July 15,1924 
Chemical Examination of Peat Materials 
79 
ticular reference to the differences in 
the action of benzol, toluol, xylol, and 
phenol, as well as of ether and alcohol, 
is just beginning to be made ( 42 ). 
Many of the extracted substances, 
such as, “fichtelite, 55 “ozokerite/’ and 
others (19) do not belong to the true 
fats and oils. Fatty substances when 
breaking down yield a considerable 
series of fatty acids without the acid 
H-ion. They give off more heat on burn¬ 
ing, because they contain a small pro¬ 
portion of oxygen but relatively more 
carbon and hydrogen than the carbohy¬ 
drates. Waxes and resinous sub¬ 
stances are especially abundant in the 
foliage of woody heaths and evergreen 
trees. Hence, peat layers derived from 
these plants carry more of the mate¬ 
rials extracted by ether and other sol¬ 
vents than the peats derived from 
sedges, reeds, or mosses. Treatment of 
peat with phenol yields more extract 
than with any other solvent, and the 
yields are considerably increased by the 
use of higher temperatures (48.) The 
products, moreover, have considerably 
higher melting points than the other 
extraction products. The extracts re¬ 
semble more or less the bitumin from 
lignites. Schneider and Schellenberg 
(42) found that the action of solvents 
depends also on the relative age of the 
peat material, the deeper and older 
layers in a given peat profile with the 
higher proportion of resistant material 
giving the higher yields. The evidence 
presented by them is, however, insuffi¬ 
cient, and the error in the conclusion 
has been demonstrated by the work of 
Zailer and Wilk, and others cited in 
Table I of Bulletin 802 (8). 
There are marked differences in the 
percentages of ether-alcohol extract 
obtained from the several air-dried 
peat materials of this country. In 
general, the extract figures shown in 
Table I vary from 0.15 per cent in the 
Lake Okeechobee, Fla., sedimentary 
peat to 3.78 per cent in the reed peat 
from Wood County, Wis., which under¬ 
lies a conifer forest vegetation and 
shrub heaths as ground cover. The 
same range of variation in the per¬ 
centages of this fraction is, further¬ 
more, seen in Table II where the re¬ 
sults are stated on an ash- and mois¬ 
ture-free basis. The finely divided sedi¬ 
mentary peat from Lake Okeechobee, 
Fla., contains a minimum of 0.26 per 
cent and the Wood County, Wis., reed 
peat yields the maximum of 4.38 per 
cent. Together with the figures in 
Table IV these results again indicate 
that the botanical composition of the 
plant remains forming peat layers is a 
considerably more important factor 
than the depth below the surface. In 
the sedge peats from Chelsea, Mich., as 
well as in the sphagnum peats from 
Fairbanks, Alaska, and from Calais, 
Me., the presence of relatively large 
amounts of ether-alcohol extract is prob¬ 
ably due to an admixture in the peat 
samples of leached plant residue from 
heath shrubs. There is a tendency 
towards the attainment of a maximum 
value for the ether-alcohol fraction, 
which appears to be more or less closely 
correlated with the degree of decomposi¬ 
tion of the peat material. The data in 
Tables I and II show that increasing 
accumulation of the more resistant or¬ 
ganic material may cause a steady in¬ 
crease in the waxy, resinous residue. 
The analyses for the partly decomposed 
hypnum peat from Phillips, Wis., for 
the woody peats from Margie, Minn., 
and from Charlevoix, Mich., and for 
the sedge and sphagnum peats which 
have undergone a partial decay, agree 
in showing this tendency. Thus the 
percentages of ether-alcohol extract in 
the several peat materials depend not 
only upon the type of the plant 
remains, but also on the stage of altera¬ 
tion and upon the predominant admix¬ 
ture of distinctly heath components. 
INORGANIC MATTER IN DIFFERENT 
PEAT LAYERS 
Mineral matter is present in peat 
materials either incorporated in organic 
compounds, in cell walls, as crystals and 
incrustations, or held by the absorptive 
power of the finely divided organic 
matter. Foreign material constitutes 
not infrequently the larger portion of 
the ash content in certain classes of 
peat deposits. It is brought in during 
the accumulation of peat layers by 
wind and water as dust, silt, or clay, 
and through the growth of shell 
mollusks, diatoms, sponges, and other 
organisms. The inorganic contamina¬ 
tion may be disregarded for the present, 
since it is not a part of plant ash or that 
of peat, although reported as such in 
peat analysis. In most investigations 
concerning the agricultural value of 
peat land, the ash and its “ standard 
fertilizer 75 ingredients are the only 
factor considered in grading peat areas. 
However, the quantity and character 
of the mineral matter vary from point 
to point in the same deposit, and even 
in the same layer. Owing to the con¬ 
stant evaporation of water from the 
surface of cultivated peat areas, many 
of the salts accumulate at or just below 
the surface peat soil. The amount and 
constituents vary much, because\the 
presence of mineral matter, such as 
