The Bogs of the Chathams

Bruce Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 2494, 18 July 1893, Page 1

The Bogs of the Chathams

— ' ■■» ' "— '■■ ■ loan abßtraict' of a paper on the Chatham Isl'and.B^by "Mix H. O. Forbes, late of.Christchurch,' we find the f6l--lowiog remarks on the great peak beds of those islands :— Since DieJJenbach's visit, now half a century ago, considerable chan^ee have taken place in the outward aspect of the islands. The more or iess extensive forests that .grew on many parts of the land have to a great extent disappeared to make place for sjieep pastures or cultivated lands. The greater part of the islands are owned by European runholders, and stocked with sheep and a few cattle* The .whole surface oi the islands, especially Wharekauri and Eangiauria, the two larger, is covered with a, bed of peat in places over 40 feet depth— deeper in the northern arm than in the southern — traversable in safety only by those ; acquainted with the country ; for to the inexperienced eye there seems in moßt places no difference in the surface which can carry with safety both horse and rider, and that on which the lightest-footed pedestrian cannot venture without being engulfed. The surface of some of the larger and wetter depressions in the ground is covered with a brilliant colored carpet of luxuriant mosses, emitting an aromatic fragrance, apread out in arti less undesigned parterres, rich with commingled, green, yellow, and purple j and endless shades of these warn the traveller of the existence of dangerous bogs beneath, and brighten miles of treeless moorland, which, but for these floating gardens, would be uninviting and uninteresting. In many places all over the island this great peat moBS is on fire, and has for years been smouldering underground, or burning in the expoaed Jape pf the great pitß wjiich have now been burnt out, Dr J) ieffenbach mentions their existen ce at his visit in 1850, and states that the combustion had -begun before 1834, and may. indeed, be traced to. a much earlier period, ftfld in consequence the soil in the neighborhood is gradually sinking. These fires, as far as I could gather/ had been burning Jn one part or other of -the •: island, ever since Dieffenbacli's vjsit. -Whether the soilhas bee'b lit accideitf tall for on .jiur- ; pose, < or; ha* flontonebusly ,t;aken fire tbroushthe/d^composition/of the peat a-ttdl lignite,;i I » coftld :; ' hot nscer-