PEAT CHARCOAL. 
589 
performed each by a different assistant, and they were brought out 
and held by a different assistant, in order that no infection could be 
communicated from one sheep to another. 
7th. — For at least two years there had not been a single sheep 
infected with the scab in any of the stalls in the institution. 
Lynn Advertiser. 
[To be continued.] 
Peat Charcoal. 
It is to be recollected that “ deodorization,” so called, by any 
other means than peat charcoal, is effected through the action of 
different compounds upon feculent matter, or by the liberation of 
certain gases, to act upon, and, it is hoped, neutralize or destroy, 
the original noxiousness. Hence two odorous matters are placed 
in combination; and although the effluvium becomes changed, it is 
not destroyed or absorbed. The doubt then naturally comes, is 
such deodorization disinfection ? I believe it is not. But what is 
the action of peat charcoal ? 
It is to be recollected that it is perfectly pure and odourless , 
possessing the power of absorbing above 80 per cent, of aqueous 
matter, and at least 90 volumes (I believe a good deal more) of 
those gases which are inimicable to animal existence. It has also 
some peculiar power (independently of the well-known property of 
carbon) to draw to it, from the atmosphere, ammonia and sulphur- 
etted hydrogen. Most greedily it absorbs those gases, treasuring 
and holding them up in the countless cells which the extreme 
porosity of its nature provides in every grain ; and almost the 
moment contact takes place, odour ceases to be perceptible. 
Still, the gas itself which yielded the odour continues to exist ; 
although the compound is odourless, the gas is there undestroyed, 
yet, I believe, rendered powerless of evil to mankind. 
The fact of the purity, &c., of peat charcoal will not be ques- 
tioned : the latter statement, however, naturally will ; but the test 
is within the reach of every one. 
Charge peat charcoal with any given quantity of those gases, 
so that the compound be odourless. Place it then, or at any time 
after, on a red-hot plate ; and as the grains become destroyed by 
fire, the gases will be restored to the atmosphere in their own ori- 
ginal state . 
In this rests one of the great advantages of the compound as a 
manure, for no chemical action takes place to change the nature of 
those gases , which we all know are essential as the food of plants. 
In the compound they exist until, by the action of the soil and the 
atmosphere, gradual decomposition of the whole takes place, when 
vol. xxm. 4 k 
