DR. ANGUS SMITH ON PEAT. 301 



English as well as the Germans have used the name for 

 both and caused confusion. § XV. cap. n, he says "the 

 turf (cespes) may grow to be cut again in 30-40 years." 



In Chapters 5 and 6 he gives various opinions regarding 

 peat, and discusses the question, " Is it rotten wood ?" in 7, 

 " Is peat earth?" in 8, "Is it bituminous or sulphurous V* 

 in 9, whether it is a marine excretion; in 10, "Is it vege- 

 table V 



In Chapter 11, he recognizes peat as a distinct growth, 

 and also says that moss and marsh-grass grow abundantly 

 in all those places where peat is abundant. It is added 

 that it has been observed by botanists that the roots and 

 stems of the mosses grow both in winter and summer, 

 and press deep into the earth and water. The author 

 thinks that a space two feet or more deep may grow suf- 

 ficiently in ten, twenty, thirty or more years, so firm 

 that men and flocks can pass over it, since mosses are 

 during the whole year increasing in marshy places and 

 yearly growing into dense masses. Not only does the 

 moss grow, but the fossil part grows. He gives it as 

 a decided opinion that peat grows, but requires a long 

 time. 



He gives the opinion of some old men that it would 

 take a hundred years to grow as much as would allow 

 it to be cut at the same place. (The cuts he speak of 

 are deep.) Countrymen of a truthful character have said 

 that they found at a depth of seven feet iron instruments, 

 such as spades, and other abundant proofs that the peat 

 had been cut before by their predecessors. And certainly, 

 he says, if it did not grow, it must long ago have come to 

 an end. He quotes Pliny, who tells (in Book xvi. cap 1) 

 that they (the Chauci near Friesland) " take the mud with 

 their hands, and drying it in the wind rather than the sun, 

 warm with this earth their food as well as their entrails, 

 which are stiffened by the northern cold." (" Captum 



