NOW I am mentioning the peat, I beg leave to assure your Lordship, that tho’ some persons have asserted, that after the peat has been cut out, it grows again after some years; yet this is not true of the peat found here, none of the peat-pits, which were formerly dug out, and have lately been opened again, affording the least reason to justify such an opinion; but, on the contrary, the marks of the long spade (with which they cut out the peat) are still plainly visible all along the sides of the pits, quite down to the bottom; and are now as fresh as if made but yesterday, tho’ cut above fifty years ago: which shews also, that our peat is of too firm a texture to be pressed together, and to give way, so as to fill again the empty pits: which perhaps may be the case in some of the mosses, where the pits are found after some years to be filled up again. The town of Newbury lies north and south, in the shape of a Y, cross a valley; which valley runs east and west, and is here about a mile broad, the river Kennet running along the middle of it. The peat is found in the middle of this valley, on each side of the river, extending in all from between a quarter of a mile to about half a mile in breadth and in length, along the valley, about nine miles westward, and about seven eastward; and I believe much further tho’ not yet discovered, and perhaps with some intermissions. The ground it is found in is meadow land; and consists chiefly of a whitish kind of earth: under this lies what they call _clob_, being a peat-earth, compounded of clay, of a small quantity of earth, and some true peat: it is from four to eighteen inches thick; and where the earth above it is but thin, it is sometimes full of the roots of plants, that grow on the surface of the ground: and if the meadow also be moorish, the sedge and flags will shoot their roots quite thro’ it into the true peat, which lies directly under this clob. The top of the true peat is found at various depths, from one foot to eight feet below the surface of the ground; and the depth or thickness of this peat is also very different, from one foot to eight or nine feet, the ground below it being very uneven, and generally a gravel. My friend Mr. Osgood has dug two feet into this gravel, to see if any peat lay below it, but could not find any. The truest and best peat has very little (if any) earth in it; but is a composition of wood, branches, twigs, leaves, and roots of trees, with grass, straw, plants, and weeds; and lying continually in water makes it soft and easy to be cut thro’ with a sharp peat-spade. The colour is of a blackish brown; and if it be chewed between the teeth it is soft, and has no gritty matter in it, which the clob has. It is indeed of a different consistence in different places, some being softer, and some firmer and harder; which may perhaps arise from the different sorts of trees it is composed of.