Abstract
Paleoecology, as any other type of research, has its incumbent difficulties. Chief among these is, no doubt, the fogging of truth by errors introduced by methods. One of these difficulties in fossil pollen study is the separation of the pollen grains without anatomical or numerical distortion from the debris of plant remains in which they lie embedded. Sears (6) says, "It is a safe rule to use the mildest treatment which will completely loosen all pollen from the floccules." This problem of technique is as old as the study of fossil pollen, but we recognize introduced errors more keenly as time goes on. Before presenting the new method for separation of peat, it seems well to outline briefly the procedure in the more common present methods and point out some of the errors they introduce into the observations.
