The Development of Peat Lands

Abstract

great scientific as well as practical interest. Reclamation of such land, and use of the peat itself, is a matter of importance throughout northern Europe, and for this reason, if no other, it is highly desirable to know something of the processes involved in peat accumulation, and of the factors controlling it. Since the study of peat lands entails dealing with a mass of complex relations between organisms and their environments, our understanding of them is necessarily fragmentary and far from complete. Nevertheless, if a brief outline is presented of one type of vegetation and soil sequence which occurs in many parts of northern Britain, the scene may be set for a consideration of the way in which variations in the major environmental factors-climate, geology, relief, and organisms-can modify this type of succession over long periods of time, in different parts of the world. First, however, it