The Editor of the Gardeners' Monthly in his younger days when an active plant collector, was surprised once, on returning the way he came through a piece of woods, to find a sheet of water across his path. He was on a floating island, and the wind had changed. It was evident to his mind that he had found one explanation of sunken forests, aside from any violent convulsion of the earth's surface - when the woods had received blowing sands to add to the weight, sinking would be inevitable.

The subject is worthy of more thought than it has received from scientific people. Here is another account:

"Writing of the mountain lakes in Wayne County, Pa., one of which, he says, has at times a distinct tidal movement, though 1500 feet above the ocean level, a correspondent of the New York Times says: 'Cajah Pond, one mile and a half from the county seat and about 200 feet above the village, is dotted with a number of little islands. These islands are covered with trees, some of them 20 feet high, and a dense growth of thick-foliaged bushes. The island bottoms are marshy, but the soil is stiff enough to sustain the weight of the fishermen who troll for pickerel from the islands in the summer fishing season, and who are the only visitors. In the summer these miniature islands are pleasing variations in the beauty of the scene the lake presents to the spectator as he gazes upon it from the high ground that encircles it. and if the wind happens to be strong and variable, as it generally is on the lake, the visitor who looks upon the little sheet for the first time can hardly help being startled to see these islands moving about from one point of the compass to another as the wind shifts. On one day these islands may be seen huddled together in one spot, and on another day perhaps they will be seen scattered widely apart.

An island from which the fisherman casts his line at one end of the lake today will in all probability invite him to it from the other extremity to-morrow. The largest of these islands was years ago partial to the lower end of the lake, and hugged the shore there with only slight changes in position day in and day out. During a stiff and heavy wind one day this island tacked first to one side and then to the other side of the lake, moving slowly the while toward the upper end, until it was floated against the shore at that end, where it has remained ever since, moored in some mysterious way to the marshy margin of the mainland. These fair islands of Cajah Pond, although almost continually shifting their position, are not so susceptible to the influences of the wind as they were within the memory of persons born within the present generation. Their area is perceptibly increasing. Apparently the roots of the trees and undergrowth have thrust themselves down deep enough to act as anchors to these curious natural craft.

The writer has never heard any scientific explanation of the processes by which these formations are being slowly but surely augmented and made more solid, but by these processes, whatsoever they are, the entire surface of the lake will eventually be covered with this slowly collected soil, until no evidence will remain that a lake ever existed on the spot.' "