530 



NA TURE 



[September 19, 1907 



IVilarlington, in iS6f), several thousand tons of press turf 

 were made by a modification of the oldest known " dry- 

 press " process — that of Gwynne, which was itself tried 

 on a small scale in 1855 at Kilberry. Of historical interest 

 also is the fact that, of " wet-press " processes, one of 

 the oldest tound in the literature of peat is that which was 

 employed by Williams in 1844 at Cappoge, in the Bog of 

 Allen. 



In recent years there have been built in Ireland many 

 peat-moss litter factories, such as those at Umaras, near 

 Monastcrcvan, County Kildare; at Coolancy, County 

 Sligo ; at Maghery, County Tyrone ; at Ferbane and 

 Rahan, King's County ; and at Inchicore and Ringsend, 

 in Dublin. The peat paper factory at Celbridge, County 

 Kildare, belonging to the Callendar Paper Company, has 

 recently been closed. At Umaras and .Maghery there are 

 peat-fuel factories, and at Kilberry a fuel called " electro- 

 peat " is manufactured. Quite recently experiments have 

 been carried out at Carnloug'h, County Antrim, on the pro- 

 duction of ammonia from peat, nnd the installation of a 



Flc. 4. — Peat digester, peat paper factory, Celbridge, co. Kildare. 



plant capable of producing 5000 tons of ammonium 

 sulphate per annum is now being completed at a cost of 

 85,000/. 



It is convenient to divide the peat industries into three 

 classes, namely, the fibre, the fuel, and the distillation 

 industries. In this paper the first, and probably the most 

 important, class will be considered more fully. In the 

 peat-moss litter districts of Ireland the peat is dug out 

 of the bog in large sods, which are dried in the air and 

 stored under cover to prevent the re-absorption of water. 

 The air-dried peat is next disintegrated by the rotating 

 circular saws contained in the body of a dividing machine 

 (.«o-ca!Ied wolf, Fig. 2), sifted free from mould, and com- 

 pressed into bales by vertical knee-lever presses, such as 

 that used at Umaras (Fig. 3). From the " wolf," which 

 is placed on the ground floor of the factory, the divided 

 peat is carried by elevators to the upper floor, where, after 

 passage through a cylindrical sieve, it is delivered into 

 the funnel-shaped mouth of the baler. The mould can 

 at the same time be collected apart. It is exported in 

 NO. 197;, VOL. 76] 



large quantities by the owner of one of the factories to 

 southern countries for the preservation and packing of 

 fruit and vegetables grown there. 



Where a suitable canal system exists the peat-litter 

 industry is successful, but where canals are not avail- 

 able the industry is crippled by the high rates of carriage 

 charged by the railway companies. 



The purified peat moss can be used for the preparation 

 of peat molassine meal and for the manufacture of 

 alcohol, but as the latter process can scarcely at the pre- 

 sent time be carried on remuneratively it is not practised 

 in Ireland. 



The peat paper factory which was established in 1903 

 at Celbridge, and turned out large quantities of wrapping 

 paper yearly, was unsuccessful. It was finally closed in 

 December, 1905. The peat, brought on cars from a bog 

 situated at a distance of several miles from Celbridge, 

 was subjected to a preliminary treatment in a large 

 spherical revolving digester (Fig. 4), from which it was 

 conveyed by cars running on a small iron railway to the 

 rarifying and beating machine, where it was converted 

 iilo pulp. After passing through sand-traps, the un- 

 i'liached pulp was delivered on to an endless band, by 

 wliich it was brought between the revolving rollers of a 

 I'apcr-pressing machine. The band of paper thus formed 

 w'.is glazed and polished by vertical rollers. 



The motive power of the factory was electricity, which 

 was generated in .a dynamo driven by a 200 horse-power 

 turbine worked by water from the adjacent Liffey. 



The brown wrapping paper sold by the company was 

 of a strong te.xture. excellent quality, and contained about 

 ()(i per cent, of peat fibre. Considering, however, the 

 large amount of material present in crude turf which is 

 useless for the manufacture of paper, it will be readily 

 ■-een that the preliminary treatment of the peat should 

 be carried out in the immediate neighbourhood of the bog. 



The accompanying illustrations from the author's 

 " Reports upon the Irish Peat Industries," part i., are 

 reproduced by the courtesy of the Royal Dublin Society. 



Hucii Ryan. 



ZOOhOGM AT THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION. 



The Physical Basis of Inheritance. 

 ( ^NE of the most interesting features of the programme 

 of Section D was a discussion, jointly with 

 'miction K, on the physical basis of inheritance. In open- 

 ing- the debate. Prof. S. J. Hickson, F.R.S., dissented 

 Irom Montgomery's view that the inherited characters are 

 iransmitted solely by the chromosomes. The principal 

 piece of evidence which is quoted in support of this hypo- 

 tliesis is Boveri's experiment (1889) in which an enucleate 

 ■ hinoderm ovum of one species, fertilised by a spermato- 

 iion of another species, produced a larva with purely 

 paternal characters; but similar subsequent experiments 

 have not always resulted in a larva with purely paternal 

 characters. Confirmatory evidence of the theory is held 

 to be afforded by (i) the constancy in the number of 

 chromosomes in the somatic cells ; (2) the reduction to half 

 the normal number of chromosomes in the sexual cells ; 

 and (3) the presence of similar heterogeneous chromo- 

 somes in the sexual cells of certain .Arthropods and their 

 mutual conjugation during fertilisation. If the theory be 

 true, it appears necessary to hold that the chromosomes 

 maintain their individuality, but there is convincing 

 evidence that in some animals this is not the case, e.g. in 

 certain Rhizopoda (e.g. Pelomyxa), Suctoria {e.g. 

 Ephelota, Dendrosoma), and Coelenterates. Moreover, if 

 it be true that the cytoplasm of conjugating cells is not 

 concerned in the transmission of hereditary characters, it 

 is difficult to account for the long duration of the period 

 of conjugation in Infusoria and the cases of fertilised 

 enucleate eggs which produced larvje with maternal 

 characters. Prof. Hickson suggested a possible explan- 

 ation, viz. that where the characters are comparatively 

 rigid, as in mammals, insects, and some other groups, 

 they are aggregated in definite masses, and may be 

 associated with the chrornosomes, but where it is advant- 

 ageous for the characters to remain more variable they 



