312 DR. ANGUS SMITH ON PEAT. 



P. 27, he alludes to a noctilucous quality in peat-bogs, 

 and to the mineral oils, naphtha and petroleum, found in 

 most mosses. 



The healthiness of people on peat-bogs is spoken of, 

 p. 183 and elsewhere, p. 369. Dr. Plott has shown that 

 intermittent fevers never occur in the neighbourhood of 

 peat-mosses. 



After speaking of the washing away of Blair-Drummond 

 moss to make arable land, the author says, p. 297, "It 

 seems necessary to remark that, as the agricultural proper- 

 ties of peat-moss are yet but little known, it would be rash 

 to decide whether, in a future age, floating-off peat into 

 the sea as a useless commodity may not, in whatever cir- 

 cumstances, be condemned. It is not impossible that, like 

 the inhabitants of Holland, our descendants may consider 

 peat-mosses as magazines of valuable manure as well as of 

 fuel in those cold northern regions, too important to be 

 squandered away with a lavish hand. 



ee Meantime it is not a little amusing to observe that while 

 the improvers of Kincardine moss-grounds are floating-off 

 their peats, others are exerting their best endeavours to 

 catch them in their way from being lost in the sea, consi- 

 dering them as profitable manures; while the former are 

 decrying peat-earth as a useless incumbrance to the ground, 

 others are exulting in the discovery of it as a treasure ; 

 while some are despising it as a fuel as well as a manure, 

 others in the same island are paying hundreds of pounds 

 for the surface of an acre of peat -bog, believing that after 

 it has served the purposes of fuel, its very ashes are the 

 best of all restoratives of the vegetative powers of the 

 earth.'" Artificial manures had not then appeared. 



Visiting again the same district mentioned in the first 

 extract, I made more inquiries and have come to the con- 

 clusion that, however various the growth of peat may be, 

 there are cases where it is much more than the extracts I 



