The discovery, that many kinds of earth, when dried, might be employed
as fuel, may have easily been occasioned by an accident in some place
destitute of wood. A spark falling fortuitously on a turf-moor during
a dry summer often sets it on fire, and the conflagration it occasions
generally lasts so long that it cannot escape notice[573]. Of the
earth taking fire in this manner there are many instances to be found
in the ancients. One of the most remarkable is that mentioned by
Tacitus, who relates, that not long after the building of the city
of Cologne, the neighbouring land took fire, and burned with such
violence that the corn, villages, and every production of the fields
were destroyed by the flames, which advanced even to the walls of the
city[574]. This remarkable passage is not to be understood as alluding
to a volcanic eruption, but to a morass which had been set on fire. In
the duchy of Berg and around Cologne there are very extensive morasses,
from which turf is dug up for fuel, and which undoubtedly serve to
confirm this idea.
That the use of turf was well known in the earliest periods in the
greater part of Lower Saxony, and throughout the Netherlands, is
fully proved by Pliny’s account of the Chauci, who inhabited that
part of Germany which at present comprehends the duchies of Bremen
and Verden, the counties of Oldenburg, Delmenhorst, Diepholz, Huy and
East Friesland. Pliny says expressly, that the Chauci pressed together
with their hands a kind of peat earth, which they dried by the wind
rather than by the sun, and which they used not only for cooking their
victuals, but also for warming their bodies[575]. I explain also by
turf a short passage of Antigonus Carystius, quoted from Phanias, in
which it is said that a morass in Thessaly having become dry, took fire
and burned.
The account therefore given in some Dutch chronicles, that turf and the
manner of preparing it were first found out about the year 1215, and
that about 1222 it had become common, is certainly false[576]. This
information may be applicable to certain lands and districts, and
correct as to the introduction of this kind of fuel in those parts; for
the use of it was not extended far till a late period; and even yet
turf is neither employed nor known in many places which possess it,
even though they are destitute of wood[577]. Some improvement in the
manner of preparing turf may have also been considered as the invention
of this fuel, which is undoubtedly of greater antiquity. What induced
Monconys to ascribe the invention of turf to Erasmus, or who first
propagated that error, I can as little conjecture as Misson[578].
Scaliger has erred[579] no less than Monconys, whose account was
doubted by Uffenbach[580]. According to the first-mentioned author,
turf had been used in the Netherlands only about three hundred years
before his time, and he adds that he did not know that this kind of
fuel had ever been mentioned by the ancients.
Those however are mistaken also who believe that it is to be found
in the Salic laws and those of the Alemanni. It is true that the
word _turpha_ occurs in the former, and that Wendelin and others
have declared it to mean turf; but the assertion of Eccard, that it
signifies a village, called in German _Dorf_[581], is more probable.
Still less can the doubtful word _curfodi_, in the laws of the
Alemanni, be supposed to allude to this substance, though we are
assured by Lindenbrog that he found in a manuscript, in its stead, the
term _zurb_[582]. It is also not credible that turf should be employed
at that period, as wood was everywhere superabundant.
The oldest certain account of turf in the middle ages with which I am
at present acquainted, is that pointed out by Trotz[583], who says that
it occurs in a letter of donation of the year 1113. He has given the
words in the Dutch language, as if they had stood so in the original.
But he has quoted his authority in so careless a manner, that I have
not been able to conjecture what kind of book he meant. I have however
found a Latin copy of the letter of donation in a work pointed out
to me by Professor Reuss[584]. An abbot Ludolph, in the year 1113,
permitted a nunnery near Utrecht to dig _cespites_ for its own use in
a part of his _venæ_, but at the same time he retained the property of
these _venæ_. Now there can be no doubt that _vena_ signifies a turf
bog, and _cespites_ turf. The former is the same word as _Fenne_ or
_Venne_, which occurs in the old Frisic and the present _Veen_[585] of
the Dutch. The nuns also could make no other use of the turf but employ
it as fuel. This passage however proves nothing; though Trotz says that
a great trade was carried on with turf in the twelfth century, and that
the abbot wished to interdict the nuns from using it.
