Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

PEAT. 121
Fuci are a frequent ingredient of peat. Transported peat
must necessarily be of a very perfect nature, because it
can only be fluid in consequence of the diffusion of a
powdery matter through water. It abounds in the nor-
thern parts of Europe, where it forms deep and exten-
sive trembling bogs. In Scotland it is rare, and gene-
rally confined to small spots ; the casual receptacles of
water draining from masses of Mountain peat.
As I have suppressed the botany of peat, so I must
be brief respecting its chemistry and geology. Yet, as
a subject still unexplained, it deserves a few words,
though somewhat out of the bounds of my agreement.
Yet there is no necessity for being so rigid, when even
our ladies are now chemists and geologists. I fear it is but
a bad compliment to them to shun all the " hard words."
By the action of water on the vegetable matter, a portion
of the hydrogen is dissipated, and the result is a new
compound of Hydrogen and Carbon. It is not unlike that
produced by fire ;
of which roasted coflfee is an example.
Thus the Papyri of Herculaneum have been " roasted " or
carbonized, by water, not by fire : they are in the state
of peat. The exact nature of this change is easily ascer-
tained by chemical analysis. There is here an approxima-
tion to the condition of bitumen, and thus to coal : but it is
no more. When forests, or peat of far higher antiquity,
are found at greater depths in the earth, the bituminiza-
tion is well marked, though still incomplete. The an-
tiquity is proved by the strata that lie above, and the
substance is then Lignite ; including Cologne earth,
Bovey coal, and Jet. This substance may be considered
a mixture of peat and coal, or a transition between the
two, retaining the vegetable forms. The last change is
to Coal. This, in a similar manner, is proved to be a
substance of far higher antiquity than Lignite. And that