HKB
vestiges of the ancient forests described by that general, along the line of the great Roman way in Britain, be discovered, except in the ruined trunks of trees in peat.
De Luc ascertained that the very sites of the aboriginal forests of Hercinia, Semana, Ardennes, and several others, are now occupied by mosses and fens; and a great part of these changes have, with much probability, been attributed to the strict orders given by Severus, and other emperors, to destroy all the wood in the conquered provinces. Several of the British forests, however, which are now mosses, were cut at different periods, by order of the English parliament, because they harbored wolves or outlaws. Thus the Welsh woods were cut and burned, in the reign of Edward I.; as were many of those in Ireland, by Henry II., to prevent the natives from harboring in them, and harassing his troops.
It is curious to reflect that considerable tracts have, by these accidents, been permanently sterilized, and that, during a period when civilization has been making great progress, large areas in Europe have, by human agency, been rendered less capable of administering to the wants of man. Rennie observes,[1010] with truth, that in those regions alone which the Roman eagle never reached--in the remote circles of the German empire, in Poland and Prussia, and still more in Norway, Sweden, and the vast empire of Russia--can we see what Europe was before it yielded to the power of Rome. Desolation now reigns where stately forests of pine and oak once flourished, such as might now have supplied all the navies of Europe with timber.
Sources of bog iron-ore.--At the bottom of peat-mosses there is sometimes found a cake, or "pan," as it is termed, of oxide of iron, and the frequency of bog iron-ore is familiar to the mineralogist. The oak, which is so often dyed black in peat, owes its color to the same metal. From what source the iron is derived has often been a subject of discussion, until the discoveries of Ehrenberg seem at length to have removed the difficulty. He had observed in the marshes about Berlin a substance of a deep ochre yellow passing into red, which covered the bottom of the ditches, and which, where it had become dry after the evaporation of the water, appeared exactly like oxide of iron. But under the microscope it was found to consist of slender articulated threads or plates, partly siliceous and partly ferruginous, of what he considered an animalcule, Gaillonella ferruginea, but which most naturalists now regard as a plant.[1011] There can be little doubt, therefore, that bog iron-ore consists of an aggregate of millions of these organic bodies invisible to the naked eye.[1012]
Preservation of animal substances in peat.--One interesting circumstance attending the history of peat mosses is the high state of preservation of animal substances buried in them for periods of many years. In June, 1747, the body of a woman was found six feet deep, in a peat-moor in the Isle of Axholm, in Lincolnshire. The antique sandals on her feet afforded evidence of her having been buried there for many ages: yet her nails, hair, and skin, are described as having shown hardly any marks of decay. On the estate of the Earl of Moira, in Ireland, a human body was dug up, a foot deep in gravel, covered with eleven feet of moss; the body was completely clothed and the garments seemed all to be made of hair. Before the use of wool was known in that country the clothing of the inhabitants was made of hair, so that it would appear that this body had been buried at that early period; yet it was fresh and unimpaired.[1013] In the Philosophical Transactions we find an example recorded of the bodies of two persons having been buried in moist peat, in Derbyshire, in 1674, about a yard deep, which were examined twenty-eight years and nine months afterwards; "the color of their skin was fair and natural, their flesh soft as that of persons newly dead."[1014]