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peat, all plants with thick stems must be avoided as giving 
too much woody fibre, rendering the structure too open and 
the peat too light, as well as giving an inferior amount (in 
the case of some woods at least) of the resinous and very 
inflammable bodies, and generally taking too long to form. 
The great peculiarity of good peat is the oleaginous and 
resinous matter, to which also wax and fats may be added, 
as they have been found by some. It has been generally 
believed that these bodies have been produced during the 
decomposition of the plant, although one writer, quoted in 
the paper, considers they were produced by the growing 
plant. Dr. Smith came to the conclusion that woody fibre 
could not be shown to produce substances rich in hydrogen, 
the compounds resulting from its decay were rather of a 
humous character and not good combustibles. If woody 
fibre did not leave its hydrogen and carbon in such quantity 
as to form the resins, &c., of peat, then we must look for 
the origin in the growing plant. The mosses from which 
the peat from Deeside was evidently grown were examined, 
and on drying gave about a fourth of dry matter Avhich 
readily crumbled into a powder and which contained 1*27 
per cent of substances soluble in a light naphtha. It much 
resembled that obtained from the peat, but was softer, being 
about the consistence of butter and capable of being dis- 
tilled so as to give a yellowish substance of the same 
consistence. Besides this there was 1 per cent of a substance 
extracted by alcohol, resinous in appearance, fusible, and 
containing apparently the chlorophyll. 
The author believed that these bodies produced the 
similar matter in the peat, or rather were the matter itself 
with little or no change. In the peat it had been hardened, 
perhaps by oxidation or perhaps by the removal of the more 
fluid portion by water. In this way he explained the 
possibility of having a flow of oil from a peat moss. When 
the substances in the plants themselves were of a more fluid 
