12 6 Mr. Hatchett’s Experiments on a Substance, 
§ V. 
In my first Paper I have remarked, that I suspected the 
tannin of the peat moors to have been produced during the 
imperfect carbonization of the original vegetable substances. 
Whether this has been the case, or whether the tannin has at 
times been afforded by heath and other vegetables growing 
upon or near the peat, still appears to me to be uncertain ; 
but whatever may be the origin, I never have yet been able 
to detect any tanning substance in peat, although I have exa- 
mined a considerable number of varieties, some from Berk- 
shire, and many from Lancashire, which were obligingly 
sent to me for this purpose by my friend John Walker, Esq. 
F. R. S. Mr. Jameson has also made the same observation,* 
so that there cannot be any doubt (whatever the origin of 
the tanning matter may have been ) that it has speedily been 
extracted and drained from the substances which at first 
contained it. 
This effect is a natural consequence of the great facility 
with which tannin is dissolved by water, and extends even to 
the most solid vegetable bodies ; I shall here give an example. 
In the Philosophical Transactions for 1 799, Dr. Correa 
de Serra has given an account of a submarine forest at Sutton, 
on the coast of Lincolnshire, where submerged vegetables are 
found in great abundance, including trees of different descrip- 
tions, especially birch, fir, and oak. At the time when I was 
engaged in those experiments on the Bovey coal, and other 
substances of a similar nature, which have been printed in 
the Philosophical Transactions for 1804, Sir Joseph Banks 
* An Outline of the Mineralogy of the Shetland Islands, &c. 8vo. edition, p. 174. 
