Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 70.djvu/567

Rh in the beach, and it is reasonable to infer that wherever such conditions prevail, similar phenomena of combustion may occur," and he therefore finds that the explanation of the Kittery phenomenon is not only satisfactory in that case, but that it affords a satisfactory solution of the way in which fires originated in Cretaceous time.

In 1900, Dr. G. F. Matthew of St. John, N. B., described a bog in the vicinity of that city which gave evidence of the occurrence of a forest fire about two thousand years ago, this estimate of age being based upon the age of growing trees, the thickness of individual layers of peat, and the relative density of different layers, together with the known rate of formation as determined by the age of trees in situ.

Evidences of ancient forest fires are to be met with in other bogs to which Dr. Matthews directs attention, and it is altogether probable that they had a similar origin. The agency of lightning is excluded as not tenable because of the thorough knowledge of the bogs in question for a period of from 6,000 to 9,000 years, and from the evidence at hand the conclusion is reached that they must have been due to the early inhabitants of the district who knew nothing as to precautions against the spread of fire, and who would have been but little likely to have adopted them had they been known.

Upon a careful examination of the account given by Dr. Matthews, it would seem that the situation of the burned wood within the area of a bog is a distinct argument against man as the active agent, because if he had been the cause of the fires, evidence of them should be found in the more elevated areas about the shores of the bog, but of this the account gives no information and we are left to infer that only the bog itself was involved. Furthermore, the features of deposition and the general character of the various strata, point with some force to the idea that we have here another example of a fire due to the spontaneous combustion of gases generated in the inferior strata where decomposition was evidently active.

Apart from its more strictly scientific aspects, the occurrence of such a conflagration as that which developed at Kittery Point gives a most singularly striking manifestation of a phenomenon which, as developed upon a very limited scale, has been a matter of common knowledge for a very long time, and has been woven into the folklore of various countries, where it has often played an important part in the life of the common people. Among English-speaking people the well-known 'corpse-candle,' 'Jack-o'-lantern,' and ignis fatuus take a most conspicuous place in the superstitions of the less educated portions of the community, both in Europe and in America, even to the present day, although the scientific explanation has long since been accepted and understood.