THE 
EDINBURGH 
PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL. 
Art. I . — On Peat. By John MacCulloch, M. D. M. G. S. 
Lecturer on Chemistry to the Board of Ordnance, &c. Com- 
municated by the Author. (Concluded from Page 59.) 
In describing the natural solution of Peat in water, a few of 
its chemical qualities were necessarily mentioned. Those which 
remain to be noticed are of little or no moment in a practical 
view, nor are they such as to throw much light on the chemical 
nature of this substance, or on that of the process by which ve- 
getable matter is converted into peat. Alcohol, ether, and tlie 
alkaline lixivia, extract from it a brown matter, analogous to, or 
identical with, that which has already been described as capable 
of being dissolved by water. On evaporating the two former 
fluids, this matter is obtained in a solid form, but, in the latter 
case, it combines with the alkali, so as to form a saponaceous 
compound, analogous to that which is produced by dissolving 
bistre or wood-tar in the same solutions. It is unnecessary to 
describe the results obtained from the action of the essential 
oils, ammonia, or the mineral acids ; as they are either analo- 
gous to the former, or resemble those which the same substances 
produce with unchanged vegetable matter, and throw no light 
on the subject. 
The object to be kept in view in the chemical examination of 
peat, is to determine the nature of the change which has taken 
place between the destruction of the vegetable organization, and 
the conversion of its substance into this new compound. It is 
more particularly interesting, to discover in what respect peat 
approaches to the bitumens, or rather to the bituminated lig- 
VOL. II. NO. 4). APRIL 1820. 
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