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573 In Siberia, a village which stood on a turf-moor was, on account of its marshy situation, removed to another place; and that the remains might be more easily destroyed, they were set on fire. The flames having communicated to the soil, which was inflammable, occasioned great devastation; and when Gmelin was there, it had been continually burning for half a year. See Gmelin’s Reisen durch Russland, vol. i. p. 22.

574 The rustics, in despair, when they found the fire was unquenchable either by rain or by the river-water which they poured over it, threw in heaps of stones, beat down the flames issuing from the interstices with clubs, and as the fire became subdued flung on their clothes, which being made of skins and wetted, eventually extinguished the conflagration. See Tacitus, An. xiii. 57.

575 Hist. Nat. lib. xvi. c. 1.

576 “The foresters, who had then got a new employment, that of turf-digging, which had been before unknown, or at least very uncommon, gave as a present to the monastery of Mariengard, in 1215, several turf-bogs in and near Backefeen.”—Chronique van Vriesland door P. Winsemium, 1622, p. 158. That monastery was situated at the distance of two miles from Leeuwaarden.

In Kronijck der Kronijcken, door S. de Vries, printed at Amsterdam in 1688, the following passage occurs, vol. v. p. 553:—“About this time (1221) the digging of turf was first practised, which in some measure made amends for the damage occasioned by the sea-water, and by which several acquired great riches.”

Some Dutch writers make turf-digging to be of much higher antiquity, and in support of this opinion quote an old chronicle in rhyme, in which mention is made of a donation by Gerolf count of Friesland; but I am not acquainted with the antiquity of that chronicle, and of the letter of donation there is only a Flemish translation. See Berkhey, Nat. Hist. v. Hol. vol. ii. p. 552.

577 The use of turf was first made known in France in the year 1621, by Charles de Lamberville, advocate of the parliament of Paris, who resided some time in Holland, to which he had been sent by the king on public business. See Anciens Mineralogistes, par Gobet, i. p. 302.

578 Voyages de Monconys. Lyons, 1666, 2 vol. 4to, ii. p. 129. C’est lui (Erasme) qui a donné l’invention de la tourbe, qu’on brusle au lieu du charbon. See also Misson’s Travels.

579 Scaligerana, ii. p. 243; Je ne sçache aucun ancien, qui fasse mention de tourbes.

580 Voyages, vol. iii.

581 Leges Salicæ, ed. Eccardi, p. 42.

582 Lindenbrogii Codex Legum Antiquarum. Franc. 1613.

583 Trotz Jus Agrarium Fœd. Belgii, ii. p. 643.

584 Historia Episcopatuum Fœderati Belgii. Lugd. Bat. 1719, 2 vols. fol. i. p. 130.

585 Wiarda Altfrisisches Wörterbuch; where it is conjectured, not without probability, that the name Finland is thence derived.—Du Cange, Glossarium, under the word Venna.

586 The words are, “Morum dedit dictus comes dictæ ecclesiæ ad turfas fodiendas.”

587 Britonis Philippidos lib. ii. v. 144.

588 These lives are in Matthæi Veteris Ævi Analecta, Hag. 1738, v. p. 247.

589 I find quoted for this conjecture the Dissertation, Eelking de Belgis sæculo xii. in Germaniam advenis, Gottingæ, 1770, pp. 162, 164. But nothing further is found there than that the right of digging turf was in all probability confirmed to the colonists. This important Dissertation was written by Professor Wundt of Heidelberg.

590 This information may be found in Crymogæa, sive rerum Islandicarum libri iii. per Arngrimum Jonam Islandum. Hamburgi (1609), 4to, p. 50. “Torf cujus inventor perhibetur in Orcadibus dux quidam Orcadensis, Einarus Raugnvaldi ducis Norvegici de Maere filius, tempore pulcricomi Norveg. regis, qui idcirco Torffeinarus dictus est.”

591 “In Holland there is turf, and in England there are coals, neither of which are good for burning either in apartments or in melting-houses. I have, however, discovered a method of burning both these to good coals, so that they shall not only produce no smoke or bad smell, but yield a heat as strong for melting metals as that of wood, and throw out such flames that a foot of coal shall make a flame ten feet long. This I have demonstrated at the Hague with turf, and proved here in England with coals, in the presence of Mr. Boyle, by experiments made at Windsor on a large scale. It deserves to be remarked on this occasion, that as the Swedes procure their tar from fir-wood, I have procured tar from coals, which is in everything equal to the Swedish, and even superior to it for some purposes. I have tried it both on timber and ropes, and it has been found excellent. The king himself ordered a proof of it to be made in his presence. This is a thing of very great importance to the English, and the coals after the tar has been extracted from them are better for use than before.”—Narrische Weisheit und weise Narrheit. Frankfurt, 1683, 12mo, p. 91. Boyle seems to speak of this invention in The Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, London, 1774, fol. i. p. 515. The burning of coals in order to procure from them rock-oil, which was used particularly by the leather manufacturers, and which on that account could not be exported, was much practised in England. It appears, however, that something of the like kind was attempted before Becher’s time; for in the year 1627, John Hacket and Octav. Strada obtained a patent for their invention of rendering coals as useful as wood for fuel in houses without hurting anything by their smoke. See Anderson’s History of Commerce.

592 The practice of charring turf appears however to be much older, if it be true that charred turf was employed about the year 1560 at the Freiberg smelting-houses, though that undertaking was not attended with success.—See Hoy’s Anleitung zu einer bessern Benutzung des Torfs. Altenburg, 1781.

593 Von Carlowitz, Sylvicultura Œconomica. Leipzig, 1713, fol. p. 430, where an account is given of the first experiment.

594 In Hamburgischen Berichten, p. 93.

595 Ib. p. 170.