214 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY-THIRD ANNUAL REPORT.
Falkiand Islands,* where climatic conditions are somewhat similar to those of Anticosti.
The belief seems to be quite prevalent, even among scientists and authors of textbooks, that peat is chiefly confined to cool climates. This idea doubtless originated in Europe, where peat was first studied; because Europe has no coastal plain to speak of, and glaciated topography is confined to the northern and cooler parts of the continent. In this country the coastal plain has been singularly negl ected by peat investigators and most other classes of scientists (most of whom live in or near the glaciated regionn, so that the European notions about peat have continued to flourish, much like some of the weather proverbs which were brought over from Europe by our ancestors and are still in circulation, regardless of the fact that they do not fit American conditions very well.
High temperature alone would hardly prevent the formation of peat where the humidity and topography were favorable, and the scarcity of peat in the humid tropics, where vegetation is8 noted for its luxuriance, can probably be explained on topographic grounds.

*See in this connection Jour. Geol. 16: 585. 1908.