Dissolved Gases in Waters of Some Puget Sound Bogs

1. The differentiation between wet bogs and dry bogs appears to be characterized by the gases dissolved in the waters of the bogs. 2. Wet bogs contain methane while dry bogs do not. 3. Wet bogs contain greater concentrations of carbonic acid than the dry bogs. 4. The presence of methane causes the liberation of nitrogen from solution, and thus wet bogs contain smaller dissolved quantities of this gas. 5. The oxygen content in all samples of bog water examined is practically nil. This marked oxygen deficiency when viewed in the light of the effects of such conditions on ordinary land plants, found by other workers, leads to the inference that this condition must be a large factor in the inhibition of non-bog plants from bogs of the Puget Sound region, and that bog plants are more tolerant of these conditions.