266 DR JAMES GEIKIE ON 
submerged to have been cut down by the waves at their present level. I 
should infer that, if the islands are not now sinking, they have within recent 
times experienced some degree of depression. 
VIII. Peat AnD BurIED TREES. 
The low grounds and gentler slopes in the islands are often coated with 
thick turf or peat, which is extensively dug for fuel. It varies in thickness 
from two to six or eight feet; and here and there, in what appear to be the 
bottoms of old lakes, it may possibly be thicker. So far as my observations 
went, the Sphagnacew appeared to form a smaller proportion of the peat than 
is the case in Scotland. At the bottom, roots and twigs of brushwood are 
frequently present, and in some places they are quite abundant. The largest 
pieces we saw were not more than an inch thick, but we were informed by 
the people, who were digging the turf in Osterde, Stromée, Sandie, Suderée, 
and other islands that sticks as thick as one’s wrist were common; and at 
Eide in Osterée, the merchant there told me he had seen them taken from the 
peat near Eide Vatn as thick as his leg. I could not determine the species 
of wood with any certainty, but the pieces I saw were probably juniper and 
birch. No brushwood now exists anywhere in the islands, except in the 
private gardens and enclosures at Thorshavn, yet the evidence supplied by the 
peat makes it certain that the lower parts of the Ferdes must formerly have 
been pretty well clothed with brushwood and small trees. This was of course 
in post-glacial times, when the islands were probably of considerably greater 
extent, and enjoyed a climate more suited than the present to the growth of 
arboreal vegetation.” 
* JT have elsewhere endeavoured to show that the Ferde Islands were connected with Scotland in 
post-glacial times. See Prehistoric Europe, p. 518. 
