258 



NA TURE 



[January 12, 1905 



becomes drier, and Eriophorum is replaced by a narrow 

 band of Calluna moor. Peat is absent on the slope below, 

 and the ground is tenanted by Nardus grass heath, yielding 

 to a wetter type of grass heath dominated by Molinia and 

 Eriophorum. Such a succession of terraces of Eriophorum 

 bog, Calluna moor, Nardus grass heath, and Molinia- 

 Eriophorum moor can be distinguished from a distance of 

 many miles in the later months of the year, when the 

 bleached Nardus stands out in vivid contrast to the sombre 

 hued Calluna and Eriophorum associations. 



The lower slopes of the alpine moorlands are generally 

 covered by heather associations, which yield to pasture and 

 grass heath as the summits are approached. The drier hills 

 are covered by an association consisting of Calluna, Rubtis 

 Chamaemorus , Vaccinium Myrtilliis, and T'. Viiis-Idaea ; the 

 wetter hills are characterised by a much greater develop- 

 ment of Eriophorum vaginaium and E. angustifolium. 



The summits of the hills are generally tenanted by a few 

 stunted members of the lower associations ; in some cases, 

 however, the vegetation only forms patches separated by 

 bare stony soil or peat. Part of the summit plateau of 

 Cross Fell at 2900 feet is entirely tenanted by Racomitrium 

 lanuginostim, which forms low mounds of peat frequently 

 broken by patches of stones and bare soil, a formation bear- 

 ing a close resemblance to a moss-tundra of northern 

 latitudes. 



A considerable portion of the higher ground is covered 

 with a deposit of peat varying in thickness from a few 

 inches to nearly 20 feet. The peat appears to be undergoing 

 rapid denudation at the present day — in many places large 

 areas are quite unoccupied by vegetation, and exhibit the 

 channelled and wasted appearance characteristic of peat- 

 hags. These features can be seen on all the peat covered 

 hills of the Pennines, the Cheviots, and the Scottish southern 

 uplands, being particularly well marked on the Moorfoot Hills 

 and in the Tweedsmuir district, and again appear in most of 

 the peat districts of the Highlands. Many of the lowland 

 mosses, particularly those bordering on the Solway Firth 

 and along the west coast, exhibit no such denudation. How 

 far the denudation of the mosses in the hill districts is due 

 to drainage operations it is difficult to say, but the fact 

 that the peat is generally wasted away quite as much on 

 the more remote moorlands where artificial drainage has 

 scarcely been carried on at all as on the drained areas lends 

 strong support to the view that denudation is due to climatic 

 changes. This is further supported by a detailed examin- 

 ation of the deeper peat beds, which frequently show many 

 alternating beds of wet and dry condition plants. The 

 peat beds on the Cross Fell chain are evidently of very 

 ancient origin, as the author ' has found the remains of an 

 Arctic flora at the base consisting of Arctic willows, and 

 the peat above contains the remains of extensive woodlands 

 up to an altitude of 2700 feet. The area in which woodland 

 remains in the peat have been observed is about 140 square 

 miles, whilst only 11 square miles are forest clad at the 

 present time. 



Gunnar Andersson ^ has shown that the destruction of 

 some of the woodlands buried in the peat of Sweden has been 

 caused by artificial retention of drainage water and a 

 gradual exhaustion of food supply in the upper layers of 

 the peat, thus bringing about a gradual swing from wood- 

 land conditions to moss conditions, and again to heath 

 conditions. These causes may have produced alternations of 

 woodland, moss, and heath in some of our low-lving mosses, 

 but an examination by the author of the peat lying between 

 the woodland beds suggests that the destruction of much of 

 the buried forest growth has been due, not to local alter- 

 ations in drainage and failure of food supply, but to climatic 

 changes acting over very long periods of time. 



Francis J. Lewis. 



r//£: ABNORMAL TIDES OF JANUARY 7. 

 A N abnormally high tide was experienced down the east 

 coast of Britain on Saturday last, January 7, extensive 

 areas being flooded and considerable destruction wrought. 

 At 6 p.m. on Friday, January 6, as shown in the Meteor- 

 ological Office reports, a very deep cyclonic system 

 appeared over the upper part of the North Sea, the baro- 

 1 British Association Reports, 1904, Section K. 

 "- '• Svenska Vaxlvarltiens Hisioria." (Stockholm.) 



