On the Pagan Monuments of the Outer Hebrides. 355 



and growth of peat ; in most books I see the observations of a 

 certain Lord Cromarty are quoted, from which it is most illo- 

 gically inferred that all peat is the result of the decay of forest 

 trees. So wide spread is this allusion, that it has been quoted 

 to me where the peat-banks were visibly and presently telling 

 their own history. Without denying that the decay of forest 

 trees in marshy ground will form peat, it requires only the 

 most superficial observation to know that wood peat occurs 

 only in the most homoeopathic quantity in, at any rate, the 

 islands of North Britain. It fortunately does occur as an 

 exceptional instance, and then in so marked a manner as to 

 leave no chance of confounding wood peat with the almost 

 universal moor peat. The bulk of the peat of the northern 

 and western islands is made up of the roots of rushes and 

 moor-grass ; the mosses help to keep it constantly wet, and 

 the tormentilla (and probably other plants) supplies tan to the 

 moss, and prevents it from decomposing into vegetable earth. 

 Such were the conditions when the peat first began to grow, 

 and such they still continue. I have looked over thousands 

 of sections of peat banks in which there was no difference in 

 the composition of the peat, from the base where grew the first 

 peat-forming plants to the surface at the present moment, 

 excepting consolidation towards the bottom from time and 

 pressure. When the surface of a peat bank has been exposed 

 for some time to wind and rain, the most solid, as well as the 

 spongier portions of the peat will be found disintegrating into 

 lamina?, which laminae probably represent the annual growth, 

 and if they were distinct enough to be counted would indicate 

 the age of the peat. From whatever cause, there was a time 

 when the general surface of the country was bare and lifeless, 

 which was followed by a growth of plants, in no way differing 

 from those that are now struggling for existence upon the 

 moor. And from what has been said before, it would seem 

 that man made his advent here at much about the same 

 geologic time. 



A common tradition of the Lewis is, that the ground was 

 once entirely covered with forest trees, and that the wood was 

 burnt down by the Northmen to deprive the aborigines of the 

 shelter that it afforded. In almost all traditions there is 



