ed for the growth of the peat, as well as for that of the vegeta~ 
bles whose roots penetrate it. 
= best agricultural writers believe that one hundred 
‘ years are needed for the accumulation of one inch in depth 
of vegetable mould, in a forest, upon dry land. This vegeta- 
ble mould is the production of decomposed or dead vegetables. 
The differente of an inch in depth, of the remains of veget- 
ation, accumulated on dry land, in an hundred years, and the 
accumulation of seven feet in depth, of similar decayed mat~ 
ter, in the short space of thirty years, in a swamp, is too 
_great to be accounted for, upon similar principles, even ad- 
mitting the circumstances in the two cases to be in favour of 
the swamp. But the reverse of this last position, notwith- 
standing the general opinion, is believed to be the fact. 
he reader will at once perceive, that to make the ratio of 
dead vegetable matter equal in depth ina swamp, and on a hill, 
that the enormous depth of nearly twenty-three feet, instead of 
one inch, would be the produce of decayed vegetable matter in 
one h ' The proportion is as 1 to 276. 
B at, even when no vegetable roots are visible, 
a its shape like organized matter, and in sea- 
soning like such matter, it becomes not only solid but woody. 
It also, when exposed a long time to the weather, appears like 
other rotten wood, having probably in that case, undergone 
a similar decomposition. _. 
Chemical analysis also shows a great analogy between or- 
ganized wood and peaty matter. Peat resembles, in another . 
point of view, both common wood and coal. There are all 
sorts of peat, good, bad, and indifferent. Such also is the 
case with common fire-wood, and also with coal, which is re- 
garded by the present writer as the remains of peat. 
The following facts are mentioned as having a bearing 
upon the main question. When an excavation is made im 
cutting peat, the water oozes in on every side. Now when 
such excavation is made six or seven feet deep, the pr 
ofthe adjoining water alone, which generally surrounds such 
cavity, must be immensely great, too great to be counteract- 
ed by that which Doctor McCulloch calls a semi-fluid paste. 
The power which counteracts this pressure may be a spon 
or semi-spongy organization. For other kinds of soft unor- 
ganized matter, as soft sand, or semi-fluid earth a 
once yield to such force, and bury the workmen. 
