DISINTEGRATING PEAT CONTAINING FOSSIL SEEDS. 457 
to change the old solution for new. At the end of the time, after thirty- 
three hours' boiling, the humus was practieally dissolved and the process of 
separation complete. 
Unfortunately the specimen used in the experiment, the only one available 
at the time, is devoid of remains of much interest. Still I think the purpose 
for which the experiment was undertaken may be regarded as demonstrated, 
viz. that peats of any degree of obduracy may be disintegrated by the 
treatment described, provided a sufficiently strong soda solution be used, 
and a sufficiently long time be allowed for boiling. As far as I have tested 
the method, it is shown that, in any peat which does not need exceedingly 
strong solutions and long boiling, there is no danger of even the most 
delicate structures, such as leaves and fronds of ferns, being injured. 
With regard to the far more rigorous treatment accorded to the Bovey 
Tracey lignite, owing to the nature of the specimen examined, it is not 
easy to say what might be the effect on such structures, already much 
decayed. I found, however, small leaf-fragments and other delicate tissue. 
These, though not complete enough for identification, indicate by their state 
of preservation that, if they had been present in the lignite in a perfect 
condition, they would in all probability have been washed out uninjured. 
Without a doubt hard woody seeds would be preserved. We can tell this 
from the state in which we find the fragments of wood and other vegetable 
tissues. 
During the above experiments, we found reason to believe that mineral 
impurities such as clay were disintegrated at the same time as the humus 
and possibly to some extent also the pyrites. It proved to be so. I took 
a small sample of highly fossiliferous pipe-clay from the Eocene beds of 
Bovey Tracey, and after boiling it for three hours with a large quantity 
of soda, found it was completely disintegrated, though a similar sample, 
boiled for a much longer time without soda, remained unaltered. The 
seeds and other vegetable remains collected from this small quantity of 
pipe-clay proved to be of the highest interest, and even the most delicate 
structures were found to be preserved in a perfect condition. Several of 
these seeds are, I believe, unrecorded from these deposits, though the sample 
examined weighed scarcely more than 1 lb. 
It is here that the interest of these investigations lies. We hope that 
by the use of this very simple process we may now have complete access 
to those deposits which hitherto it has been possible to examine only in 
the most imperfect manner, and to others which, owing to the extreme 
labour or even impossibility of disintegrating them, it has not been possible 
to examine at all. It is our wish to apply to such deposits the same 
methods of complete and intimate investigation which have long been used 
for deposits of sand and loam. 
LINN, JOURN,—BOTANY, VOL. XXXVIII. 2K 
