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APPENDIX. 



Mr. James Geikie, in his very interesting worh "The Great Ice 

 Age" Chap, xxiii, gives a full account of Peat Mosses and 

 submerged Forests, from which the following extracts are made. 



One of the most noteworthy points in connection with the 

 peat-mosses remains to be mentioned. They are frequently 

 found to pass below the level of the sea. This peculiarity has 

 been observed in many places all round the coasts. It is 

 needless to describe these submerged forests in detail, but I 

 may note a few locaUties where they have been seen. On the 

 coast of the Bay of Skaill (Orkney) an acre of peat moss, con- 

 taining roots and trunks of fir trees, was exposed during a storm 

 by the washing away of the superincumbent sand. Again, on 

 the north side of the Island of Sanday (one of the Orkneys) 

 decayed roots of trees are seen at ebb tide upon the beach at 

 Otterwick Bay, and the Hke occurs in the bay of Sandwiek, 

 another of the same group of islands. 



In the sea at Lybster, and under the sands of Riess in 

 Caithness, my colleague, Mr. B. N. Peach, tells me he has seen 

 sunk peat with large trees. 



A number of years ago, while some improvements were being 

 made in the Harbour of Aberdeen, a good many trunks of Oak 

 of large size were dug up, and their position showed that they 

 had not been brought down by the river, but had grown where 

 they were found. In the parish of Bellielvie, in the same county, 

 peat moss occurs under the sea-level, and is covered to a depth 

 of 10 or 12 feet with sand. Oak-remains appear in this peat, 

 and from the fact that during storms large cubical blocks of 

 peat are often cast on shore, it seems probable that the peat moss 

 and its buried forest extend for some distance out into the Bay. 



In the Carse of Gowrie it is well known that trunks of oak, 

 willow, fir, hazel, and other trees lie buried at depths varying 

 from 20 to 27 and even 40 feet. All these are really at or below 

 the sea-level, for the surface of the carse does not rise more than 

 20 to 30 feet above that datum line. 



