PEAT FOR FUEL.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—In your interesting article on the high price of colds, you speak rather doubtfully of finding any substitute of a cheap and practicable kind for coal. What would you say to peats ?—an article found in immense strata in the West and North of Scotland, and even in parts of England. Unlike coals, they are capable of being easily worked, and if necessary made into briquettes, are antiseptic, and in bronchial diseases the fumes from them are not so noxious as in the case of coals.
This much is to be said for peats,—that if they could be utilised in place of coals, the working of them would give employment to thousands of men ; and if Irish bogs could also be made use of in the same way, we might find a way out of Irish grievances, different from Parnellism.—I am, Sir, Sze., [We suspect that a general demand for peat—which we admit is capital house fuel—would in two years raise its price beyond reach. The accessible stock is not really large.—En. Spectator.]
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