508 PAL-EONTOLOGJCAL REPORT OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



has just the se me appearance, or at least, by a cross-section, would 

 present the same front as the transverse soundings of a shallow sheet 

 of water. 



Fi g .t 



•Fig. 1. Approximate section across the Dismal Swatnp — a. Deposits of peat. a'. Depo- 

 sits oi' trees at the bottom of Drummond's lake. b. Surface of lake Drummond. c. White 

 clay of the bottom, d. Hills of sand. e. Sand below the marshes. 



As for the vegetation itself, and its action on the formation of the 

 peat, let any tourist try to find his way directly across the swamp, from 

 some point on the canal to Drummond's lake and he will understand 

 at once all about . the mystery of the heaping of vegetable matter. 

 Wading at least knee deep in water, or in a black soft mud, or sinking 

 at every step deeper and deeper in the hillocks of green mosses, where 

 he thought to find a dry and solid footing for a minute's rest, he has 

 literally to cut a path through a wall of canes, of reeds, and of shrubs. 

 The only place -where he finds firm stepping and a clear space, is on 

 the roots of the bald cypress, which raise themselves above the water 

 around each tree, like the scalped skulls of a tribe of Indians; or, 

 perhaps, on the prostrated trunk of a huge magnolia tree, covered with 

 mosses, and slowly sinking in its muddy grave, not to decay, but to be 

 embalmed and preserved like an Egyptian mummy. Every year the 

 mingled mass of vegetation, the mosses, the canes, the reeds, the 

 trunks, branches and leaves of the trees and shrubs, are heaped and 

 deposited on the surface of the bog, to be, by and by, transformed into 

 combustible matter, by the process of slow decomposition. 



Some of the lakes now open on the surface of the marshes have cer- 

 tainly been hidden, formerly, by a thick coat of vegetation. Drum- 

 mond's lake is only fifteen feet deep, and its bottom is strewn with 

 the remains of an overthrown forest, which has probably sunk by its 

 own weight. Phenomena like this are frequent in the large peat-bogs 

 of northern Europe, especially in Sweden, Denmark— -even in the 

 mountains of Switzerland. The green carpet of vegetation which, by 



•The figure is drawn without reference to any exact proportions ; in depth it represents 

 about one foot in the 8th part of an inch) iu length one inch would represent more than two 

 miles. 



