What Is Peat?

Peat is not coal. It might be called a step in the process of mak­ing coal.

Coal itself is made of the remains of ancient trees and plants that grew in swampy jungles in warm, moist climates hundreds of mil­lions of years ago. These trees and plants fell into the swamp waters. Bacteria changed some parts of the wood into gases that escaped, leav­ing behind a black mixture, mostly carbon. In time the pressure from mud and sand above squeezed out most of the liquid, leaving behind a pasty mass that slowly hardened into coal.

This process, from beginning to end, took thousands of years. But the first stages of that process of making coal can actually be seen going on today. In the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia and North Carolina and in thousands of swamps of the northern states of the U.S.A. and Canada, peat is being made.

In these swamps, plants are gradually decaying in a process that leaves most of the carbon in place. A few years of such action pro­duces a brown, matted mass of twigs, branches, and leaves. This is known as peat. When the water is drained from such a swamp, the peat can be cut into blocks, set out to dry, and then burned as fuel.

Drying is important because peat in the ground may be three- fourths water. In Ireland, where peat is plentiful and the higher forms of coal are expensive, more than half of the farms depend entirely on peat for fuel.

The other forms of coal are developments from peat. If peat is allowed to remain where it forms, it gradually changes into lignite, or brown coal. It is more solid than coal, but still soft enough to crumble when shipped long distances.

The next form of coal is bituminous, or soft coal. It is formed from lignite by chemical change and pressure in the earth over thou­sands of years. This is the most important member of the coal family. It burns easily and is abundant.

If bituminous coal remains in the earth and is subjected to enough pressure, it gradually changes to hard coal or anthracite. It burns with very little smoke and for a longer time than bituminous coal.