ON REMAINS OF INDIGENOUS WOOD IN ORKNEY. 179 
is a freshwater lake in the island of Hoy, where trunks and branches 
of trees are found in abundance under water. I have not myself seen 
the place, but while exploring with my friend among the hills of 
Eousay, we came upon trees in a somewhat similar place, viz. in a 
mill-dam of two or three acres in extent, which, owing to the unusual 
heat of the summer, was perfectly dry, and its black surface was 
deeply fissured all over. On raising some of the cracked masses of 
peat, we found that the entire area was full of dead branches and roots 
of trees, and when we examined the sides of the dam or reservoir we 
saw many stems and branches of trees projecting horizontally from the 
peat. Most of them were about the thickness of a man's leg, but 
some were a good deal larger ; they were all much decayed, and in 
some mstances were so macerated by the water that they were reduced 
to a pulpy mass of fibres. 
A few days after this, we resolved to examine some parts of the 
coast in quest of buried trees. Accordingly we visited a bay on the 
west side of the island at low tide, where there might be from ten to 
fifteen acres of sand exposed. We at once set to work, and at the 
first thrust of the spade we struck on a tree of considerable size, which 
we traced under the sand for a distance of fourteen or fifteen feet; but 
it was too soft to lift except in sections. This tree had coarse rugged 
oark, and there was lying across it a well-marked specimen of Birch. 
Wherever we dug into the sand, we met with peat containing trees, 
except where interrupted by a ledge of rocks across the mouth of the 
bay. 
I may remark that the layer of sand covering the ligneous peat 
w *s from half a foot to a foot deep. The peat itself was about a foot 
^ck, and lay at a depth of seven or eight feet below the ordinary 
hgh-water mark. Under the peat was a layer of blue clay. 
As I have already observed, the wood, when fresh taken up, was 
extremely soft ; sections of it made by the spade were nearly the colour 
of beet-root, and the clear water oozing through the sand during our 
a remarkable proof of the 
conservative power of peat that this colouring matter should be re- 
ined for such a length of time under salt water. On the following 
a y one of our party dug up several pieces of wood with the bark on, 
' m an open exposed part of the coast, about half a mile to the east- 
ward of the bay. The trees in both places were found, not piled in 
was 
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