TVHITESIDE COUXTY. 163 



new applications of labor-saving; machinery, and cautions but liberal 

 outlays of capital, will yet overcome every difficulty now in the way; and 

 as the wants of the human family require new supplies of fuel, the bogs 

 and marshes will furnish it. as the barren hills now spout forth their 

 treasures of oil. 



The peat furnished by the Cat-tail deposit is of excellent quality. It 

 contains few veins of sand, mud, or other impurities. When first dug 

 the blocks have a dark, almost black color, and an unctions or greasy 

 feel. AVhen dry, it becomes comparatively light, has a fine, spongy, 

 fibrous structure, and compares favorably with dry peat blocks from the 

 heather-clad moors and heaths of Scotland or the Emerald Isle. The 

 Sphagnum mosses are the true peat producers ; but in our Western 

 sloughs, swales, marshes and bogs, grasses, sedges, and other species 

 of aquatic vegetation contribute largely in making up the beds. Grass 

 peat, when old. thick, and subjected to pressure, makes a solid, luster- 

 less, dark-colored peat; moss peat, under the same circumstances, is a 

 little more fibrous in texture ; both growing together make a modified 

 peat. In the Cat-tail and other similar sloughs, the ground is covered 

 witli a short, thick, velvety moss, out of which rises a dense vegetation 

 of grasses, -edges, and rushes. The ground has a quaking tread; is 

 saturated with water; and the heavy vegetation, as it settles down, 

 becomes perfectly soaked and even covered with water. The mor- 

 keep dying at the roots and growing at the tops. The antiseptic peat 

 water arrests rapid decay. From this slow decay, by chemical action, 

 solid compounds are formed able to resist decay. The mass grows, and 

 a peat bed is the result. Pile a mountain upon this highly concentrated 

 vegetable matter, sink it beneath the ocean's level, and cook it, or season 

 it for a few millions of years, and a bed of coal would be the result. 



It will thus be seen that moisture and a low temperature are essential 

 to furnish favorable conditions for the growth of peat. In the dry san- 

 dy soil of TViunebago county, for instance, little peat can be found; in 

 the swamps and marshes of AVhiteside county it is found in all stages 

 of growth and ripeness. The Cat-tail is a ripe. fat. and old deposit. I 

 will now pass to some of the younger and more unripe beds. 



In the Maredosia slough I heard of some peaty deposits, but did not 

 examine them. They are probably not of much value as a fuel. 



South-west of Prophetstowu there is a peat marsh known as "The 

 Big Slough," extending from near Eock river in a south-east direction 

 until it loses itself in the Wiunebago swamps. Its average width is 

 nearly half a mile. I spent a day boring in this great deposit with the 

 peat augur. In thickness the peat is from four to nine feet. A foot or 

 two of fibrous turf covers the top of the marsh. Alternating layers of 

 a coarse, red, unripe peat, and veins of mud and sand and other earthy 



