SOME NOTES ON "MOORLOG."
55
a fen-deposit of purely organic origin, with no trace of inorganic
mud. It is very hard when dry, and in it are scattered a certain
number of fairly well-preserved seeds, principally belonging to
the bog-bean. Other recognisable plant remains are not abun-
dant. They consist of fragments of birch-wood and bark, pieces
of the scalariform tissue and sporangia of a fern, and moss, and,
curiously enough, of groups of stamens with well-preserved
pollen grains, though the whole of the rest of the plant to which
they belonged has decayed.
"The material is exceptionally tough, and is very difficult to
disintegrate. In order to remove the structureless humus which
composed the greater part of the peat, we found it necessary
to break it into thin flakes and boil it in a strong soda solution
for three or four days. Afterwards the material was passed
through a sieve, the fine flocculent parts being washed away by
a stream of water, and the undecomposed plant remains being
left behind in a state for examination. These remains were
mixed with a large amount of shreds of cuticle, &c., but
recognisable leaves were not found.
"The general result of our examination is to suggest that the
deposit comes from the middle of some vast fen, so far from
rising land that all terriginous material has been strained out of
the peaty water, which probably ran, or rather stood, clear and
brown. The vegetation, as far as we have yet seen, consists
exclusively of swamp species, with no admixture of edible fruits,
usually so widely distributed by birds, and no wind-borne
Composites. The sea was probably some distance away, as
there is no sign of brackish-water plants, or even of plants which
usually occur within reach of an occasional tide. The climate
to which the plants point, though scarcely Arctic, may be
described as sub-Arctic. The white-birch is the only tree, unless
one or two badly preserved fragments may belong to a sallow;
the alder is absent. All the plants have a high northern range,
and one, the dwarf Arctic-birch, is never found at sea-level
(except very rarely in the Baltic provinces of Germany) in
latitudes so far south as the Dogger Bank.
"The following is a list of the species which were found:—
First Sample ("This End;").
Ranunculus lingua, Linn,
Crucifer ?