590 



NATURE 



[April i8, 1901 



are no fewer than ten species" of six genera which are 

 lungless, and that in some of these respiration is largely 

 buccal or pharyngeal, and may even, in all probability, 

 involve the tips of the toes, as in Autodax and species 

 of other known genera. 



Conspicuous among recently discovered species are 

 three of American origin which are cave-dwellers. Of 

 these, one (a Spelerpes\ occurring in the Mississippi 

 Vale, has nondegenerate eyes ; another ( Typhlotriton\ 

 more restricted in the same region, has eyes which 

 •during growth undergo a recognisable degeneration. 

 The third {Typhlomolge), discovered in 1896 in the 

 underground waters of Texas, where it was obtained 

 from an artesian well, said by our authors to be now 

 thrown up at the rate of about fifty a year, is quite blind, 

 possessed of functionless eyes. It is v/ith the paper 

 upon this genus that we have chiefly here to deal. The 

 animal itself is of especial interest, as furnishing the much- 

 desired American counterpart for the European Proteus 

 long known. It differs from this, however, in being 

 shorter bodied and longer limbed — so much so that the 

 limbs appear by attenuation to have become converted 

 into tactile organs — and the discovery that the eye is 

 destitute of lens, rods and cones, and eye-muscles (which 

 is the most interesting fact announced in these papers) 

 is thus intensely significant, as it presents us among the 

 Batrachia with a condition recalling that of the famous 

 blind locust of the New Zealand caves, in which, under 

 the functional atrophy of the eye, the antennae have 

 similarly become elongated and more important. 



The second paper deals with the eye of the Mississippi 

 cave salamander Typhlotriion, which, while "detecting 

 its food by the sense of touch," shows only the first stages 

 of that degeneration of the eye and its associated organs 

 occurring in the Typhlomolge type. Both papers are 

 illustrated, though very poorly, and they do not in this 

 respect compare with previously published works on other 

 blind animals which might be cited. Moreover, there is 

 in the first paper an inexplicable error, for the senior 

 author, stating that " the eye of Typhlotriton will be 

 dealt with in another place " \i.e. the second paper herein 

 quoted), continues erroneously to use this generic name 

 in describing the Typhlomolge eye. 



Typhlomolge is in every respect a most remarkable 

 creature, as examination of the example preserved in our 

 National Museum at South Kensington will show. The 

 description of its eye, coming to us at a time when there 

 has just been found (in the French Congo area) a frog 

 in which the terminal phalanges of four of the hinder 

 digits, perforating the overlying integument as do the 

 ribs of the long-known Pleurodile Newt, project, freely 

 and exposed, as sharply recurved claws. AH this brings 

 forcibly before us the lesson that in morphologically 

 specialised forms of life, such as we are too apt to pooh- 

 pooh, there are to be found facts which, on the whole, 

 are among the most trustworthy, in enabling us to gauge 

 the limits of nature's operations. Truly has Weismann 

 remarked (as pointed out by the senior author in his 

 1899 Woods' Holl Lecture on "The Blind Fishes") that 

 ■" an investigation into the history of degenerate forms 

 often teaches us more of the causes of change in organic 

 nature than can be learned by the study of the progressive 

 ones." G. B, JI. 



THE COMMERCIAL USES OF PEAT. 

 •nPHE difficulty in obtaining coal for industrial pur- 

 -*■ poses, and the high price that has had to be paid 

 for it recently, especially where works are situated at 

 long distances away from the mines, has led to more 

 attention being paid to the use of peat for fuel. In the 

 "Notes" of May 31, 1900 (vol. Ixii. p. 108), a short 

 description was given of the uses to which peat was 



NO 1642, VOL. 63] 



being applied in Austria in the manufacture of textile 

 fabrics. In a recent number of the Engineer 

 (February 8, 1901) an account was also given of the 

 peat fuel industry in Sweden. It is said that there 

 is hardly any question of the day so prominent in that 

 country as the use of peat fuel as a substitute for coal. 

 The Government, recognising the impoiitance of this 

 matter, has appointed a Crown Peat Engmeer, at a salary 

 of 500/. a year, to survey the principal Crown peat bogs 

 and to report upon the quality and suitability of the peat 

 for use as fuel in locomotive engines. At several of 

 the large works in Sweden peat is now used for gener- 

 ating steam. At the great Yungtell Metal Works and 

 the Motala Shipbuilding Works, it is also used in 

 generating furnace gases, the fuel being prepared by 

 specially constructed works. At the former establish- 

 ment, engines of 230 horse-power are supplied with steam 

 generated by this fuel. In the province of .Smaland a 

 syndicate has recently purchased the peat bogs, from 

 which it is estimated that a million tons of fuel will be 

 produced in a year. At the Karpalund sugar refinery 

 peat is now solely used for the nine boilers in use there of 

 100 horse-power each ; the fuel being first converted into 

 gas in generators in front of the boilers. This establish- 

 ment has purchased an adjacent bog containing sufficient 

 peat to supply the works for twenty years. The bog is 

 connected with the factory by a Decauville railway. 

 The furnaces were formerly fed by coal obtained from 

 England, and a very great saving has been effected, the 

 peat fuel costing less than half that of coal. On several ! 

 of the railways peat is being tried as fuel for the loco- 

 motives with every promise of permanent success. There 

 are several different kinds of machines for making this 

 fuel. The process something resembles brick-making. 

 The turf is cut from the bog either by manual labour or 

 machinery, and stacked in summer to be air-dried, any 

 remaining moisture being removed in heated drums or 

 by centrifugals, and the peat is then compressed into 

 briquettes. It is claimed that one ton of dried peat 

 from the best class of bogs is equal to half a ton of 

 English coal. 



The largest area of peat in England is to be found in 

 the Fen district, where it covers 600 square miles and 

 the depth varies from 2 to 10 feet in thickness, and at 

 Whittlesea Mere as much as 18 feet. Nearly the whole 

 of the peat in the Fenland has been drained and is now 

 cultivated. 1 In a few places in the Fens it is sun-dried 

 and used for fuel. In the form of powder and mixed 

 with carbolic acid it is also extensively used as a de- 

 odorant for earth closets and similar purposes, works for 

 this purpose being established in Cambridgeshire. 



There are also large deposits in the East Riding of 

 Yorkshire along the valleys of the Trent and Ouse, 

 Hatfield Chase covering 12,000 acres, where a manufac- 

 tory has been for some years in existence for drying and 

 preparing the peat for litter for stables and cow-houses. 

 Its antiseptic properties make this litter very valuable, 

 especially in large towns where straw is difficult to obtain. 

 There are also large areas of peat in other parts of the 

 country, as at Chatmoss in Lancashire and on Dartmoor. 



In Ireland, the peat bogs cover about 5000 square 

 miles, or about one-seventh of the whole country ; some 

 of the bogs are 43 feet deep, the average thickness 

 being 26 feet. Occasionally, owing to an excess of water, 

 the peat overflows the basin in which it is contained and 

 flows over the cultivated land. Thus a few years ago„ 

 the bog near Tullamore overflowed and covered nearlyj 

 three square miles of land. Sun-dried peat is used inl 

 Ireland to a considerable extent for fuel. Some attemptj 

 has been made to work it for commercial purposes. Thej 

 Irish Amelioration Society some years ago encouragedj 

 the conversion of it into charcoal, but the process was] 



1 " The History of the Fens of South Lincolnshire." (London : Chapma 

 and Hall.) 



