premises, and the magnificent expectations
which had been entertained from peat were
forgotten.

That is to say, they were forgotten by the
British public, but not by the gentleman whose
enterprise had given occasion for them, and
the result of whose attempts to utilize peat,
prematurely disclosed, formed the substance
of the foregoing statements. Mr. Owen, the
gentleman in question, having, in a letter to
the "Times," rectified the mistake that had
been made as to the conclusiveness of the
experiments whereon those statements had
been founded, continued quietly to prosecute
his designs upon peat, till he had succeeded in
ascertaining what was really to be hoped from
it, with sufficient precision to obtain for the
estimate respectful quotation in the money-
article of the rather celebrated journal just
mentioned. It appears that a yield, not
indeed of five hundred, but at least of one
hundred per cent, may be expected from the
material. One hundred per cent, derivable
from peat, will be a benefit to Ireland
commensurate with her bogs, the area and
contents of which, it must be admitted, are
considerable. Peat, which, save that it was
used as an inferior sort of fuel, was heretofore
merely one of the encumbrances of Irish
estates, bids fair to be, henceforth, a mine of
wealth to Ireland.

Now, it may be said, that there are two
methods of mining. One consists in simply
digging into the earth, and getting out its
riches. In the other case the miner does not
penetrate into the mere globe of the earth,
but into the several substances of the earth's
productions. He extracts his wealth out of
the very matter itself of which this or that
thing is composed. So he gets starch out of
wheat, or sugar out of beet-root, not to
mention a multitude of other valuables
obtained from different  sources. This miner is
the chemist. By chemistry, treasures are
detected in rubbish— are derived from
apparently useless refuse and offal. For instance,
chemistry it is, that can make above cent per
cent out of a tangled mass of weeds, the
matted medley of half-decayed mosses, rushes,
grasses, and heather, constituting peat.

It had been known for some time that
there was treasure in peat; but the question
was how to get at it, unless at an expense
which would have equalled or exceeded its
worth. This problem was at last effectually
solved by Mr. Rees Reece, the scientific
coadjutor of Mr. Owen, by the invention of a
process for which he has obtained a patent,
and of the nature of which, by the favour of
Mr. Reece, a general idea will be presented to
the reader.

It must be premised that the produce of
peat consists of—sulphate of ammonia, value
twelve pounds per ton; acetate of lime,
fourteen pounds; naphtha, five shillings per gallon;
paraffine, one shilling per pound; and two
varieties of oil, at one shilling per gallon,
respectively. All these products, except the
sulphuric acid in the sulphate of ammonia,
and the lime—in the acetate of lime, are
entirely derived from the peat. The
consumption of thirty-six thousand five hundred
tons of peat in a year would, it is computed,
give an amount of goods equivalent to twenty
three thousand six hundred and twenty-five
pounds, leaving, after the deduction of the
cost of production, eleven thousand nine
hundred and eight pounds profit.

For the benefit of our non-chemical friends,
it must also be observed that the paraffine
(which is a sort of vegetable spermaceti), the
naphtha, the oils, the ammonia, and the acetic
acid, do not exist severally in the peat ready-
formed. They cannot be extracted from it,
as acid, and sugar, and fragrant essential oil
can be got out of an orange, for instance, or
tan out of oak bark, or bitter extract out of
hops. Though they come out of the peat,
they are not in it. An explanation of this
somewhat paradoxical remark may seem due
to the class of readers just now addressed.

Peat, like all other vegetable substances,
consists of the elementary principles or forms
of matter (elementary, as far as we yet know)
called carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. It also,
like all animal, and some but not all vegetable
matter, contains another such-like elementary
principle termed nitrogen. These four
elements, combined chemically in different
proportions, constitute everything that can
possibly be made or obtained from a purely
animal or vegetable substance. According to
the number and proportion in which they
combine, is the nature of every individual
compound which they form; it may be food,
it may be poison; it may serve for furniture,
for clothing, for fuel. As the letters of the
alphabet by various arrangements form a
vast number of words, so by different
combinations do these elements compose a multitude
of things.  For example, carbon, hydrogen,
and oxygen, united in the proportions of four
of the first, six of the second, and two of the
last make alcohol or spirit of wine. Twelve
of carbon, eleven of hydrogen, and eleven of
oxygen, constitute gum. Nitrogen and
oxygen united in equal proportions, become the
well-known " laughing gas;" in the proportions
of one of nitrogen to five of oxygen,
they constitute corrosive nitric acid or
aquafortis. And carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and
nitrogen, variously combined, constitute the
several substances procured from peat—
namely, paraffine, naphtha, oils, acetic acid,
and ammonia.

Simply to mix these elements in the
proportions required to generate a particular
substance, is not sufficient to make it. For
that purpose they must be blended by a union
more intimate than that of mere mechanical
mixture. They must be amalgamated by
chemical combination, so as to be intermingled
in the minutest particle of the compound.
To accomplish this is more or less difficult in