216 Canadian Record of Science. 



country was first forest-clad, after the Champlain Period, 

 until now, but, as we have remarked, only the one layer 

 of scorched twigs and flakes of wood is known, and that at 

 a period about two thousand years back. 



Another possible source of such a fire is the agency of 

 man. It is claimed by some archaeologists that the earli- 

 est men on this continent were unacquainted with tlie use 

 of fire. To men of this race we will not ascribe the cala- 

 mity which devastated the neighborhood of St. John ; but 

 men who knew not of fire were followed by those who did 

 know, and the carelessness of such a people seems sufficient 

 cause for the phenomenon in the Eockwood bog. We 

 know the care which the savage exercises to prevent the 

 spread of fire from his camping ground ; he knows the 

 destruction of game animals that would accompany the 

 sweep of a forest conflagration, which for the sake of him- 

 self and his tribe is to be avoided. The savage also is in 

 constant fear of his human enemies, and the smoke of his 

 camp-fire might reveal his presence to a prowling adver- 

 sary ; hence he makes his camp-fire as small as possible, 

 and hovers over it. The fire he makes is thus also easily 

 extinguished. The first users of fire, however, who entered 

 the Acadian forests may not have learned or felt the need 

 of these precautions, and thus have carelessly allowed a 

 fire to spread. From these various considerations we infer 

 the 'p'>'ob(^i'^^ity that the forest fire recorded in the Eock- 

 wood bog was due to the agency of man. 



Is it possible to fix within a reasonable limit the time 

 when this event occurred ? 



Only those who have sectioned and examined the trees 

 and shrubs which grow on the margin of what the Danes 

 call a Skovmose or Forest Bog can have any conception of 

 the exceedingly slow rate at which trees grow in such 

 situations. In the first place, their roots are constantly 

 buried in the cool, damp moss, and the whole plant is con- 

 stantly bathed in the moist and cliilled air tliat covers the 



