RELATION OF MARL PONDS AND PEAT BOGS 



W. W. ROWLEE 



Cornell University 



The filled-in lakes and ponds of western New York are of two 

 distinct types, the bogs often called peat or cranberry bogs, and the 

 marl ponds. These ponds are alike in that both occupy depressions in 

 the terrain and both are filled with water from springs at their bottom 

 or near their shores. They also resemble each other in that both are 

 subject to filling in with material produced by organic life in and 

 around them. They differ from each other however in the character 

 of the water they contain, in the flora which inhabits the water and 

 the adjacent shore and the method by which they are filled in. 



The glaciation of the country left a terrain with potholes and other 

 depressions particularly favorable to peat-bog formation. 



The material with which peat bogs are filled consists mainly of 

 sphagnum and heath-like plants always much disintegrated and 

 accumulated principally around the shores. Peat bogs have long 

 been a subject of interest. Mitchill in 1798 studied them and set 

 forth their general structural characteristics in a paragraph of his 

 report as commissioner for the Agricultural Society of New York, 

 as follows: "As the peat is formed, layer over layer, in the course of 

 successive vegetations, it can be easily explained how trunks of trees, 

 fossil wood, and bodies and bones of animals came to be buried so 

 deep below the present surface; because at the same time when the 

 trees fell, and animals died, in the places where they are now found, 

 they were upon the top, and, by the perpetual growth of the plants 

 around, they have in many places, become covered to a great depth." 

 He was particularly impressed with the bones of extinct species of 

 animals found in bogs in Orange County and other parts of eastern 

 New York. Dachnowski in 191 2 gives a very comprehensive dis- 

 cussion and classification of the distribution of species in the several 

 areas on the surface of a bog. 



The flora now found on the peat bogs corresponds to the flora of 

 colder climates. The flora of the marl ponds corresponds more closely 

 to that of the seashore in the same or more southerly latitudes. Marl 

 ponds are filled in not only near the shores but in all parts of the pond 

 where the water is not too deep. The water in the marl ponds is 



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