608 STEVENSON— FORMATION OF COAL BEDS. [November 3, 



the same page Haldeman notes that it is a remarkable fact, although 

 very common, that successive layers of trees or stumps, in erect 

 position and furnished with their roots, are found at distinctly dif- 

 ferent levels, at small vertical distance from each other. 



Grand' Eury,^-^ noting that the plants, active in peat-making, are 

 not the same in all cases, maintains that a distinction must be made 

 between peat, properly so-called, and peat of the iiiarais. The 

 former is supraaquatic, covers high plateaus and is formed chiefly 

 by Sphaynimi, with some other water-loving mosses. Unaccom- 

 panied by these, other plants in similar conditions give only soil. 

 Such peat is rarely transformed into a compact charhon and it is 

 obscurely stratified. The peat of marais is formed on low grounds, 

 along the borders of rivers, lakes or the sea, often in extensive areas. 

 In such places, Arundo grows rapidly along with Scirpus palustris 

 and reeds as well as with Hypnnm, Nymphoca and other semi-aquatic 

 plants. This peat may be divided by sandy deposits and at the 

 bottom one finds a muddy peat, almost without structure. It occurs 

 in Holland and on the shores of the Baltic, the marshes being of 

 great extent in both regions. Fossil peat occurs at Utznach in 

 Switzerland. 



Still different are the peats of wooded swamps and swampy 

 forests. In depressed areas, where the forests have been killed by 

 swamp plants, the peat, formed of herbaceous plants and prostrate 

 stems, accumulates rapidly. He refers to the wood at Kiogge near 

 Copenhagen, which the Danish naturalists had regarded as due to 

 transport ; but Lesquereux had shown that it is in place, the trees 

 having been overturned by the wind — a condition observed in the 

 present forests near by. The mass is composed almost wholly of 

 birch and the upper part consists of empty barks entangled in a mud 

 or half liquid paste, coming from decomposition of the wood. 



Grand' Eury examined in the Ural a peat of swamp-forest origin, 

 a mass of herbaceous plants and debris of trees. Stumps rooted in 

 the mass were seen at two horizons in the upper part and others 

 were scattered below. Many stems and branches lie prostrate and, 



"' C. Grand' Eury, " Memoire stir la formation de la liouille," Ann. des 

 Mines, 8nie Ser., Tome I., 1882, pp. 197-202. 



206 



