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The prevalence of hydrogen in this substance is fully displayed 

 by the foregoing analysis, since not only enough exists for the for- 

 mation of this peculiar oil, but a considerable quantity of this 

 principle is also disengaged in a gaseous torm : the agreement, 

 therefore, between this substance, and what might, d priori, have 

 been supposed would be the product of vegetable matters placed 

 under these particular circumstances, appears to be evident. The 

 original mode of existence which belonged to this substance is suf- 

 ficiently marked, by the great quantity of vegetable substances 

 which are found in it, which have not suffered such an alteration 

 as to hinder the immediately tracing of them to their true origin. 

 That this substance has been subjected to the influence of the two 

 circumstances which seem essential to this peculiar fermentation, 

 the presence of moisture and subterranean situation, must appear 

 so plain from the descriptions you have already had laid before you 

 of the state in which peat-mosses are found, that, on this point, not 

 a word need be added. Peat, therefore, I presume, we may regard 

 as a vegetable secondary fossil ; having been formed from vege- 

 table matter, changed in its nature and properties by a certain fer- 

 mentation, which has been carried on in the mineral regions. 



Yours, &c. 



