A REPORT ON SOME ALLOCTHONOUS PEAT DEPOSITS 



OF FLORIDA 1 



PART II: MORPHOLOGICAL 



Carl C. Forsaith 



I 



(WITH PLATES X AND Xl) 



Previous to the eighteenth century the question concerning the 

 origin of coal was not debatable, since it was taken for granted that 

 it had arisen as a result of special creation, or during the Noachian 

 deluge by sedimentation (14). About 100 years ago, however, the 

 increasing value of coal in the industrial world led many investiga- 

 tors to seek a scientific solution for the problem. One of them, 

 Von Beroldingen, came to the conclusion in 1778 that coal was 

 transformed peat similar to that now found in swamps. After this 

 first step in the right direction, many other students formulated 

 theories as to how the process had taken place. Out of the result- 

 ing heterogeneous mass of contentions only two tenets have sur- 

 vived, namely, the allocthonous and autocthonous modes of peat 

 and coal formation. All modern students of the problem are 

 agreed that ancient beds have been produced by an accumulation 

 of organic detritus derived from the old lycopod flora, but there 



* 



are important differences of opinion still as to the method by which 

 this has been accomplished. 



Since detailed and elaborate presentations of the drift and in 

 situ hypotheses have found a place in many publications upon the 

 subject, more than a brief review of them would be superfluous in 

 this connection (8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15). Those favoring the first 

 doctrine maintain that these accumulations of much comminuted 

 plant debris, commingled with the more resistant elements, such as 

 spores from vascular cryptograms, carbonized wood (the " mother of 

 coal"), cutinized parts of plants, etc., were deposited very slowly 

 in the bottoms of permanent and open bodies of water, similar to 



1 Contribution from the Laboratories of Plant Morphology of Harvard Uni- 



versity. 



Botanical Gazette, vol. 63] 



[190 



