Bibliography. 175 



light as carbonate of magnesia, which it much resembles ; on lower- 

 ing the waters of a small lake this was found under the covering of a 

 boggy soil, and in other similar situations. The substance was proved 

 to consist almost wholly of the silicious skeletons of infusorial vege- 

 tables, if they may be so called, or of those equivocal beings which 

 occupy the borders of the two kingdoms, and render it difficult, not 

 to say impossible, to draw the line between them. Their discovery 

 in England is due to Mr. Binney of Manchester, and we extract the 

 following from Mr, Bowman's account. 



"He [Mr. Binney] informs me that so long ago as 1836, being then 

 on a visit in Lincolnshire, he observed a whitish pulverulent substance 

 on the sides of a deep ditch, which he at first took to be lime, but on 

 examination, finding it to be quite different in its properties from that 

 body, he supposed it to be of animal origin. The place where it was 

 found is a portion of a reclaimed peat bog, about four feet in thick- 

 ness, lying on the upper red marls, one mile east of the escarpment of 

 Lias limestone, in the valley of the Trent, in BIyton Car, near Gains- 

 borough. The peat was in a high state of decomposition, and had 

 been under cultivation for some years. The white substance in ques- 

 tion had been thrown out in widening the ditch, and originally occu- 

 pied a bed varying in thickness from four to six inches, at the depth 

 of about a foot under the surface of the peat, and extending over an 

 area of several acres of land. In some places the powder was mixed 

 with portions of peat; but in others it was quite free from such ad- 

 mixture. When first dug up, it was of a yellowish color, and in a 

 state of paste ; but on becoming dry it changed to a beautiful white 

 powder, that floated in the atmosphere on the slightest agitation, was 

 tasteless, and bore a great resemblance to calcined carbonate of mag- 

 nesia. Conceiving that it might be fatty matter in a state of adipocire, 

 he successively treated it with sulphuric, hydrochloric, and nitric acids, 

 and afterwards submitted it to the action of heat, by all which pro- 

 cesses it remained unchanged ; and he was thence led to believe it 

 was silica in an extremely minute state of subdivision. He had sub- 

 sequently subjected it, under the action of the blowpipe, to an intense 

 white heat fur fifteen minutes, and he had treated it with the carbon- 

 ates of potash and of soda, and thus formed silicates of these sub- 

 stances. He afterwards learned that a similar substance was found in 

 considerable abundance near Haxey, in the peat deposit of the neio-h- 

 boring level of Hatfield Chase,- and was informed by the farmers there 

 that wherever it occurred, the soil above it was very poor and unpro- 

 ductive. This fact is a strong confirmation of its being silica, such 

 soils being proverbially sterile. In this stage of his knowledge, Mr. 

 Binney saw Dr. Drumraond's account of the powder from Lough Isl- 



