Chapter 568 (1/2)

Chapter 568: The Dry Distillation Tower

Translator: TransN Editor: TransN

“Um…” Sylvie carefully examined the shell and checked it against Roland’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 playback ability could be used four times. Thus the efficiency of the improvement had become unprecedentedly high.

Unfortunately, the next two rounds of test shooting failed again. Roland had to declare 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.

Roland had planned 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 had completed the construction of the first oven for dry distillation.”

…

As the necessary equipment of the coking plant, 10 towers for dry distillation were planned, 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 enlarged from the original open space of less than 1,000 square meters to a wide open area stretching along the mountain. If Roland 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 available 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, Roland 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 reclaimed at the foot of the mountain, it naturally became the most suitable building sites for coking plants.