200 THE ENVIRONS OF BATH. 



when fresh cut, is composed of moss, roots, rushes, grass, earth, and 

 pieces of wood intermingled, and is very heavy. It is cut in square clods 

 of about a cubic foot, and stacked up in irregular pyramids to dry; when 

 dry they become wonderfully light, and smell strongly of sulphur, in fact 

 their weight arises almost entirely from the quantity of water they contain. 

 Now the question of growth is worth considering. Does peat grow; or 

 when a layer is cut off, does not this act as a relief and allow the 

 sub-peat to rise, and with, perhaps, some growth of roots, etc., fill up the 

 vacuum? I merely hint this, for it appears to me that it is, in fact, a 

 thick stratum of vegetable matter, reduced to its present condition by 

 pressure and subsidence, and very much in the condition which we may 

 suppose coal once to have been. 



The whole of this line of marsh abounds with the remains of trees, 

 the branches and bodies of which are constantly dug up. Some of these 

 specimens are very large, and I have seen tea-caddies, boxes, and had a 

 walking-stick myself, made of it; this was oak, and as black as ebony; 

 but birch and ash are also found, and there can be little doubt that these 

 extensive morasses occupy the place where once a forest stood, now become 

 subterraneous. How this burial took place can only be conjectured, the 

 great difficulty which arises in the solution of the problem being that 

 most of the trees are found in a prone position. Now it is not impossible 

 to imagine a subsidence, whereby a forest might be overwhelmed, or more 

 properly, submerged, but it would then retain something like an upright 

 condition, or at all events, a horizontal one. Such were the earlier char- 

 acteristics of this region, and such the alterations which it has at different 

 times undergone. We now come to the inclosure of it by Act of Parlia- 

 ment, and the events which immediately went before that proceeding. 



(To be continued.) 



THE ENVIRONS OP BATH. 



BY THOMAS FULLER, ESQ. 



The Nightingale is now in full song, but we have heard less of that 

 most celebrated of all warblers this season than usual, perhaps from the 

 continuance of north-easterly winds, and the extreme coldness of the 

 nights. Occasionally in sheltered situations his delightful "jug-jug" was 

 to be heard as evening closed in and other songsters were becoming 

 silent, but not in the fullness and sweetness as heretofore. The Nightin- 

 gale is a very sensitive bird, and when offended with these ungenial winds, 

 either seeks warmer situations or becomes silent. A friend, who dwells in 

 a pretty well-sheltered village about twenty miles from hence, informs me 



