1854.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 401 



" The Peat of Europe, it is well known, is formed from the decay of mosses 

 of various kinds* of which the new plants grow on the half decayed beds of 

 the old ones, but our Indian Peat, usually called Bodh Mattee in Bengal, is 

 formed by a different process and, mostly, from a single plant the Oryza 

 sylvestris or Ooree Dhan (wild rice), as it is called by the natives. In some 

 parts of the ancient beds of the rivers or depressions of the soil, which form 

 sometimes broad and extensive lakes, and at others long narrow ones of 

 several miles in length, and which are all called Jheels in Bengal, the plant 

 springs up where the soil is favourable to its growth during the early part of 

 the rains, and rising with the water, which it covers with its slender leaves, 

 gives those parts the appearance of a green rice field, though the water may 

 be from 10 to 15 feet in depth. In the month of October when the waters 

 begin to subside, its seed, which is a very sweet, small-grained rice, ripens, and 

 the plant gradually dies and sinks down with the waters, which sometimes 

 leave it dry, forming a deep bog matted over with the stalks of the year's 

 growth. These stalks are cut and dragged out in large quantities by the 

 ryots, and being roasted on hurdles over a fire are stacked up for food for 

 their cattle in the dry months, but vast and often thick beds of the peat 

 remain, which have accumulated for centuries from the first formation of 

 the Jheel, and in digging through the beds the stems and leaves may be 

 traced in all stages of decay as with the mosses of the bogs. A few other 

 aquatic plants, Valisnerise, Nym phase, &c. may also be traced amongst them, 

 but as a general rule the greater portion of the peat of the jheels is formed 

 from the Oryza sylvestris, which appears to flourish on spots which it has 

 appropriated to itself. Near the borders of the Sunderbunds and on the 

 Western shores of the ITooghly, are also found beds of peat which seem to 

 have been formed by the decay of jungle destroyed by inundations or sink- 

 ings of the soil, and beds of this are found in all the lower parts of the 

 Delta at variable depths when wells are sunk, or canals or tanks are dug ; 

 but these, if thick enough for working as peats, would require a mining 

 process to extract any quantity of them, and it is the surface beds exposed 

 and renewed annually, as I have described above, which afford the manure 

 which is so extensively used by the ryots." H. P. 



The Railway Company having applied to the society for information re- 

 garding Iron and Iron ores, which was referred to me by the Council, they 

 were furnished with a complete catalogue of the specimens existing in the 

 museum, with a note on the subject which it may be worth while to put 

 upon record here. 



* Principally Sphagnum palustre. 



