1 82 THE WORLDS LUMBER ROOM. 



with dead or dying trunks, in every stage of decompo- 

 sition. 



But Trinidad is little more than 10 from the equator, 

 and in that fierce heat fallen timber melts away in a few 

 months, or even days, and its gases, being rapidly absorbed 

 by the luxuriant vegetation around, enter at once upon a fresh 

 career. 



In temperate regions, on the other hand, the fallen leaves 

 accumulate year after year, and so quickly that, although 

 the first stage is rapidly passed through, and leaves, twigs, 

 and sticks, are soon partially decayed, a fresh fall speedily 

 follows, and as this to a certain extent excludes the air, the 

 process is checked. It does not cease, but it proceeds more 

 slowly ; and whereas in Trinidad the soil, wherever visible, 

 is just a yellow loam, undarkened by leaf-mould, in an 

 English wood there is often a foot or two of elastic brown, 

 peaty soil, and in the Himalayan forests this leaf- and 

 timber-mould often accumulates to the depth of fifteen or 

 twenty feet. 



In the Falkland Isles, where the climate is damp and 

 cool, almost every kind of plant, even coarse grass, is con- 

 verted into peat, which is sometimes twelve feet thick, and 

 so compact that it will hardly burn. 



It is in the cypress swamps of America, however, that 

 the formation of peat proceeds on the largest scale. 

 The Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia, which extends over 

 1,000 square miles, is covered with many kinds of shrubs and 

 trees such as the white cedar or " cypress" which like a 

 watery situation, as well as with water-plants without number, 

 and a multitude of ferns, reeds, c., of all sizes up to 



