DR. ANGUS SMITH ON PEAT. 307 



Germany, and Switzerland. There is also an account of 

 the use of peat in metallurgy and for locomotives. 



On the heat-giving power, Dr. Bromeis says that peat, 

 which usually (when air-dried) contains 34 p. c. of water, 

 produces half the amount of heat produced by coke. Al- 

 though compression cannot cause more heat to be pro- 

 duced, it removes 20 p. c. of water, and thus allows much 

 more to be available ; so that 1 60 of peat when thus pressed 

 would be equal to 100 of coke : some, however, give higher 

 values to the first (see p. 49 of Dr. Bromeis's pamphlet). 

 But he also adds that " the peat may be made to attain 

 the density of coal, and so become a more valuable mate- 

 rial for heat. A cubic foot may attain the weight of 86 

 pounds." However, I do not wish to enter on the question 

 of condensation, which has been sufficiently worked at by 

 others. If the peat could be condensed for nothing or even 

 cheaply, the condition of the question would change; at 

 present the position of the bogs and the price of coal are 

 too variable to allow of more than general statements. 



Strange ideas have connected themselves with the growth 

 of peat. Men have actually supposed that it grew in a 

 mass like some great wen out from the ground, instead of 

 simply growing on the surface like other plants. In al- 

 lusion to this and to the two classes of peat, I may quote 

 from three lectures by Albrecht Tiirrschmiedt " uber Torf- 

 fabrikation," Berlin, 1859. He says: — 



" It requires no million years or geological periods to 

 form peat : a life- time is enough to convince one that it 

 grows — not from below, however, but from above. Still, if 

 the arts in their haste expect in the course of seventy or a 

 hundred years to find heavy peat formed, they will obtain 

 no more by growth than the entangled mass which the sun 

 bleaches and which gives flame but no heat. To convert 

 mosses, heaths, grasses, &c. into that humous pitchy moss 

 which you see in the beautiful specimen from Carolinen- 



