10 HISTORY OF BRITISH ilOSSES. 



geners. On examination, the first layer of moss exliibits 

 the stems immediately below the surface in a state of very 

 gradual decay, and by tracing these down we find this 

 process going on, thus rendering the peaty substance more 

 and more compact as we descend, until at length, when a 

 depth of forty feet or so has been reached — for some of the 

 Irish bogs attain as much — we find a compact substance 

 charged with bitumen, thus showing its affinity with coal. 

 By these means a supply of valuable fuel is provided for 

 many who would be otherwise very destitute of this ne- 

 cessary of life. Of late years much has been said, and 

 many discussions held even in Parliament, regarding the 

 wonderful properties and valuable constituents of peat, which 

 it is said would afford by various processes almost every 

 domestic comfort. While we fear there may be some 

 exaggeration on this subject, we see no reason why much 

 direct benefit may not be derived from a material so widely 

 diffused in many districts, that lack the productions of more 

 genial and more favoured climes, and thus a boon of no 

 ordinary kind conferred on the poverty-stricken sons of the 

 soil. Our limits will not allow us to enter on the import- 

 ant and much-debated question of these wastes of bog, re- 

 ferring such of our readers as wish to investigate the sub- 



