68 OEIGIN OF PEAT BOGS. 



was of such a nature that no one could be lowered and 

 pulled up by means of a rope : at length the faint sounds 

 ceased his flesh was carried away by eagles and his 

 bones are still whitening on the rock. 



" Now, Lightfoot, you are once more a free agent, and 

 may get forward in the attitude most convenient to you ; 

 and pray talk as much as you please : ' minus via IcedatS 

 We have no chance of seeing deer for some time, all this 

 ground being disturbed." 



" What ! are we to go through that confounded peat 

 bog again ? " 



" Do not disparage it, for it abounds in grouse ; and 

 and you see how useful its black channels proved in con- 

 cealing us. I think its present state better for a sports- 

 man than its original one ; for, doubtless, it was formerly 

 covered with trees ; and the change has been brought 

 about by their fall, and the stagnation of water caused 

 by their trunks and branches obstructing the free drain- 

 age of the atmospheric waters, and thus giving rise, as 

 you see, to a marsh : this, Mr. Lyell has asserted of peat 

 mosses generally; and he mentions also, particularly, 

 ' that in Mar Forest, large trunks of Scotch fir, which 

 had fallen from age and decay, were soon immured in 

 peat, formed partly out of their perishing leaves and 

 branches, and in part from the growth of other plants.' 

 In the forest of Atholl, we find every where in these 

 bogs roots of trees fixed to the subsoil, so that no doubt 

 can exist of their having grown on the spot. My men 

 dig some of them up annually, and they make excellent 

 firewood, burning with great brilliancy, owing to the 

 quantity of turpentine they contain. The eminent au- 



