a kind of turf used for fuel in several countries. See Chemistry, no 516.

There are very considerable differences in peat, proceeding perhaps wholly from different mineral admixtures; for the substance of the peat is plainly of vegetable origin, whence it is found to answer for the smelting of ores, and the reduction of metallic calces, nearly in the same manner as the coals of wood. Some sorts yield in burning a very disagreeable smell, which extends to a great distance; whilst others are inoffensive. Some burn into grey or white, and others into red ferruginous ashes. The ashes yield, on elixation, a small quantity of alkaline salt, with sometimes one and sometimes another salt of the neutral kind.

The smoke of peat does not preserve or harden flesh like that of wood; and the foot, into which it condenses, is more disposed to liquefy in moist weather. On distilling peat in close vessels, there arises a clear infusible phlegm, an acid liquor, which is succeeded by an alkaline one, and a dark coloured oil. The oil has a very pungent taste; and an empyreumatic smell, less fetid than that of animal substances, more so than that of mineral bitumens: it congeals in the cold into a pitchy mass, which liquefies in a small heat: it readily catches fire from a candle, but burns less vehemently than other oils, and immediately goes out upon removing the external flame: it dissolves almost totally in rectified spirit of wine into a dark brownish red liquor.