It is worthy of remark that the words _turba_, _turbo_, _turbæ ad
focum_, _turfa_, occur for turf, in the years 1190, 1191, 1201 and
1210, as is proved by the instances quoted by Du Cange. _Turbaria_ for
a turf-moor is found in Matthew Paris, who died in 1259; _Turbagium_,
in a diploma of Philip the Fair in the year 1308, signifies the right
of digging turf, as _turbare_ does to dig up turf. The word _mor_
also is found in a document of the year 1246, quoted by Du Cange;
who however has not introduced it into his dictionary[586]. It seems
to be the same as _mariscus_ and _marescus_. Brito, who lived about
1223, describing the productions of Flanders, says, “Arida gleba foco
siccis incisa marescis[587].” That the last of these words signifies a
turf-bog is proved by a passage of Lambert, who lived at Ardres about
the year 1200: “Quendam similiter mariscum, ut aiunt, proprium perfodi
fecit, et in turbas dissecari.”
The assertion of Winsem and others, that the practice of digging
turf first became common after the year 1215, is undoubtedly founded
on information obtained from Sibrand Leo’s Vitæ Abbatum Horti Divæ
Virginis seu Mariengard[588]; but this writer died in 1588, and can
by no means be adduced as an evidence: he even says himself that
turf-digging in 1212 was a new occupation.
The conjecture that the Netherlanders, who in the twelfth century
established themselves as colonists in some districts of Germany, and
particularly Lower Saxony, first made known there the preparation and
use of this kind of fuel is improbable, or at any rate not proved[589].
It is improbable, because the Chauci, the oldest inhabitants of that
country, burnt turf before that period.
It is related by the Icelanders that Einar, Count or Earl of Orkney
or of the Orkney islands, discovered turf there, and on that account
was named Torffeinar. He was the son of Raugnwauld, or Rognwald, earl
of Mören, Sued and Nordmör in Norway, in the time of the celebrated
Norwegian King Harold, commonly called Haarfager or Pulcricomus, on
account of his beautiful hair[590]. He must have lived therefore in
the middle of the ninth century; but on so trifling a subject I shall
enter no further into the labyrinth of the Icelandic Saga.
In Sweden turf was first made known at a very modern period by some
navigators in the district of Halland; and in the time of Charles XI.
much trouble was taken to introduce it as fuel. In 1672 the town of
Laholm obtained an exemption from duty for the turf dug up in the lands
belonging to it.
In later times turf began to be burned to charcoal, sometimes in
kilns, and sometimes in furnaces built for that purpose, by which this
advantage is obtained, that it kindles sooner, burns with less air, and
forms a more moderate and uniform fire without much smoke. This method
of reducing turf to charcoal, which is still practised in some parts
of Bohemia, Silesia, and Upper Saxony, was, it appears, proposed about
the year 1669, by the well-known John Joachim Becher, who recommended
at that time a method of depriving coals of their sulphur by burning
them, and the use of naphtha or rock-oil procured from them by that
process[591]. The burning of turf to coal seems to have been first made
known in Germany by Hans Charles von Carlowitz, chamber-counsellor,
and principal surveyor of the mines of the electorate of Saxony[592].
To save wood and promote the benefit of the mines he sought for turf;
and having discovered it, he then endeavoured to find out some method
of rendering it fit to be employed in the melting-houses, and this
was the reducing to coal, which, as he himself says[593], he first
attempted in kilns at Scheibenberg, in the year 1708. At the Brocken
the first experiments were made in 1744, with turf which had been dug
up several years. This was announced by F. C. Brückman in 1745[594], as
a new invention; but an anonymous writer stated[595] soon after, that
this charring had been long used in the district of Hadeln, and that
the smiths there employed no other kind of coals for their work.
[In 1842 a patent was taken out by Mr. Williams for compressing peat
into a dense mass, resembling coals. It is said to be superior to
coal in its properties of producing heat by combustion, forming an
excellent charcoal or coke. It is asserted that this charcoal is much
more combustible than that of wood, and very useful in the manufacture
of fire-works. The process is as follows:--Immediately after being dug
it is triturated under revolving edge-wheels faced with iron plates
perforated all over the surface, and is forced by the pressure through
these apertures, till it becomes a kind of pap, which is freed from the
greater part of its moisture by a hydraulic press. It is then dried,
and converted into coke in the same manner as pit-coal. The factitious
coal of Mr. Williams is made by incorporating pitch or rosin, melted in
a caldron with as much peat-charcoal ground to powder as will form a
tough doughy mass, which is then moulded into bricks.]