56 Country Rambles. 



undergone changes quite as momentous to the welfare of 

 man, and no part of that history is more curious, perhaps, 

 than that of the mosses. Wherever a moss now extends 

 in wet and dreary waste, it would seem that there was 

 once a plain or expanse of tolerably dry land, more or 

 less plentifully covered with trees and underwood, but 

 subject, by reason of the depressed level, to frequent 

 inundation, just as we see the fields at Sale and Stretford 

 flooded every now and then at the present day. The fall- 

 ing of the older and weaker trees, in consequence of the 

 long-continued wetness, and the want of a steady and com- 

 plete outlet for the accumulated waters, would soon cause 

 the place to assume the character of a marsh, neither 

 land nor lake, and now semi-amphibious plants would 

 not be slow to spring up, for wherever such conditions of 

 surface are exchanged for dry ones, plants of that nature 

 appear as if by magic. The morass thus formed and 

 occupied, would in a single season become knee-deep in 

 the very same kind of mixture as that which now forms 

 the outer skin of Carrington Moss, viz., heather of 

 different kinds, cotton-sedges, and bog-moss. Every 

 successive year the original mass of roots and stems 

 would be left deeper and deeper beneath by the new and 

 upward growth of the vegetation above; till at last, 

 saturated with wet, and pressed by the weight of the 

 superincumbent matter, it would acquire the compact 

 form which is now called "peat." The original moisture 

 of the place, instead of diminishing, would be incessantly 

 reinforced from the clouds, and the lapse of a few cen- 



