and when the above holes were dug, that is, after an interval of 3 or 4 years, the cinders formed a line of black spots round the holes, at a depth of 1 inch beneath the surface, parallel to and above the white layer of lime.  Over another part of this field cinders had been strewed, only about half a year before, and these either still lay on the surface or were entangled among the roots of the grasses; and I here saw the commencement of the burying process, for worm-castings had been heaped on several of the smaller fragments.  After an interval of 43/4 years this field was re-examined, and now the two layers of lime and cinders were found almost everywhere at a greater depth than before by nearly 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,