[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.