6S Pre North om Fuel: 
blance to wood in its power of growing. Peat is known te 
connect or entangle within itself, and also to preserve by ag 
antiseptic power, such dead ys matters as may haye 
fallen into it. Mostof those vegetable. remains, have previ- 
ously grown in the air, upon its surface. Peat likewise con- 
tains the roots of such living vegetables as have grown with 
it, and if the peat has grown inin or feculent water, it 
may contain the impurities of such water, and these may ex- 
such a degree, as to render the peat useless for fuel. 
» impurities may be either earthy, metallic, or saline. 
‘here is found i in some peat basins, or marshes, a spongy spu~ 
rious kind of peat. This, when dried, is too light to be profit- 
e. 
The evidence that peat grows, or increases in bulk, and 
that rapidly too, when ROE ? with many sorts of trees, is 
founded on observation, and is the same nature, as that 
which regards the growth of — This evidence, when at- 
tended to, is obvious to the. meanest capacity. The writer 
has known peat to grow upon the bottom, and at a considera- 
ble distance from surface of a common pond... In this sit- 
uation the remains of other vegetables could. not possibly fall 
into it. Other vegetable roots however, grew in, or with the 
peat, and this, as the writer believes, is always the case. 
The peculiar manner of the organization of peat, or wheth- 
er it be a vegetable, or semi-vegetable organization, or how 
many species there may be, is unknown, at least, to the pres- 
ent writer. But green or fresh peat, appears to be a pulpy, 
elastic, slippery, dark coloured matter, if the peat be of the 
true and useful sort. But if spurious, it is fibrous and of a 
— colour. —_ kinds contain other vegetable roots, if 
other matters. he writer has now before him, a piece of 
* Trece who may sinks it injudicious, to.apply the name wood, to that 
substance®.hich has be: nm called by the various names of { pent, torte tug, and 
en ros aded, in j Sina, that Dr. M’Cullock may cited as a 
rority for so Bg anys aed he calls wamaeare ion lignite, 
erior a ined sub- 
stance which is is used te. tg 7 writer contends, may, > ithont grea im- 
propriety, be called firew.q’ And on jother:hepd, such fae as has be- 
come disorganized or alters; ‘ 
o many 
the term peat-wood, as a landable meta of exp , oe ibe justifable ” a 
thing itself. Dr. M’Cullock’s interestin i 
ehemical analysis of peat, published in the sgay onthe watral atry, and 
Vol. Il. 1825, has been farnished the wr iter, sities the above essay was written. 
a: 
