336

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.

in the peat-pits of Germany . “ More or less frequently,” liesays, “ it happens, but chiefly when the heat has been mostviolent , 18 and the rains have fallen plentifully, that either byaccident or some one’s malice, not only the dry peats, buteven the marshy earth itself, become drier than usual, is seton fire, when the flames spread far and wide, occasioning acalamity no less dreadful to those labourers who dwell atthe pits, whose little hovels it lays waste and reduces toashes, than to those who derive their livelihood from thesepits. For this reason, proper watchmen are appointed togo round, not merely to keep it together in heaps, but to beready to extinguish in time the fire which might break out.This they do, not so much by water as by smothering it, byturning over it with shovels the adjoining earth. If this benot done, the flames gradually acquiring more fuel, the fireravages not for a few days, but for weeks, and even months,as dreadful experience has shown, so that an extended plainmay be regarded as a lamentable kind of volcano.”

There are various opinions respecting the originalformation of peat. Some have supposed it to exist fromthe creation, and, consequently, to be a separate and integralexistence. Mr. Parkinson says, bis opinion opposes this,'—observing, “ that it is composed of a vegetable substance,”or rather substances, we presume; “ which bears the indubi-table marks of having existed in another state; and also,that there are abundance of instances to prove that theprocess of its formation is going on even at this day.”

“ At the same time,” he alleges, “ that the hypothesiswhich presumes it to have been a bituminous deposit fromthe waters of the sea, must he rejected, from improbability;and, in part, for a similar reason.”

Likewise, the opinion of Pliny , and after him adopted bySchoockius, of its being originally a mineral, and being at thefirst formed in its present situation, appears to have come fromAristotle , and to be distant from that truth established by pre-sent appearance. Some, it appears, have endeavoured to ac-count for its formation, on the idea of its being originally thesubstance which composed floating islands, which they allegeto have been deposited in peat situations; but this idea appear-ing to have little or no claim upon credible probability, we shall

18 See also opinion of Diodorus Siculus to nearly the same fact, with respect to theescape of air on a sudden change from cold to heat, lib. i. c. 1. He says, whenaccounting for the generation of animals on the Mochiran theory of creation,“ Pustules wrapt up in thin and slender coats and skins, which may be seen instanding ponds and niarish places ; when after the earth has been pierced withcold, grows hot on a sudden without any visible alteration.”