pi:at bo&s and turbaries. 105 



peat — Sclicenus mariscus, scliEenus conglomeratus, arundo 

 phragmites, juncus squarrosus, juncus articulatus, pota- 

 mogeton of different kinds, myrlophyllum, ceratophyllum, 

 lemna, byssus, equisetum, eriophorum and polystacliion- 

 vaginatum, spliagnum, licliens. We find ou the surface 

 myrica gale, andromeda polifolia, nartliecium osslfragum, 

 drosera latifolia and rotundifolia. 



In tbese peat bogs we also find oak and otber forest trees 

 lying prostrate, witb tbeir roots decayed, embedded in 

 the peat, about two feet beneath tbe present surface. 

 They are in such numbers as to leave no doubt but that 

 a wood heretofore covered the bog. By what change of 

 circumstances they became destroyed is a matter of specu- 

 lation. Oak, and other trees of the kind we find there, do 

 not grow in water; and at the period when these trees 

 flourished on the spot, no water overspread the surface. 

 Now, the tract of land on which they grew is below the 

 level of the tide at high water ; it therefore follows, that 

 some barrier must have been erected at the mouth of the 

 river to keep back the influx of the tide water. 



The following is an attempt to account for this i^heno- 

 menon. We learn from ancient documents, the whole of 

 this tract of country was an extensive niorass, and held by 

 the Abbots of Glastonbury. At a period which we cannot 

 precisely fix, a sluice was erected at the mouth of the river 

 Brue, to keep back the tide from entering the river ; but 

 most probably when the Abbot of Glaston niade u new 

 Channel for the river Brue, from Northover, to form a 

 navigable coramunication with the Bristol Channel, a 

 collateral channel was then dug to communicate with the 

 Axo, called Pilrow-cut, of which the traces now remaiu, 

 secured also by a tide sluice, against the influx of the tide 

 at '^ New-bay," the poiut to which the Axe was at that 



1853*. PART II. O 



