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shaped masses of peat in concentric layers round a central 
stake, with apertures to admit the air on all sides, the 
whole being: covered with earth or charcoal dust. Or it 
is prepared in furnaces of masonry formed like large ver- 
tical cylinders, having apertures to admit the air, furnished 
with regulating valves at the sides. The objections to the 
use of peat, however, avail equally against the adoption of 
charcoal made from it, namely, its extremely loose, brittle 
character, and the quantity of ash it contains, the per- 
centage of which, originally great in the peat before char- 
ring, becomes, of course, greater in the charcoal. Ordinary 
peat charcoal has been known to contain as much as 21 per 
cent, of ashes. The formation of patent fuel from it will, 
however, give additional consolidation to the charcoal, and 
the oleaginous compounds with which the mixture is effected 
impart a greater degree of combustibility to the mass. 
We have hitherto been considering fuel of comparatively 
modern origin. But the present organic world has contri- 
buted but a small share to the support of artificial heat. 
The wants of man in this respect were as amply provided 
for by Providence during the primeval ages of the world 
as his other requirements, more apparently, but not less 
really, important. 
The limits of this paper compel me to abstain from 
entering into the most interesting question of the ancient 
structure of our globe. Whether it was by the action of 
aqueous or igneous causes that the vast disturbances and 
transformations, the marks of which the crust of the earth 
now exhibits, were originally occasioned, is not now to be 
determined. But geology has demonstrated that the most 
marked and hidden changes of the climate and the position 
of the terrestrial portion of our planet have been amongst 
the most frequent phenomena of ancient times. The fossil 
remains, both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, point 
