378 



THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



charred, and another browned by the heat. Coals 

 were found in ditterent parts ol' the ashes, but I 

 believe they were confined to those portions 

 through which the heat did not travel. 



The ashee used in the forcuoini; and the subse- 

 quent experimenis, were derived I'rorn the mixed 

 combustion of hickory, beech, suij^ar-tree, oak, 

 and a liew other kinds ol' wood ; and ihe sieve em- 

 p oyed consisted of twenty-iijur by thirty-two in- 

 terstices to the square inch. 



To what cause, could I attribute the ausmenta- 

 tiou of heat and its downward course, which the 

 preceding instances exhibit 7 The plausible an- 

 swer was, carbon. There, said the spirit of con- 

 jecture, was the fire, burning its way into the 

 ashes, and leaving successive portions of them to 

 cool after it had consumed the combustible matter 

 out of them ; travelling downward, like the 

 Goth's descent upon Rome, into regions where its 

 fierceness could be lied. There, too, was the 

 gray color of the ashce, produced, said conjecture, 

 by the admixture of fine carbonaceous panicles 

 with the pure while cincritious matter. To prove 

 that the proper color ol wood ashes is white, there 

 lay the beautiful specimen with gossamer light- 

 ness upon the hearth, the, residue of the undisturb- 

 ed combustion of a solitary ember ; showing the 

 delicate fibrous structure of the original wood ; 

 with open avenues on every side, and a thousand 

 apertures within for the free admission of aimo- 

 Bpheric oxygen to every atom of carbon ; the car- 

 bon thus affianced to oxygen had escaped into ihe 

 air, leaving its while mansion unshaded by its pre- 

 sence. And how could I better account for the 

 various shades ol gray which ashes present, than 

 by supposing them to arise from the various pro- 

 portions of the black powder intermixed? And 

 then, there were the uniform results of repeated 

 trials by fire, in which something escaped out 

 of the contents of the crucible ; and what could 

 this be but carbon 7 Such was the language ol 

 imagination he!ore experiment had fully uttered its 

 voice. To strengthen these conclusions, I applied 

 myself to other evidences ; but these, to my disap- 

 pointment, instead of supporting, kicked against 

 my imaginings. 



7. Selecting magnesia as an article possessing 

 physical properties someivhat similar to those of 

 ashes, I erected a cone of this material, and at 

 Ihe summit buried a partially ignited coal. In a 

 lew minutes I was surprised to find the whole coal 

 was alive wi:h fire. Shortly afterwards the mag- 

 nesia beneath ihe coal became ignited, and the 

 bottom of the heap almost intolerably hot. 



8. Guided by the specific gravity and the com- 

 pressibility of the substances employed , I repeat- 

 ed the experiment with pulverized chalk instead ol 

 magnesia. The chalk soon became red hot, be- 

 neath the coal ; and the base of the heap heated 

 beyond endurance. 



Thus discovering thai these alkaline earths 

 possessed the same heat-preserving properties 

 as ashes, and that the same downward, centraliz- 

 ing tendency of caloric was shown in all, I was 

 led to the conclusion that the heat eliminated and 

 diff'used in the sifted ashes was the result of the 

 combustion of the single coal buried in them ; 

 and considering iheirlow conducting and radiating 

 power, it appeared probable that the amount of 

 heat apparent was not very far from the absolute 

 quantity generated during the combustion. In 



every instance, while the central parts of the 

 cones were red hot, the exterior of the ashes, ex- 

 cept at ihe apex, was cold throughout the experi- 

 ment. The caloric is evolved faster than it is 

 diffused, and of course it accumulates vviihin a 

 small s[)hete near the coal to an igniting tempera- 

 ture ; combueiible matter lying at the circumfer- 

 ence of this sphere would ignite and generate 

 another ball of fire, ami this produce another, and 

 so on indefinitely, or while the last ignited spherea 

 reached new combustible matter. In this manner 

 I conceive the caloric travelled in the fifth and 

 sixth experiments, and 1 see no reason why it 

 should not under similar circumstances circulate 

 through a bed of ashes spread over the whole earth. 



Satisfying mysell in this manner that the pre- 

 sence of pulverulent charcoal was not essential to 

 the pbenoaienon in question, I submitted other 

 powders to similar trials. 



9. Fine sand, scorified wood ashes, anhydrous 

 sulphate of lime, common earth, all thoroughly 

 dried, and the earl h and sulphate reduced to subtle 

 powders, were severally made the tenements of 

 a fully ignited coal ; but in spite of all the persua- 

 sion i could command, the coal refused to be burl- 

 ed alive in such sepulchres as ihese; almost as 

 soon as it was decendy interred, it expired. 



PRACTICE OP ENGLISH FARMERS I!V THE3 

 I^IPROVEME^T OF PEATY GROUND. 



By Ph. Pusey, M. P.. President of the Royal 

 y^gricultural Society of England. 



From the Journal of ilie Royal Agricultural Society of England, 



Although the improvement of peat is not a sub- 

 ject that can be oi general interest, yei, as there 

 are large tracts of such land in the country, and as 

 i have had the advantage ofobservjng in my own 

 neighborhood the mode in which it has been im- 

 proved by good larmers, as well as ol receiving in- 

 IbrmHtion Ironi members of our society who have 

 reclaimed peal in other districts, 1 think it may be 

 of some use if I endeavor to describe their various 

 methods of management. Our science, we may 

 hope, would gradually advance, if we could obtain 

 lailhful accoumsof our actual practice u|)on each 

 variety of our soil. The peat I am most convers- 

 ant with, follows generally the borders of all the 

 rivulets in this level sione-brash country. Along 

 the margin of each sand arable larm, there runs a 

 belt of such poor marshy ground. Long after the 

 meadows are green in spring, these pastures retain 

 the broivn of winter : in summer they are covered 

 with rushes and coarse grass, but are of some use 

 lor the sheep in dry weather : in autumn they soon 

 return to their withered hue ; and in winter again 

 they are scarcely to be passed on horseback. Al- 

 most every kind of tiee has been planted upon 

 them in vain ; but the birch, the alder, and the 

 abele, not the least ornamental ol our trees, I have 

 Ibund to grow with some vigor : they are loo poor 

 for the willow. 



The first step of improvement is of course to ac- 

 quire command of the water and obtain an outfall 

 by digging a straight ditch, about 8 (eel wide and 

 5 deep, down the middle of the hollow : this takes 

 the place of the winding stagnant rivulet that is 

 frequently found there. In wider bogs more of 



