Thanks Jim. I grabbed a couple pictures to kind of show how this would work.
This is not exactly the same device, but you see the cylinder inside the stove. That would be filled with coal and self-feed the fire. Notes said this one would burn about 12 hours on a full cylinder.
When you needed to empty the ashes, you would slide this slicer (it would slice off the feed). It would hold the coal and let you drop the clinkers.
Then pull it out and a new supply of already hot, burning coal would drop onto the grates.
One photo shows the magazine, the other the hole in the top that you fill from for this stove.