268 ACCOUNT of PEAT-MOSSES 
Craigforth, is lefs than ten feet, and this on a diftance of forty 
miles, meafuring by the courfe of the river, or of eighteen 
miles, meafuring ina ftraight line. The furface of the river 
is about twenty-one feet below the level of the clay-ground on 
each fide of it; yet in floods, the country is often overflowed to 
a confiderable extent. 
A creat part of the furface of this country is covered by 
peat bogs, or moffes, as they are ufually called. The firft of thefe 
mofles. and the furtheft eaft, is that of Kincardine, which lies in 
the angle between the Forth and the Teith, and reaches weftward 
as far as Burnbank, after which the carfe is clear of mofs through 
its whole ‘breadth for the fpace of two miles and a half. Beyond 
this, Mofs-Flanders commences, and extends weftward all the 
way to Cardrofs, occupying a large portion of the carfe on 
both fides of the Forth. The mofs of Kincardine, when mea- 
fared twenty five years ago, contained above 1800 acres ; but 
the operations which will be defcribed hereafter have now re- 
duced it to about 1500. 
Boru thefe moffes are of the fame nature, as are alfo fome 
others lefs confiderable, which lie in this tract, to wit, the mof- 
fes of Frofk, Dunmore and Kinnaird, which occupy a large 
fhare of the carfe that lies at the head of the Frith, and alfo 
etwixt the rivers of Forth and Carron. The mofs of Frofk 
begins about five miles to the fouth-eaft of that of Kincardine, 
and the mofs of Kinnaird reaches within a mile and a half of 
the river Carron. The length of all thefe moffes, from the head 
of Mofs-Flanders near Cardrofs, to the fouth-eaft point of the 
mofs of Kinnaird, deducing the intervals that are clear of peat, 
is about fifteen miles, and the total of their contents is com- 
puted to exceed gooo acres. The greateft height of the mofs 
above the clay on which it lies is fourteen feet and a half. 
Tue furface of the peat-mofs which thus rifes above the le- 
vel of the carfe, when viewed at a little diftance, feems wholly 
covered 
