STEVENSON— INTERRELATIONS OF THE FOSSIL FUELS. 69 



undisturbed, though at one end of the exposure it is curved upward 

 so as ahnost to reach the surface. The succession in the lower 

 division is clearly that observed in peat-filled ponds. The quartz 

 sand on which the peat rests is without lime; by increase of humic 

 matter, it passes gradually into peat with roots, leaves and fruits 

 of Potamogcton and rhizomes of Phragmites; Hypnmn fluitans 

 appears at the top of this bottom layer, which passes upward into a 

 thin layer of hard peat, mostly Hypnum fluitans accompanied by 

 Potamogefon and Phragmites, the latter increasing above. Inde- 

 terminate fragments of beetle-elytra, pollen of conifers and Betiila, 

 with spores of Hypnum are abundant. This in turn passes very 

 gradually into the third layer, 65 centimeters thick, very sandy. 

 brittle peat, containing abundance of twigs and roots of Finns syl- 

 z'cstris with leaves, seeds and wood of Betula verrucosa, leaves of 

 willow and wood of Corylns; there is much compressed wood, prob- 

 ably willow, some wood of fir and juniper was seen along with rhi- 

 zomes of Nuphar, Typha, Potamogcton, etc. The highest layer is 

 moss-peat, about a meter and a half thick, mostly Hypnum hamifolius 

 with very little wood and rare Sphagnum. 



The conditions are similar to those recorded in many recent peat 

 deposits. But during deposition of the overlying sand, as shown 

 by Weber's profile, the lower beds sufl:ered much from erosion at 

 one side, where the upper surface is jagged. The whole mass, in- 

 cluding both divisions and the sand parting, has been subjected to 

 severe lateral pressure, producing disruption of the upper division, 

 upturning of both, so that the old peat deposit is almost united to 

 the recent bog covering the present surface. 



]\Iolengraaff®^ reports that, in Borneo on the JMandai river, he 

 saw thin layers of peat alternating with clay loam, the peat so com- 

 pressed as to resemble brown coal. On the same river he saw thin 

 beds of coal, evidently of recent origin ; it is of poor quality, is lami- 

 nated, lustrous, and has cleavage in two directions, breaking into 

 parallelopipedons. 



The deposits of Schieferkohle show similar features but on a 

 much more extensive scale. Heer®'' examined the Schieferkohle at 



88 G. A. F. Molengraafif, " Borneo," etc., Eng. ed., p. 43. 



89 O. Heer, " Die Schieferkohle von Utznach und Diirnten," Zurich, 1858, 



