34 A TREATISE ON" THE CONNECTION OF 



even to the drier lands in the vicinity of such fens or 



mosses. 



The draining, reclaiming, and cultivating, lands so 

 ( ircumstanced, must appear not only important, from the 

 great value of such lands when reclaimed, but likewise 

 from the efFefls that such drainage would have on the 

 climate, temperature, and vegetation of the adjacent 

 country. 



Peat is an inflammable substance ; consequently ca- 

 pable of combining with pure air, or oxygen, and of 

 becoming oxygenated ; a process already explained in 

 the preceding part of this Treatise. The surface of j^eat 

 mosses, or what is most exposed to the atlion of air, is 

 capable of becoming more oxygenated than the under 

 stratum. 



The oxygenation of peat, and indeed the combination 

 of pure air or oxygen with inflammable substances, 

 renders such substances less inflammable, a process ana- 

 lagous to that of combustion: in both cases sahne com- 

 pounds are formed, which are uninflammable. 



It 



