676 



APPENDIX. 



is placed in a barge, which excavates a canal, in which it floats as the work 

 proceeds. Pressure is not employed. Peat prepared in this way is sold at 

 4 dols. per ton in Montreal, and has been used advantageously for the pro- 

 duction of steam and in domestic fires. In Ireland and in Scotland attempts 

 have been made on a large scale to use peat as a source of tar, coal-oil. and 

 other products. In some cases the results have been profitable, in others 

 the reverse. This appears to have depended partly on the processes em- 

 ployed, and pai'tly on the quality of the material. Persons desirous of 

 making further inquiry on this subject will find additional details in Sir W. 

 E. Logan's Report on the Geology of Canada, 1863, and in a paper by Dr 

 Hunt in the Canadian Naturalist for December 1864. 



(C)— Cone-in-Cone Concretions. 



Every field-geologist is familiar with various forms of concretions, as of 

 clay-ironstone, flint or chert and carbonate of lime, which occur in clays and 

 similar beds, or in limestones. They are in general attributed to the 

 mutual attraction of particles diffused through masses of sediment, and 



Cone-in- Cone. 



aggregating themselves around solid bodies as nuclei, or flowing into cavities 

 of fossils and other places of least resistance. Such nodular arrangements 

 are especially abundant in the underclays and other clay beds of the Coal 

 measures, where the carbonate of iron formed by the action of decaying 

 vegetable substances on the oxide of iron present in the sediment, has 

 shown a singular aptitude for assuming such structures, and the nodules 

 and nodular sheets of ironstone often contain fossils of much interest. In 

 these nodular layers also, as well as in certain layers of hard argillaceous 

 matter, we often find the remarkable structure to which this note relates. 

 It consists of series of conical forms often running together into rows and 

 ridges, and consisting of a series of concentric coats, whence the name 

 " Cone-in-cone," given by the miners. The surfaces of the coats are also 

 curiously marked with transverse ridges, giving a wrinkled appearance, so 

 much resembling some organic structures as to deceive some persons into 



