32 



It is submitted, whether these bogs will do more than furnish a supply of 

 fuel, until forests may be raised, should we begin immediately in the work of 

 planting. But peat cannot be depended upon for a permanent supply of fuel, 

 as the beds must be exhausted much sooner than the boal beds of those 

 States which have them. Both must be exhausted in time, if worked by man. 

 We do not make these remarks to disparage peat as a fuel of good heating 

 qualities, but as a warning against depending, upon it to the neglect of 

 depending upon wood as a permanent source of supply for fuel. 



There is another consequence of digging out the peat bogs, and especially 

 such as cannot be completely drained to the bottom of the bed, which ought 

 not to be overlooked. When the peat that now fills the basin of the bogs 

 shall be dug out, that basin will fill with foul, stagnant water, and so render 

 the country around unhealthy ; whereas the water now in the bog is charged 

 with antiseptic material, which renders it free from all malaria. 



Again, it is submitted whether more fuel cannot be obtained in the periods 

 of time, from the bog by properly preparing, and planting it thickly with 

 black-ash, tamarack, rod-maple, and other trees that it will produce, without 

 empyting the the basin, or injuring the peat for the use of future ages, Ihan 

 by digging out the peat now, and making a stagnant pool valueless to pos- 

 terity, and detrimental to the Statfe. 



The statisticians of England have cast the period of the coal beds of that 

 country. An article in the London Times, dated Apr.il 19, 1866, speaking of 

 the duty of England to set herself at once to work paying oif her public debt' 

 while her supply of coal shall last, says : " But we must look beyond this cen- 

 tury. In theee GENEKATioifS — that is in the days of our children's children 



we are told that aUthe coal of t?wse islands that Res withmfour tfumsand feet of {he 

 surface will be exhausted if we go on increasing our consumption at the present rate^ 

 Coal is everything to us. Without coal our furnaces will become idle our 

 factories and workshops will be as still as the grave, the locomotive will rust 

 in the shed, and the rail be buried in weeds. Our streets will be dark our 

 houses uninhabitable ; our rivers will forget the paddle-wheel, and we shall 

 be again separated by days from France, months from the United States. 

 The past will lengthen its periods and protract its dates. A thousand special 

 arts and manufactures, one by one, then in a crowd, will fly the empty soil 

 as boon companions are said to d sappear when the cask is dry. We shall 

 miss our grand dependence, as a man misses his companion, his fortune, or a 

 limb, every hour and at every turn reminded of the irreparable loss. Wise 

 England will then be the siUy virgin, without oil in her lamp. We shall bo 

 surrounded and overwhelmed by the unprofitable lumber of buildings and ma- 

 chinery that we cannot use, and with cities we cannot occupy ; for who will 

 care to live in Manchester ? Who will be able to live in the metropolis ? It 

 is not so difficult to imagine the state we shall return to, for it takes only a 

 middle-aged man to remember it. They would be* sorry to be called old who 



