99 



is so great, that the peat-pits are called by by the common people 

 keenen, kien-bomen, or kien-hout ; kien or keen, being the word 

 which, in the German language, signifies pine. 



In a similar manner he endeavours to account for the pine nuts 

 or cones, which are found amongst the peat. If they be real pine- 

 nuts, they must, he says, astonish every one ; for although the pine 

 is found in considerable numbers near to Breda, in Brabant, yet it 

 is seldom found in any other part of Belgium. 



Although he cannot but admit, that, formerly, pines might have 

 grown on these spots, and have been there overthrown and preserved, 

 with their nuts, from putrefaction, by the including matter ; yet he 

 cannot allow that all those resinous balls, mixed with, and resem- 

 bling those bodies, which he admits to be pine nuts, can possibly be 

 real nuts ; but he rather supposes them to be of the same nature 

 with other bituminous masses, some of which, not unlike to walnuts, 

 and others to eggs, are sometimes met with whilst digging. The only 

 difference, he thinks, is that, in the seeming pine nuts, there is an 

 admixture of sulphur and other things, which render them of a 

 resinous nature, similar to the real cones. 



Some also have attributed the formation of peat to the sinking 

 of large floating islands, such as are now frequent in several parts 

 of Holland, and such as have been known to have existed in very 

 early ages ; Seneca and Pliny having noticed the existence of a 

 lake, on which was a floating island, near to Cutila, a town of the 

 Sabines*. 



Dr. Plott, in his Natural History of Staffordshire, relates, that at 

 that period there were two floating islands on Kinson Pool, which 

 were about twenty feet broad, and about thirty, or perhaps forty, 

 feet long. 



o 



The utility of this substance, in those parts in which coal is not 



^Seneca? Natur. Quest, lib. iii. cap. 16. Plin. lib. iii. cap. 12. lib. xxxi. cap. 2. 



