214 Canadian Bccord of Science. 



be liable to be swept by forest fires, while the water-soal^ed 

 bog would preserve the trees which were growing on it as 

 well as the scorched fragments resting upon its surface. 

 The antiseptic properties of the peat would help to 

 preserve the charred fragments as well as the remains of 

 the vegetation into which they had fallen, and thus bring 

 them down to our time comparatively unchanged. 



These burnt twigs are in a layer about two feet below 

 the present surface of the bog. On this layer they are 

 plentiful, but scattered examples are found about half an 

 inch or an inch lower down. If we allow for the possi- 

 bility of animals traversing the bog, we shall understand 

 that it would be possible for some of the fragments of 

 charcoal to be forced a short way into the yielding moss 

 of its surface by their feet, and thus these fragments that 

 are more deeply buried may have originally belonged to 

 the one principal layer. 



We have found this charcoal layer at the three points 

 in the bog where sections of the bog deposit were taken, 

 and always at about the same distance from the surface. 



In 1880 and 1881 the author investigated the fresh 

 water deposits of Lawlor's Lake, in the Torryburn valley, 

 five miles N.E. of St. John ; and incidentally in connection 

 therewith, examined two dry basins in the same valley, 

 one at the east and west ends of the lake. In the latter 

 basin the section of the Recent deposit showed fragments 

 of charcoal at a depth of two feet and a half. That this 

 charcoal layer may have been cotemporary with that at 

 the Rockwood bog seems probable, notwithstanding that 

 it is buried to a greater depth, for through the Torryburn 

 basin runs a small brook which, although connected origi- 

 nally with Lawlor's Lake by an underground passage 

 through limestone rock, may be considered to have carried 

 more sediment than could come to the Rockwood bog, 

 which lies in the col of a small valley, from which the 

 water flows in two directions ; the Rockwood deposit at 



