part that hums away 



87 



wlieat growing, while there are also areas in the Fen 

 districts of England. 



There is something known as peat that looks rather 

 like mould, but is really so different that you must be 

 careful not to confuse the two. Peat is not good for 

 plants, and does not make the soil fertile-, but quite 

 the reverse. You can see it being formed on a moor 

 or bog, and you should at the first opportunity go 

 and examine it. There was a peat bog near Wye 

 that was examined with the following results. The 

 peat was very fibrous and had evidently been formed 

 from plants. It made a layer about 2 feet thick and 

 underneath it was a bed of clay ; this was discovered by 

 examining the ditches, some of which cut right through 

 the peat into the clay below. A sample of the clay put 

 into a funnel, as on p. 14, did not allow water to pass 

 through ; this was also evident fi'om the very wet 

 nature of the ground. The peat bed was below the 

 level of the surrounding land and was in a sort of 

 basin ; the water draining from the higher land could 

 all collect there but could not run away, indeed it 

 might very well have been a shallow lake. It was 

 quite clear that the plants as they died would decay 

 in very wet soil, and so the conditions are very dif- 

 ferent from those we have just been studying where 

 the plants decay in soil tJmt is only moist. This differ- 

 ence at once shows itself in the fact that peat generally 

 forms a thick layer, while mould only rarely does so. In 

 the north of England the moors lie high, but here again 

 the peat bed is like a saucer or basin, and there is soil 

 or rock below that does not let the rain water pass 

 through. For a great part of the year the beds are 

 very wet 



