Reports & Proceedings — Wellington Philosophical Soc. 43 



Canada half a million, while two-thirds of Newfoundland were under 

 peat. Some of the Scottish peat mosses were as much as 50 feet 

 deep and of great age. Others had, like the Flanders Moss in the 

 Vale of Menteith, heen formed since the pre-existing forest had been 

 felled by the Romans. The mosses varied greatly in quality us well 

 as in thickness, and all of them in their natural state contained, 

 between 80 and 90 per cent of water, the elimination of which was 

 generally the rock on which industrial peat-producing enterprises 

 had been wrecked. Vast sums had been lost in trying to dry peat 

 artificially either by pressure or by heat, and an evil spirit like the 

 will-o'-the- wisp seemed to haunt the bogs and lure on the adventurer 

 till he was finally swallowed up. 



But the light of modern science could show the right path to 

 follow, and as oil shale had only been recognised as one of the 

 precious stones after much loss and hard-bought experience, so 

 would peat moss be made to minister to the needs of man after the 

 wrong roads had been abandoned and the right trail found out. 

 Many new processes have been discovered lately, including Ekenberg's 

 wet carbonising process of heating the wet peat so that it could be 

 afterwards dried by pressure. The briquettes of dried peat were 

 capable of distillation, and as two-thirds of the mass was volatile and 

 about a quarter fixed carbon, it was clear that once the water was 

 successfully eliminated the peat substance was far more valuable 

 than oil shale. The nitrogen in peat was a very important item, and 

 some mosses contained over 2*5 per cent, and the sulphate of 

 ammonia derived from the nitrogen alone might in good mosses be 

 worth twenty-five shillings per ton of dry peat, which was about five 

 times as much as was yielded by oil shale. Alcohol had been made 

 by the fermentation of peat and its wet distillation, and it was 

 claimed that this product could be manufactured for 3d. or Ad. per 

 gallon. Peat alcohol would be of great value for motors as a substitute 

 for petrol, and if the Government wished to assist the development of 

 this wealth-producing discovery after the War the excise duty might 

 well be greatly reduced, so that the producer would be encouraged 

 to go on and the consumer might obtain the large supply of liquid 

 fuel that was becoming more necessary every day for vehicular traffic 

 and agricultural motor machinery. The development of the peat 

 industry was largely a matter of scientific investigation and 

 technology, and there was in this country an open field and every 

 prospect of final economic success, notwithstanding the failures to 

 achieve it in the past. 



III. — Geological Section of the Wellington Philosophical 

 Society, N.Z. 



The annual general meeting was held on August 21, 1918. 



The annual report, which was read and adopted, stated that since 

 the preceding annual meeting, September, 1917, five ordinary 

 meetings had been held, at which there had been a number of 

 interesting exhibits and eight papers had been read. The titles and 

 authors of the papers were as follows : (September 19, 1917) "The 



