ause the fallen
leaves and dead plants of the preceding autumn to decompose, instead of
adding their contributions to the peaty mass. On the surface of the wide
morass lie innumerable trunks of large and tall trees, while thousands
of others, blown down by the winds, are buried at various depths in the
black mire below. They remind the geologist of the prostrate position of
large stems of Sigillaria and Lepidodendron, converted into coal in
ancient carboniferous rocks.

_Bones of herbivorous quadrupeds in peat._--The antlers of large and
full-grown stags are amongst the most common and conspicuous remains of
animals in peat. They are not horns which have been shed; for portions
of the skull are found attached, proving that the whole animal perished.
Bones of the ox, hog, horse, sheep, and other herbivorous animals, also
occur. M. Morren has discovered in the peat of Flanders the bones of
otters and beavers[1021]; but no remains have been met with belonging to
those extinct quadrupeds, of which the living congeners inhabit warmer
latitudes, such as the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, hyaena, and
tiger, though these are so common in superficial deposits of silt, mud,
sand, or stalactite, in various districts throughout Great Britain.
Their absence seems to imply that they had ceased to live before the
atmosphere of this part of the world acquired that cold and humid
character which favors the growth of peat.

_Remains of ships, &c., in peat mosses._--From the facts before
mentioned, that mosses occasionally burst, and descend in a fluid state
to lower levels, it will readily be seen that lakes and arms of the sea
may occasionally become the receptacles of drift peat. Of this,
accordingly, there are numerous examples; and hence the alternations of
clay and sand with different deposits of peat so frequent on some
coasts, as on those of the Baltic and German Ocean. We are informed by
Deguer, that remains of ships, nautical instruments, and oars, have been
found in many of the Dutch mosses; and Gerard, in his History of the
Valley of the Somme, mentions that in the lowest tier of that moss was
found a boat loaded with bricks, proving that these mosses were at one
period navigable lakes and arms of the sea, as were also many mosses on
the coast of Picardy, Zealand, and Friesland, from which soda and salt
are procured.[1022] The canoes, stone hatchets, and stone arrow-heads
found in peat in different parts of Great Britain