COMBUSTIBLE MINERALS, NOT GASEOUS. 193 



This substance burns with different degrees of ease, but sufficiently well to be employed 

 as fuel. On this account, it may hereafter become an article of great importance. 



Peat or turf is vegetable matter in various states of decomposition, but it is more or less 

 mixed with earths and salts. Although it contains all the principles of the vegetable, these 

 principles may have formed combinations which do not exist in the living plant. 



Composition. This varies considerably in different specimens. According to Davy, one 

 hundred parts of dry peat contain from 60 to 99 parts of matter destructible by heat, the 

 remainder consisting of earthy substances and salts. Its constituents, according to Richard- 

 son and Regnault, are carbon 58.09, hydrogen 5.93, oxygen and nitrogen 31.37, ashes 

 4.61. 



Geological Situation. In the former part of this work (page 95), where peat is treated 

 of among the useful minerals, I have given some facts in regard to the mode of its formation, 

 which it is not necessary to repeat. It has also been observed that it usually accompanies, or 

 rather forms the basis of, shell marl, being usually found in swamps and bogs. I will here 

 only notice the principal localities, and, for further details, refer to the articles Marl and 

 Peat, already introduced. 



localities. 



Cattaraugus County. In the towns of Great- Valley and Little- Valley, the sags or depres- 

 sions in which the clay is formed, contain more or less extensive bodies of peat. Mr. Hors- 

 ford states that the largest of these is on the land of Mr. Sweatland. The bog has an area of 

 about ten acres ; and the depth of peat varies from a foot or two near the margin, to twelve 

 feet towards the centre.* 



Columbia and Dutchess Counties. Mr. Mather, in his report for 1838, enumerates 

 many localities of peat in several towns of these counties, as Kinderhook, New-Lebanon, 

 Ghent, Fishkill, Hillsdale, Dover, Amenia, Copake, Ancram, Pine-Plains, Rhinebeck, North- 

 east and Clinton. 



Hamilton County. There is said to be an inexhaustible quantity of peat on a stream 

 which Dr. Emmons calls Marion river, and which connects the Eckford lakes with Racket 

 lake. It also occurs elsewhere in this region.t 



Clinton County. Dr. Emmons states that a very large collection of this substance occurs 

 in the western part of the town of Champlain. The marsh is about two and a half miles in 

 length, and from a half to three quarters of a mile wide. He supposes the peat to extend 

 throughout the whole of this area, to the depth of from twelve to thirty or more feet. He also 

 states that there are peat bogs of equal extent in other parts of the county .{ 



 New-York Geological Reporti, 1840. f Emmons. Nea-York Geological Reports, 1841, t lb. 1839. 



MiN. — Part II. 26 



