8 HULL SCIENTIFIC AND FIELD NATURALISTS’ CLUB. 
water. Assisted by a passer-by, they opened the lock gates, and 
the animal went in as readily as a horse to his stable. They 
then closed the gates, with the proud consciousness of having 
made an important capture. After great exertions the poor 
animal was at length killed, having fought well. It repeatedly 
reared its head above the chains on the footway over the gates. 
The following morning it was lifted out of the water by a large 
crane and weighed ; 9} tons—not a bad score. The length was 
35% feet. Hundreds of people of course came to see it, anda 
sheet was placed for subscriptions for the Sailors’ Institute, to 
whom the Aire and Calder Navigation Company presented the 
animal. An old whaler bought the blubber for £8, and Mr. T. 
Birks and I having been deputed to take measures for the disposal 
of the remains, sold the skeleton to the authorities of the Natural 
History Museum, Kensington, for £25, the Sailors’ Institute 
Committee receiving about £40 in aid of the Institution. The 
proper name of the animal was Rudolph’s Rorqual. Seals have 
occasionally ventured up as far as the Hook railway bridge. 
I referred a short time ago to the peat works. Several com- 
panies have been at work on the moors preparing peat for litter, 
and as their excavations extend over, perhaps, 2,000 acres, the 
appearance of the district is being rapidly altered. By means of 
deep drains, with shallow tributary dykes, the water is conducted 
away much more quickly than formerly, and the surface level is 
consequently being considerably lowered. The peat is therefore 
more compact. 
It is cut with peculiarly shaped tools into “ turves” to a depth 
of perhaps three or five feet—in fact as deep as the peat is found 
brown and fibrous. The turves are placed on the surface, where 
they become partially dry ; they are then built into small stacks 
in such a manner that the wind plays freely round them, and when 
well dry, into larger stacks the size of small cottages. Trains of 
small trucks laden with dry turves are drawn along tramways to 
the mill, where the peat is passed between toothed rollers and 
torn up. Buckets attached to an endless chain convey it to the 
press, where it is formed into bales and properly wired. Asa 
consequence of the draining and excavating, the surface will soon 
be low enough for the tidal water at spring tides to cover it. And 
when a considerable weight of warp is deposited, the peat will be 
pressed down, and further deposits will follow, till in a few years 
it will be fit for cultivation. In this manner much of the soil 
washed from the cliffs of the East Riding will be utilised in 
forming some of the best land in the country... ‘To such an extent 
has warping already been carried, that in the course of a lifetime 
there must be a great change. The naturalist will have one place 
