with the nail on the top."
"How about the spring?" asked Anna. "Is it still stuck at both sides of the iron pan?"
"One has gone bad."
"To the left or the right?"
Anna asked about every detail, and then wrote all the problems down in a notebook.
After collecting the reasons leading to the failure, they began the next round of test firing, where Summer’s yback ability could be used four times. Thus the efficiency of the improvement had be unprecedentedly high.
Unfortunately, the next two rounds of test shooting failed again. Rnd had to dere that the testing would continue the next day.
To Summer and Sylvie, their work for the day was finished. Afterwards, they could either go back to the castle to enjoy a delicious afternoon tea or go to the Convenience Market to check for novel goods. But to Anna and Agatha, the test firing of the grenade was merely a small part of their tight schedule, especially to Anna. She not only had to improve the fuse based on the reasons that were found to have led to failure, but she also needed to finish the research and assembly of the steam turbine.
Rnd had nned to follow her to the North Slope backyard to check the turbine model, yet his guard Sean brought a piece of news from the City Hall.
"Your Majesty, Lesya, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Construction, wished for you to visit the Furnace Area. He said he hadpleted the construction of the first oven for dry distition."
...
As the necessary equipment of the coking nt, 10 towers for dry distition were nned, and they were to be located around the furnace cluster at the foot of the North Slope Mine area.
Due to the over-cutting of trees for the burning of bricks and iron making, the area that the furnace cluster took up erged from the original open space of less than 1,000 square meters to a wide open area stretching along the mountain. If Rnd had not strictly prohibited the cutting of trees near the town, none of the trees at the northern part of the Border Area would have survived.
Although coal had been found, charcoal that was easy to get was still the major fuel for iron making. With trees avable getting further and further from the furnace cluster, the workers targeted the top of North Slope Mountain. Every day there were hundreds of logs cut off and rolled down from the mountaintop. Watching from a distance, it looked like the green peak had a small "bald spot".
Normally, Rnd would not ask the workers to protect the environment in this matter. As long as the dust that would have risen did not affect the town, he would not care even if all the trees on North Slope Mountain were cut down. After all, to the Impassable Mountain Range, this protruding mountain range was nothing but an insignificant corner. With Leaf maintaining the basic vegetation, there was no need to worry about soil erosion.
As to the ground reimed at the foot of the mountain, it naturally became the most suitable building sites for coking nts.
Followed by Nightingale and his guards, Rnd walked through the noisy Furnace Area and reached the first tower for dry distition. Lesya walked up to wee Rnd instantly, bowed and said, "Your Majesty, as you demanded, I’ve constructed this doubleyer furnace with refractory bricks. ording to the drawing, the upperyer should be sealed with an iron gate while the inteyer should be equipped with a mobile iron te. But I don’t know who can make them. The same is true of the copper pipe and chimney on the small side furnace. Apart from these metalponents, the rest has beenpleted."
Rnd lowered his head and went to the interior of the furnace to have a thorough examination. He was totally impressed by what he saw. He had to admit that Lesya, the former member of the Mason Guild, the old friend of Karl Van Bate, was indeed excellent at masonry. The inner walls of this nearly six-meter high tower for dry distition was evenly constructed; the spaces between bricks were all of simr thickness; the bricks were all inteced, without twoyers of verticals seams aligned. One could see that Lesya’sying skill was extraordinary and his working attitude was very serious. After all, the products different people made could be drastically different, even if they referred to the same drawing.
"Well done." After the examination, Rnd praised him saying, "I’ll arrange the cast of the iron gate and iron te. You’ll only need to cover with refractory bricks on the side exposed to fire."
"Your Majesty," hesitating for a while, Lesya asked, "could you please tell me how the furnace operates?"
"Why? Do you wish to be a coking worker?" Rnd said jokingly.
"Of course not." Lesya hurriedly shook his head. "Since I’ve never built such a strange furnace, I had to build ording to my spection for the ces that I wasn’t sure of on the drawing. So if I can understand its function and working mechanism, not only can I finish the second furnace faster, but also I can improve the ces that I wasn’t sure about before."
[Ah, that’s his reasons.] Rnd thought and said smilingly, "This kind of furnace is mainly used for the dry distition of coal. You must have seen how the charcoal is burned. The burning of coal is simr but on a bigger scale. The loweryer is for burning, the upperyer is for baking, and bothyers use coal as filling.
"Baking coal with coal?" Lesya surprisedly asked.
"That’s right. After the dry distition, coal can be transformed into coke. Coke can reach a higher temperature while burning, which makes it a better fuel for smelting steel. In addition, the process of dry distition will create several by-products. The pipes on the tower wall are used to collect them, rather than to exhaust gases as a chimney does.
"Then... why do you build a small furnace at the side of the main furnace?"
"No air is allowed on the upperyer during the dry distition, otherwise the coal will directly burst into mes." Rnd pointed at the reserved holes between the two furnaces and said, "While burning, the limestone in the small furnace will produce arge amount of carbon dioxide—you can consider it as a sort of non-mmable gas..."
"Your Majesty, I know that," Lesya said, "I learned it from the night sses."
[That’ll be easy then.] Rnd felt gratified. [It seems that the universal education has broadened its content under the effort of Scroll.] He continued, "Through the pipes, the carbon dioxide will reach the upperyer of the furnace and push away the air, and then the coal can be dry distilled. As for the limestone, the off-white stones burned to make cement, are all over the North Slope Mountain."
...
After examining the dry distition tower number one, Rnd retraced his steps. On the way back, he took a short break at the Furnace Area.
Seeing this busy scene, Rnd could not help but feel thrilled. Standing side by side, the various brick furnaces looked like an orderly red forest. Rising from the forest were tens of entangled gray, white, and ck smoke columns, which constituted a rather modern picture when seen together with the inly dressed workers and outdated equipment. Over ten steam engines were roaring, dragging the conveyor belt to carry chunks of materials and charcoals into the st furnace. A track system was paved from the mine to the furnace and many mine wagons traveled between the two stops. The speed of transportation had greatly improved.
After finishing the construction of the steel nt and forge nt, this ce would be another core location of City of Neverwinter. Ore exploitation and steel smelting proceeded the transformation of the steel into various raw materials which were then transported to processing nts. These processes symbolized an industrial flower arising from here. The human beings were bestowed with extraordinarily refining powers, which consequently gave them the courage to conquer everything.