BEITISH MOSSES. 61 



surface of the land, but leaving, down to historic times, 

 spaces of fresh water from which the Abbots of Glaston- 

 bury formed their great fishing lake at Meare, by the side 

 of which they erected the beautiful manor house and fish 

 house which still remain. When the Komans occupied 

 this part of England, they not only used the Burtle beds 

 for plastic clay, but used the peat in their kilns, and the 

 remains of the road which they constructed across the moor 

 are now found some six feet below the present surface. 

 In like manner, a pathway exists across part of the moor 

 near Westhay consisting of slabs of birch, and perhaps alder 

 laid crosswise, so as to form a kind of corduroy road. 

 This has been found in one place at a depth of seven, at 

 another of two feet only beneath the surface. The road 

 bears the name of the Abbot's path, or way, and it may 

 well, I think, have been a way by which the monks of 

 Glastonbury passed from their abbey by way of Meare to 

 Burtle, where they appear to have had a chapel which they 

 served. Now, as I have already said, the system of 

 drainage is so complete that the peat, when once cut, is 

 not reproduced (though the lower soil is said to have a 

 remarkable power of expansion and rises often to the old 

 level), and the Sphagnum is to be found rarely, if at all, 

 on many parts of the moor. 



To the intimate structure of the Turf Moss are thus to be 

 attributed great results in the history of the world. To 

 look at our own island alone, but for it the primeval 

 forests that once covered the land might still be standing ; 

 but for it large tracts of land would still be lake and mere ; 

 but for it every freshet in a Highland river would be a 



