rly
1 inch, we will say by 3/4 of an inch. Therefore, mould to an average
thickness of .22 of an inch had been annually brought up by the worms,
and had been spread over the surface of this field.

Coal-cinders had been strewed over another field, at a date which
could not be positively ascertained, so thickly that they formed
(October, 1837) a layer, 1 inch in thickness at a depth of about
3 inches from the surface. The layer was so continuous that the
overlying dark vegetable mould was connected with the sub-soil of
red clay only by the roots of the grasses; and when these were broken,
the mould and the red clay fell apart. In a third field, on which
coal-cinders and burnt marl had been strewed several times at unknown
dates, holes were dug in 1842; and a layer of cinders could be traced
at a depth of 31/2 inches, beneath which at a depth of 91/2 inches from
the surface there was a line of cinders together with burnt marl. On
the sides of one hole there were two layers of cinders, at 2 and
31/2 inches beneath the surface; and below them at a depth in parts of 91/2,
and in other parts of 101/2 inches there were fragments of burnt marl.
In a fourth field two layers of lime, one above the other could be
distinctly traced, and beneath them a layer of cinders and burnt marl
at a depth of from 10 to 12 inches below the surface.

A piece of waste land was enclosed, drained, ploughed, harrowed, and
thickly covered in the year 1822 with burnt marl and cinders. It was
sowed with grass seeds, and now supports a tolerably good but coarse
pasture. Holes were dug in this field in 1837, or 15 years after its
reclamation, and we see in the accompanying diagram (Fig. 1) reduced
to half of the natural scale, that the turf was 1/2 inch thick, beneath
which there was a layer of vegetable mould 21/2 inches thick. This layer
did not contain fragments of any kind; but beneath it there was a
layer of mould, 11/2 inch in thickness, full of fragments of burnt marl,
conspicuous from their red color, one of which near the bottom was an
inch in length; and other fragments of coal-cinders together with a
few white quartz pebbles. Beneath this layer and at a depth of
41/2 inches from the surface, the original black, peaty, sandy soil with a
few quartz pebbles was encountered. Here, therefore, the fragments of
burnt marl and cinders had been covered in the course of 15 years by a
layer of fine vegetable mould, only 21/2 inches in thickness, excludi