22 Geikie's Buried Forests and Peat Mosses of Scotland. 



the trees and the rapid increase of the mo&s to climatal changes re- 

 sulting out of the gradual separation of the islands from the continent. 



He then enters upon an interesting description of the succession 

 of different kinds of trees in the peat, showing that over England 

 and Scotland the Oak and Pine occur on the same horizon contempo- 

 raneously ; above them a stratum of Birch and Hazel, and if there be a 

 third layer its prevailing wood is Alder, while in Danish Peat Mosses 

 the Pine lies at the bottom, and is succeeded in ascendiag order by 

 the Oak and Beech. 



The very existence of the Peat-mosses is taken to indicate, during 

 the continental period, an atmosphere " moist from excess of vegeta- 

 tion," the moisture being greatly increased during the following 

 insular condition of the country ; and the more extensive occurrence 

 of peat on the west side of Britain, where the rain-fall is greatest, 

 agreeing with this view. 



The occurrence of the bones of the great Irish deer and other 

 large animals in old lake hollows, long since filled up with peat, is 

 accounted for by supposing the water to have been covered by a 

 crust of this substance, through which they sank, as might have been 

 the case if these lakes were but partially overgrown, and the animals 

 obliged to resort to them for water when remaining sources were 

 unavailable : in consequence, perhaps, of heavy snows. Others have 

 supposed these local accumulations to have resulted from habits of 

 the animals, which deer of the present day still possess ; and it seems 

 too much to suppose that the crowding together of their remains was 

 entirely caused by their accidentally sinking into natural pit-falls. 



Eegarding the natural decay of th^ trees, Mr. Geikie says, "The 

 stems, invested by the wet mosses in their upward growth, gradually 

 rotted away, and were thus ready to yield to the first strong wind : so 

 the destruction proceeded, the mosses ever widening their area, creep- 

 ing outwards and downwards from the misty hills, and inwards from 

 the storm- swept coasts." 



From different portions of the paper, it may be gathered that the 

 -author chiefly attributes the death of these forests to natural decay, 

 accounting for the parallel directions in which the trunks lie by 

 supposing them to have grown inclined from the wind, and the uni- 

 formity in the height of their stumps, which is observed, to result 

 from the Moss having crept around them in the manner described in 

 the last quotation. 



An acquaintance with the Irish Peat-bogs favors the idea that 

 these old trees came naturally to their life's end, layer over 

 layer of upright tree-stumps with spreading roots and much inter- 

 vening peat occurs, and the wind cannot always have been the agent 

 which prostrated the stems, for trees so acted upon, often break high 

 up, or their roots are torn from much better holding ground than 

 yielding peat. Whether the mosses cut the trees across at an even 

 height as suggested, or what did this ; — whether they perished from 

 water having risen around them, or the growth of the peat upwards 

 preserved the bases until the stems decaying downwards reached its 

 level, remains an interesting question, which may or may not be 



