Mabch 1, 1892.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



43 



of England, nearly all the mainland of Scotland, the 

 Hebrides, the Orkneys, and the Shetlands, Ireland, _and 

 Denmark, the shores of both sides of the EngHsh Channel, 

 Normandy, Brittany, the Channel Islands, and Holland, 

 and the shores of Norway, all bear evidence to the presence 

 of these primeval forests ; and what is more, to the suc- 

 cessive existence of forests, each in its order Unng above 

 the buried remains of the earlier ones. 



The following table will show the order of succession in 

 the diflerent species of trees in .some of the places where 

 this has been observed, the braces representing the co- 

 existence of the trees : — 



In some Irish bogs fir, oak, and yew, and rarely elm, 

 have been foimd. 



What is the cause of the disappearance of these ancient 

 forests one after the other? To this question various 

 answers have been proposed. 



The Romans, it has been suggested, in their inroads, cut 

 ways through the forests and laid waste the land. But, 

 wide as was the spread of the wings of the Roman eagle, 

 the phenomenon in question is of far wider extension. 

 They never conquered Denmark, or Norway, or Ireland, or 

 the islands of Scotland : hi Scotland, and even m England, 

 their operations could never have covered the whole 

 country ; and as regards some of our Peat Mosses, we 

 know that they must hjive existed long before the Roman 

 invasion ; for at least on the borders of Sedgmoor we have 

 traces of their using peat for fuel as it is used there at the 

 present day. 



Still humbler agents have been invoked, in the suppo- 

 sition that the beaver and other rodents were the authors 

 of the destruction of the forests. So far as I can judge, 

 the cause suggested seems inadequate to the effect. 



Again, changes in climate have been suggested. But, 

 although there may be some evidence from the succession 

 of the trees of a gradual amelioration in the climate, we 

 know of no evidence of changes of so sudden and dolent a 

 character as would destroy the existing forests over large 

 areas. Moreover, with few exceptions, the trees of the 

 destroyed forests are such as are now found wild, or wUl 

 grow easily in the spots where they lie buried. 



The overthrow by storms has, again, been suggested as 

 the cause of this wholesale destruction ; and the fact that 

 in some of the peat bogs of the west of Scotland the trees 

 that have fallen lie to the north or north-east, and in some 

 of those in Holland to the south-east, in the direction of 

 the prevailing winds in those countries respectively, affords 

 some reason to believe that wind has gi\-en thie coup dc 

 ijnh-e to the dying trees, and determined the direction of 



their fall. But it is much more likely that the work 

 of the wind should be confined to this final overthrow 

 of the decaying trees than that successive forests in full 

 strength should have been swept from the face of vast 

 tracts of Europe by the agency of wind alone. Moreover, 

 in some cases the trunks as well as the bases and roots of 

 the trees are found standing or buried in the bogs. 



Allowing that some or all of these agencies may have 

 had their part in the destruction of the forests, I believe 

 that the growth of Sphagnum has been the greatest factor 

 in the work of destruction. " To the chiUing effect of the 

 wet bog Mosses in their upward growth must be attri- 

 buted," says Mr. .lames Geikie, " the 

 overthrow of by far the greater portion 

 of the buried timber in our peat bogs." 

 In a- letter written by Lord Cromarty, 

 in 1710, on Peat Mosses, and published 

 in the twenty-seventh volume of the 

 Philoaophical Trauaai'tioiis, we get a 

 carious account of the swallowing up 

 of a forest by a peat bog. In 1651 

 the Earl saw in the parish of Loch- 

 burn (or, as Walker says, at Lock Broom, 

 in West Ross), a plain with fir-trees 

 standing on it, all without bark, and 

 dead. Of the cause of their death he 

 says nothing. Fifteen years after he 

 found the whole place a Peat Moss 

 or " fog," the trees swallowed up, and 

 the moss so deep that in attempting 

 to walk on it he sank in it up to his 

 armpits, 

 process of destruction is still found to be 

 mountain districts in the Harz and in 



- V — o , says Graf zu 



bolms Laubach in his Fossil llottiii;/, " is everywhere at 

 strife with the peat bogs, which, left to themselves, are 

 always growing, and by the advance of their margins eat 

 their way uito the adjoining forests, and make irregular 

 gaps in them." 



{To be continued.) 



This same 

 going on in the 

 Thuringia. " Forestry in these highlands 



T 



as she 

 be 



THE LIFE OF AN ANT.-I. 



By E. A. Butler. 



I HE way in which an Ant's nest originates is involved 

 m some obscurity, and it is quite possible that 

 the method is not always the same. Sir .John 

 Lubbock has shown that a nest may exist for 

 years without the presence of a female, or " queen " 

 would be called, and, on the other hand, if such 

 present, the number need not, as m the case of 

 bees, be restricted to one. Though a nest which has once 

 been estabhshed may continue to exist, at least for a time, 

 without the intervention of any females, still it is most 

 probable that for the origination of a neic nest we must 

 look to the initiative taken by a queen. The marriao-e- 

 flight then being over, the yoimg bride, or queen as she 

 may now be called, even though she has no subjects to 

 rule over, has apparently several courses open to her. She 

 might, for example, return to the nest which produced her, 

 or to some other already existent community, and con- 

 tribute her share towards renewing or enlarging what is 

 already well established. Or again, she might, if of a 

 more independent turn of mind, get some stray workers to 

 help her in founding a new colony of wliich she would be 

 both the mother and ruler ; or, thirdly, there is open to 

 her, supposing her powers equal to the task, the possible 



