28 FORMATION OF BOOS. 



Northern colonies at least, there were sufficient compensations ; 

 for we do not discover that any considerable permanent change 

 was produced by them. I refer to the action of beavers and of 



settled. We have bog, swamp, marsh, morass, moor, fen, turf-moss, peat-moss, 

 quagmire, all of which, though sometimes more or less accurately discrimi- 

 nated, are often used interchangeably, or are perhaps employed, each exclu- 

 sively, in a particular district. In Sweden, where, especially in the Lappish 

 provinces, this terraqueous formation is very extensive and important, the 

 names of its different kinds are more specific in their application. The gen- 

 eral designation of all soils permanently pervaded with water is Kdrr. The 

 elder Laestadius divides the Kdrr into two genera : Myror (sing, myra), and 

 Mossar (sing, mosse). " The former," he observes, " are grass-grown, and 

 overflowed with water through almost the whole summer ; the latter are cov- 

 ered with mosses and always moist, but very seldom overflowed." He enu- 

 merates the following species of Myra, the character of which wiU perhaps be 

 sufficiently understood by the Latin terms into which he translates the ver- 

 nacular names, for the benefit of strangers not altogether familiar with the lan- 

 guage and the subject : 1. Homy r or, paludes graminosse. 2. Dy, paludes pro- 

 fundse. 3. Flarkmyror, or proper karr, paludes limosse. 4. Fjdllmyror, 

 paludes uliginosse. 5. Tufmyror, paludes caespitosae. 6. Rismyror, paludes 

 virgatae. 7. Starrdngar, prata irrigata, with their subdivisions, dry starrdn- 

 gar or risdngar, wet starrdngar and frdkengropar. 8. Polar, lacunae. 9. Oo- 

 lar, fossae inundatae. The Mossar, paludes turfosae, which are of great extent, 

 have but two species : 1. Torf mossar, called also Mossmyror and Snottermyror, 

 and, 2. Bjornmossar. 



The accumulations of stagnant or stagnating water originating in bogs are 

 distinguished into TrdsTc, stagna, and Tjernar or Tjdrnar (sing. Tjern or 

 Tjdrn), stagnatiles. Trdsk are pools fed by bogs, or water emanating from 

 them, and their bottoms are sUmy ; Tjernar are small Trdsk situated within 

 the limits of Mossar. — L. L. LiESTADrcrs, om Mqjligheten af JJppodUngar i 

 Lappmarken, pp. 23, 24. 



Although the quantity of bog land in New England is less than In many 

 other regions of equal area, yet there is a considerable extent of this formation 

 in some of the Northeastern States. Dana {Manual of Geology, p. 614) states 

 that the quantity of peat in Massachusetts is estimated at 120,000,000 cords, or 

 nearly 569,000,000 cubic yards, but he does not give either the area or the depth 

 of the deposits. In any event, however, bogs cover but a small percentage of the 

 territory in any of the Northern States, while it is said that one-tenth of the 

 whole surface of Ireland is composed of bogs, 3,000,000 acres of which are 

 peat-bogs, these being sometimes 40 feet thick, and there are still extensive 

 tracts of undrained marsh in England. The amount of this formation in 

 Great Britain has been estimated at 6,000,000 acres, with an average depth of 

 twelve feet, which would yield 21,600,000 tons of air-dried peat. — AsbjOrn- 

 SEN, Torv og Torvdrift, Christiana, 1868, p. 6. But more recent investigations 

 greatly raise this estimate. 



Peat beds have sometimes a thickness of ten or twelve yards, or even more. 

 A depth of ten yards would give 48,400 cubic yards to the acre. The greatest 



