1913] JOHNSON—COASTAL SUBSIDENCE 467 
bog affords ‘‘incontrovertible evidence” of recent subsidence, as 
BARTLETT believes, that author is to be congratulated on having 
set forth in a clear manner the series of changes which will occur 
in a bog occupying a depression closed from the sea, on a coast 
which is really subsiding. But the particular case to which 
BARTLETT applies this principle seems to me unfortunate. In 
the first place, one must question whether the depression in which 
the bog deposit occurs is really a kettle hole. There are, to be sure, 
many kettle holes in the terminal moraine of this region; but the 
Quamquisset Harbor bog near Woods Hole appears to occupy 4 
normal stream channel in drift which is probably older than the 
moraine, the channel having been somewhat modified by later 
ice action. Like many other similar channels which I have studied, 
this one was probably open to the sea, in which case the entire 
history of the bog must have been quite different from that imagin 
by Bart.ett. ig 
Even if the depression were a kettle hole, the validity of 
BARTLETT’s argument must still depend upon three further 
assumptions, all of which seem to me open to question: (1) the 
Chamaecyparis stumps occur in place from the bottom to the top 
of the deposit; (2) coastal subsidence is the only theory competent 
to explain such a succession of stumps in place; (3) the lower as 
well as the uppermost layers of the deposit are of recent date 
(i.e., formed within the last 2000 or 3000 years). Stumps certainly 
occur in place near the surface of the bog, and extensive soun 
verified the abundance of wood found by BARTLETT ™ depth. 
But all of the cores which I was able to bring up by numerous 
tests showed the grain of the wood transverse to the core, incacating 
that I had encountered only trunks, branches, OF roots se 
horizontally. Of course, the chances of encountering ” - pe 
an upright stump are not’ great, but the fact that a days alm in 
continuous sounding failed to discover an undoubted oo 
depth shows how difficult it must be to prove that the bog eee 
largely of stumps in situ. BARTLETT presents no evidence re oe 
existence of such stumps in depth, aside from the fact oe ne 
countered buried wood. Ina number of cases I determined t 4 ae 
of the buried wood by abundant closely spaced —- te 
variably found greatly elongated pieces, evidently logs or 