KO. 1837, VOL. 71] 



meter at Sumburgh Head having fallen quickly to 287 

 inches. There was a steep gradient for north-westerly 

 winds, and in the course of the night a more or less severe 

 gale from that quarter was experienced over the North 

 Sea, and as the south-going tide from the Pentland Firth was 

 then on the flood, both its velocity and its volume were 

 greatly increased, so that it reached the Thames estuary 

 some hours ahead of its time, and was several feet above the 

 calculated height. While the low barometer of Friday night 

 may have caused the tide level in the far north to have been 

 raised about a foot, the very rapid increase of pressure to 

 2983 inches at 8 a.m. on Saturday at Sumburgh Head, a 

 rise of 1-13 inches in fourteen hours, may have done some- 

 thing towards swelling the volume of the tide further south. 

 Except for the hard gale, the conditions were very similar 

 to those which prevailed with the great tide experienced 

 on the southern and south-western coasts at the beginning 

 of February, 1904 (N.^TURE, vol. Ixix. p. 348). 



Much damage was done all along the coast from Scar- 

 borough to the Thames. .\t the former place the pier was 

 entirely washed away, and at Hull, Goole, Boston, Yar- 

 mouth and Lowestoft, and other places the low-lying parts 

 of the towns were flooded. The damage was not due to 

 unusual violence of the wind alone, but to the combined 

 effects of wind and tidal waves. From the returns of the 

 Meteorological Office it appears that the force of the gale 

 from Wick to Yarmouth varied from 7 to 10 on the Beau- 

 fort scale. The tide was the third after the new moon, 

 and laid down in the tide tables as less than a full spring 

 tide. At Boston 28 feet 5 inches was recorded on the gauge 

 at the dock, or 116-47 f^^t above Ordnance Datum, 

 being 4 feet 8 inches above the height expected. The follow- 

 ing tide in the evening was 21 feet 11 inches, or i foot 

 10 inches below the tide table height, the difference in the 

 two tides being 6 feet 6 inches. The highest tide recorded 

 there previously was in 1S83, when the tide rose to 29 feet,, 

 the great record tide of iSio rising to 29 feet 4 inches. 

 Notwithstanding the great height to which the tide rose, it 

 ceased ffowing nearly half an hour before its proper time. 



The tidal wave had fortunately somewhat expended its 

 energy before reaching the Thames, but the water was in 

 a very disturbed condition. By mid-day the water at Putney 

 Bridge had risen as high as it should have been at full! 

 tide, which was not due until 3.45. At 1.30 it was a foot 

 higher than any spring tide in recent years. Shortly after 

 this the water began to recede, and continued to do so 

 for half an hour. Then the water again rose, and at 3.15 

 the ebb again set in. The water in the Thames and Med- 

 way estuaries was kept from receding bv the gale, and 

 on the morning of Saturday it was 8 feet above its norma? 

 height. At 9 a.m., when the tide had still 4J hours to ftow, 

 it was running up the Medway 6 feet above the anticipated 

 height at this stage. By ii o'clock the level of high water 

 was reached, but during the remaining 2^ hours the flow 

 was very slight compared with the earlier stages, and 

 although the water rose from 2 to 3 feet above the normal 

 height, there was no overflow or breaches in the banks. 



T//E ELECTRO-THERMIC MANUFACTURE 

 OF IRON AND STEEL} 

 'X'HIS report is of great interest and importance to iron 

 and steel metallurgists, and the appointment of the 

 commission which has drawn it up suggests that Canada 

 has an enterprise in fostering metallurgical knowledge 

 which the Government of the mother country might well 

 imitate for the advantage of British metallurgical indus- 

 tries. The English metallurgist attached to the commission 

 was Mr. F. W. Harbord. 



Three processes were experimentally examined : — (i) the 

 Kjellin process at Gysinge, Sweden (this is an inductioni 

 process not involving the use of electrodes) ; (2) the H^roult 

 process at La Praz, France (this is a resistance method 

 involving the use of electrodes) ; (3) the Keller process (also 

 a resistance method in which electrodes are employed). 



On p. 15 of the report Dr. Eugene Haanel, the chief 



' ' ' Report of the Commission appointed by Mr. Clifft.rd Sifton, Minister of 

 the Interior, Ottawa, Canada, to Investigate the Different Electio-thermic; 

 Processes for the Smelting of Iron Ores and the Making of Steel in Europe." 

 (Ottawa; Department of Interior.) 



