§ 26. 



PEAT BOGS. 65 



island, This human skull was dug up at a great depth in 

 the blue silt of Beeding Levels ; it was inclosed, together 

 with the other bones of the skeleton, in a coffin of oak, 

 which was evidently of high antiquity, being formed of 

 four rude planks, or rather hewn trunks of trees, held 

 together by oaken pegs. The skull is of a dark bluish- 

 brown colour, like the bones of deer and horse found in 

 similar deposits, an appearance attributable to an impreg- 

 nation of iron ; when first dug up, the interstices of the 

 bones were filled with blue phosphate of iron. The state 

 of the teeth is remarkable, for the crowns of the incisors 

 are worn down almost flat, although the individual must 

 have been in the prime of life ; a fact which seems to indi- 

 cate that grain, and other hard substances, constituted his 

 customary food. 



26. Peat bogs. — Before proceeding to the next subject, 

 I will advert to those extensive accumulations of vegetable 

 matter called Peat Bogs. These are morasses, covered 

 with successive layers or beds of mosses, reeds, equiseta, 

 rushes, and other plants that affect a marshy soil ; and in 

 particular of a kind of moss, the sphagnum palustre, which 

 frequently forms a large proportion of the entire mass. 

 The beds of peat are annually augmented by the peculiar 

 mode of increase of the moss, which throws up a succession 

 of shoots to the surface, while the parent plants decay, and 

 add a new layer of soil. 



The peat bogs of Ireland are of great extent : one of the 

 mosses on the banks of the Shannon is between two and 

 three miles in breadth, and fifty in length. Mr. Lyell remarks, 

 that most of the peat-mosses of the North of Europe occupy 



such portions of the tree as were to be removed, and scooping them 

 out with stone instruments : no doubt this canoe belongs to the same 

 period as the flint and stone instruments called celts, which are found 

 in the tumuli on the South Downs. 



