STEVENSON— INTERRELATIONS OF THE FOSSIL FUELS. 103 



The composition of the ash depends on the character of the 

 plants and on that of the rocks over which the streams flow. 

 Potash and soda are usually present, but in small quantity as their 

 salts are soluble and easily removed. Lime, iron, alumina and silica 

 remain. Mills and Rowan"- have published 27 analyses by Kane 

 and Sullivan, giving composition of ash from Irish peats. In these 

 the lime varies from 12.432 to 45.981 per cent of the ash. Dach- 

 nowski gives analyses by J. W. Ames from 12 localities in Ohio, 

 which show the lime varying from 2.210 to 4.529 per cent, of the 

 ash. When one considers the notable quantity of certain conifers 

 in peats, the low percentage of lime is a little perplexing ; in most 

 good peats it is only a fraction of one per cent, of the dried peat. 



The action of various solvents upon peat was studied long ago 

 by several chemists. Hunefeld^^^ examined some loaf-like masses 

 found in a peat bog near Borreby in Sweden. The proximate com- 

 position of the material was: Resin, 16.8; resinous matter like 

 asphaltum, 40.0 ; wax, 2.2 ; coaly matter, with trace* of humus, 38.0 ; 

 oxide of iron with gypsum, 3.0. The material was supposed by him 

 to be changed bread, wdiich had been buried for about 800 years ; 

 but Berzelius objected that one cannot conceive how the constituents 

 of bread could give a substance with this composition. Hunefeld 

 studied numerous peats, treating them with alcohol and ether and 

 obtaining 4 to 5 per cent, of resinous matter. There seems to be 

 every reason to believe that his original work was correct and that 

 he showed that resins, wax and asphaltum exist in peat, where there 

 was no possibility that they were introduced from any external 

 source. 



Popular dread lest the draining of Haarlem lake might cause 

 serious injury to the public health led Mulder^^* to examine the 

 dense and the less dense peats separately, but by the same method. 

 The peat was first boiled in water, which afterward was drained o&, 

 and the washed peat was dried and treated with boiling alcohol. 



^52 E. J. Mills and F. J. Rowan, " Fuels," etc., p. 16. 



1^3 Hunefeld, " Nachtragliche Bemerkung iiber das Brod in Torfmoore," 

 Journ. f. pr. Chemic, Jahrg. 1838, Bd. HI., pp. 456-460. 



^^* G. J. Mulder, " Untersuchung iiber die Harze des Torf s," Journ. f. pr. 

 Chemte, Vol. XIX., 1840, pp. 444-453. 



