steuart's planter's guide. 289 



in her chill embrace, the once fair districts of north- 

 ern Scotland. The fogs and more steady low tem- 

 perature of insular situation, which now prevail, not 

 only induce that chemical change in dead and dy- 

 ing vegetables which forms peat-moss, and preserves 

 this moss from decay, but also being too cool for the 

 vegetation of the graminese, &c. tend only to promote 

 the general spread of sphagni and other moss-gene- 

 rating plants, which, again, are almost the only 

 plants that can vegetate on acrid moss-flow, as they 

 draw little or nothing from below, and are nourished 

 directly by the moisture and other fluids of the at- 

 mosphere. 



Our eastern shore affords sufficient proof that the 

 ocean has both receded and advanced recently — at 

 least recently in comparison with the great changes 

 which have occurred to modify the surface of the 

 earth. In proof of this recession, we have the up- 

 per carses, or deltas, visible in every firth or creek 

 where a river falls into the German Sea. These 

 carses, on the firths in Ross-shire, at Dun near 

 Montrose, around the upper end of the Firths of 

 Tay and Forth, are all of nearly equal level, about 

 20 feet above the highest stream-tides. The gra- 

 vel bar at Montrose is considerably above the pre- 

 sent sea-level. A number of eaves exist on this 



T 



