PLANT-MUMMIES. 229 



storehouse of this most valuable material. In our own 

 United States, it is well known, swamps of enormous extent 

 abound in the south, overgrown mostly with cypresses, and 

 containing large peat-bogs, into which man can only ven- 

 ture at the peril of his life. 



Almost inaccessible in days of yore, haunted by ghastly 

 spectres, and illumined only by the treacherous light of 

 will-o'the-wisps, these dreary but valuable regions are now 

 cut through by railways and canals. For miles and miles 

 the traveller in Europe passes through the midst of count- 

 less gigantic heaps of peat. Here and there, miserable 

 huts are half hidden ; stunted, squalid children, play around 

 them in dogged silence; in the distance a cross, formed 

 of white birch poles, rises high in the air, and before it, 

 lies prostrate their mother, buried in anxious prayer. Be- 

 yond it, you see long rows of laborers, strong, swarthy 

 men, breast high in the swamp, digging with eager haste, 

 whilst others carry huge masses, well-balanced on their 

 heads, to the drying-house. 



Here, also, the power of the small in the great house- 

 hold of Nature is strikingly illustrated. Tiny conferva) 

 and barely-visible swamp-mosses form vast moors, the fuel 

 of nations, giving bread to thousands, regions full of won- 

 ders and mysterious charms. A diminutive water-lentil 

 (Lenna trisulca) is the main laborer in this unknown and 

 unseen process. With its little, dark-green leaves, it lives 

 entirely under water; only when about to blossom, it 

 rises for awhile into the air, and then sinks forever to the 

 bottom, there to be changed into peat. It forms closely- 

 woven, thick layers, filled with sand and snails, and even 



