650 Natural History of Nova Scotia. 



because a portion of it is always carried by rains into the 

 swamps ; while on the rocky soils scarcely any earth is mixed 

 with the vegetable matter. The principal collections of peat 

 earth are at the sources of small streams : some water always 

 runs from them ; but many of them have no streams which 

 enter them but such as fail in dry weather. These deposits 

 on granite soils are generally collected in basins formed by 

 the rock ; but on the vitriolic soils, where the peat is most 

 abundant, and of the best quality, the soil is rendered im- 

 pervious to water by slate clay mixed with ochre. The wet 

 peat having the property of changing the slate to clay, con- 

 siderable quantities of vitriol are contained in the water which 

 enters peat bogs ; but it is immediately decomposed. Ochre 

 is always deposited where a rill of vitriolic water enters the 

 swamps : the sulphur probably unites with the peat, as the 

 water runs from the swamp soft and free from vitriol, but 

 usually holding a little carbonaceous matter in solution. 



As more vitriol is formed on open ground than there could 

 have been when it was covered with wood, it is probable that 

 the peat earth of our bogs is in a different state from that of 

 Europe. We see here that, when the land has been cleared 

 for a number of years, the water runs clear from a swamp, 

 sometimes on granite, and often on slate and whinstone soils ; 

 while, in the woods, it is generally brown, except it has passed 

 over limestone. However, in the state in which it is, our peat 

 makes good fuel, and could by many be procured cheaper 

 than wood, did it not interfere with the business of the summer 

 season. 



It is worthy of remark that, in tropical climates, no peat 

 earth is formed ; the heat causing dead vegetable matter to 

 go through the process of putrefaction in every situation, and, 

 of course, generating great quantities of hydrogen and car- 

 bonic acid gas from the same materials that are slowly 

 forming a bituminous fuel in our peat bogs ; and, it is probably 

 owing to this circumstance that swampy situations are very 

 unhealthy in those climates ; while, in the regions where the 

 severity of the winters makes a greater supply of fuel neces- 

 sary, the half-decomposed vegetable matter is preserved in a 

 state that prevents it from undergoing the putrefactive process, 

 much to the advantage of its inhabitants ; for it is well known 

 that there are no countries more healthy, nor any which fur- 

 nish greater supplies of hardy men to more fertile and less 

 salubrious regions, than those which abound in bogs of peat 

 earth. When a wood of firs is killed by fire, in the course 

 of a few years most of the trees fall to the ground. If these 

 are consumed by a second fire, the ground becomes so bare 



