334 DR. ANGUS SMITH ON PEAT. 



grains. 



Box and peat, after 4 weeks and 3 days, 7*600 



Box . . . 4-200 



Peat . . . 3*400 

 = 27 per cent of dry peat. 



The amount of resin extracted by naphtha = 5*04 p. c. 



This was peat of the most recent growth. 



Moss from Cairn Monearn, Durris. February 24, 1875. 



The moss contained 77*91 per cent, moisture. 



1 lb. of the turf was dried and treated with warm naphtha; 

 the amount of resins &c. extracted is 0*26 per cent, calcu- 

 lated on the wet moss. Calculated to the dry moss it is 

 1*17 per cent. (This moss was Hypnum chiefly.) 



This resin or grease is very soft and has quite a different 

 smell from that of peat. 



The moss was treated with alcohol after the naphtha. A 

 good deal of colouring-matter was extracted, but very 

 little if any resin. 



A fresh Sphagnum molluscum produced only 0*8 per cent, 

 of the resins. 



With these facts before me I come to the conclusion 

 which I mentioned previously, that the highly combustible 

 substances in peat have been formed in the growing 

 and are left in the partly decomposed peat. It may 

 be that they undergo a change; but some of them 

 seem scarcely to do so. If I am right, then, the hydro- 

 carbons and hydrocarbonaceous substances, by which I 

 mean substances not entirely hydrocarbons, may differ in 

 peat according to the plant which was at the origin ; we 

 may therefore receive the words wax and oil, pitch and 

 resin as correct, and we may even suppose that the isolated 

 masses of ozokerite, so abundant in Galicia, may owe 

 their existence to ancient peat now destroyed. Why 

 should it be destroyed? In circumstances favouring oxi- 



