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I have distilled several tons of peat and a few
thousand tons of cannel, which is probably a fossil
peat. Both yield a brown tar, the colouring basis
of which is an asphaltic pitch, a thick lump of
which appears black, and just of such blackness as
the deep water of the lakes formed by the
drainage of peat bogs ; while a thin transparent slice
of this pitch transmits the same light-brown colour
as a few feet thickness of the lake water.
The reader may easily try an illustrative
experiment by dissolving a little pitch in turpentine. A
thin layer of this solution has the same colour as
the streams that issue from peat bogs; a deep
basinful is black, like the contents of the lake
basins that are tilled by the peat-bog rivers.
I should add that most of the pitches or tarry
hydrocarbons are slightly soluble or diffusible in
water, i. e. just sufficiently to give a brown tinge
to the water. This colour and that of the peat tar
itself is due to the presence of immeasurably small
particles of carbon. These are separated by the
refiner when he takes out from such dingy tar the
beautiful pearly paraffin now so largely used for
candles.
The last stage of our drive, after a descent from
the wild pass, is along a nearly level road
following the bank of this dark lake. I have little doubt
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