88 IMPKOVEMENT OF THE MAKSH- LANDS 



mia angustifolia. Spongy and full of water, the bog did 

 not to the eye appear lower in level than the adjoining 

 solid land. It was really so, however, or speedily be 

 came so, when means were taken to allow the superfluous 

 witer to escape. 



The mode of improving this bog, though not so 

 aitistically, skilfully, and expensively carried out as 

 upon the moorlands, to which the muddy waters of the 

 Trent are conveyed, around and behind the Island of 

 Axholme, is based upon the same principle. Canals 

 are cut backwards into the bog from the nearest point 

 to which the tide-waters come, and from these canals 

 cross ditches are led into the bog on either side. The 

 tide-water ascends the canal, overflows every part which 

 is beneath its own level, deposits its suspended mud, and 

 then retires, to return next tide with a fresh supply. 

 This coating of mud, as it accumulates, weighs down the 

 spongy moss, squeezes out the water, lowers its natural 

 level, and, by thus causing it to sink, enables the succes 

 sive tides of months or years to flow over it, till one or 

 two feet of the rich alluvial deposit have been laid on its 

 surface, or till the proprietor of the land thinks it fit to be 

 finally dyked in, and submitted to permanent cultivation. 



Meanwhile, those parts of the bog over which, from 

 their higher level, the first tides were unable to spread, 

 being gradually relieved of their superfluous water, 

 through the action of the cross ditches cut into them, 

 are sinking also as they are known to do in our own 

 fenny districts at home and gradually allowing the 

 higher tides to flood them. The deposits, thus laid on 

 occasionally and by spring-tides at first hasten the 

 sinking by their weight ; and thus by degrees the whole 

 region, as far as the canals and ditches are carried, obtains 

 the benefit of the fertilising action of the muddy waters. 



It is a beautiful aid which nature lends to industrial 

 operations like this, that the waters of the sea or bay 



