Bogiron Ore

Bog-iron Ore is an earthy form of limonite or other hydrous iron-oxide, with hydrous manganese-oxide iron-phosphate, and other substances frequently mixed with clay or sand, yellow, brown, or black in colour. It is precipitated by the oxidation of iron salts in solution in the water of peat on its exposure to the air. It may be deposited in situ, as in the "moor-band pan," a layer of hard ironstone forming on an impervious subsoil under peaty ground, or it may be carried by streams into lakes, forming the lake-ore (sumpferz) of Scandinavia, Though decaying vegetable matter plays an important part in reducing these iron-salts in solution, there is apparently no foundation for Ehrenberg's opinion that the rapid precipitation of lake-ore is due to the action of diatoms.