miry, so as to cause the mixture to be like thick tar in appearance.

"In a part of Renfrewshire, what the country people call 'grule peats' are formed out of this mixture, by being simply lifted in portions between the two hands, and laid in order on the turf, to be baked by the heat of the sun. In this state peat mosses, like other liquids or semi-liquids, 'seek their levels,' and flow from higher on to lower beds, as the formation of the surface allows. Hence a deep hollow is filled, not only by the growth of the peat-producing plants on the surface of the water or marsh immediately above, but from the flow of peat from higher to lower ground. This causes the surface of vast regions of peat to be quite flat, while the bottoms on which they lie are very far from being So. It causes also the thicknesses of the same mass of peat to be extremely unequal.

"It accounts, too, for beds of peat passing down the sloping beach, and getting beneath the sea, where no peat-producing vegetation ever grows.

"It seems nearly incredible that a man of Sir Charles Lyell's scientific standing should allow himself to reason as if he were profoundly ignorant of all these obvious conditions of peat formation.

"For example, when speaking of an accumulation of peat, of which he makes a very great deal, he says: 'The workmen who cut peat, or dredge it up from the bottom of swamps or ponds, declare that in the course of their lives none of the hollows which they have formed, or caused by extracting peat, have ever been refilled, even to a small extent. They deny, therefore,

that the peat grows. This, as M. Boucher de Perthes observes, is a mistake, but it implies that the increase in one generation is not very appreciable by the unscientific."-Antiquity of Man, p. 110.

...

"Only let us note this," says Dr. Kirk, as a specimen of the ‘advanced knowledge' and mode of reasoning by which the Bible is to be removed from the belief and confidence of man. The workmen were right, and they properly used the language, 'peat does not grow. The 'unscientific' happened, in this case, to have retained their common sense, but the 'scientific' were wrong-the 'educated' had allowed their wits to go wool-gathering! And yet these are the gentlemen we are invited to follow when we leave the Bible, in order to enjoy the privilege of advanced views'!"-The Age of Man, pp. 67—70.

It is but fair to the memory of Sir C. Lyell to state that he candidly acknowledged his error to Professor Kirk.

The absurd conclusions at which many have but too readily arrived, owing to hasty and preconceived judgment, are clearly illustrated by Dr. Duns, F.R.S.E., in a paper read by him before the Royal Society of Edinburgh on the 17th March, 1852, and four years before Dr. Kirk wrote the "The Age of Man." It goes far to show the need of caution and

modesty in advancing theories about peat accumulations.

The following extract is an account of a landslip that took place in Scotland:

About 7 A.M. on Monday, August 12, 1861, a young man about to cross the Auchingray moss, Lanarkshire, heard all around him a noise like that of the sea :

"Looking up the moss to the west, he was surprised and alarmed to notice, as he said, 'the whole bog sinking and rising in a wavy way for some minutes, and then breaking up with a loud crash.’

Dr. Duns visited the place a few day later, and made the following observations:

"The area set in motion may be roughly estimated as about 300 feet broad at B B, and 1320 in length from A on the west to A d on the east. In its course it met with elevations at CC. The most formidable of these lies on the north side. This gave the flow a direction to the south, and led to the deposit of the tongue marked D, which is about 160 feet long by 110 feet broad, and is made up of masses of peat from I foot to 4 feet thick.

"When the soil set in motion by the slip reached the extreme south of the tongue marked D, it again turned north, and, bending north by east, it met a plantation of Scotch firs, which stretches from the highway down to the stream which drains the moss.

"A few of the trees have been carried several yards forward, and now stand in an upright position, as if they had not been moved from their place. Some have been violently thrust top downwards into the underlying clay. Others have been placed horizontally on the edge of arrested lumps of peat. The flow at this point covered part of another cornfield. A little to the north of A d, it filled a whinstone (trap) quarry 15 feet deep at F. At the narrow neck E E, the depth of the flow was more than 12 feet. Turning this neck, it met the Limeridge railway-a mineral traffic branch of the Slamannan line-swept part of it away, covered a large portion of it, and did much damage to a third cornfield lying north-east of the line.

"Turning from the Limeridge railway, the flow filled a small natural basin, marked GG. Many of the lumps left here were of great size. One measured 7 feet by 4 feet, and was nearly 6 feet deep. At H, on the east of this basin, great quantities of flow were carried into Binniehill Burn. As the stream at this point is confined by steep banks, the floated peat must have been 6 feet deep, judging from the traces it left on both sides.

"At I, it entered the haugh described (by a young lad) 6 as wide as Clyde at Broomielaw bridge.'

"The next place favourable to the flow spreading, occurs in the haugh (flat ground near a river) opposite Binniehill House, which stretches down in the direction of the Avon, on the east of Slamannan village. Here it covered the highway at two points, and left in many places about 2 feet of peat on the top of soil which had been under cultivation.