58 Country Rambles. 



afternoon full of reward. Owing to their immense 

 capacity for absorption, many mosses swell into mounds 

 higher than the surrounding country, as happens at Car- 

 rington; and after heavy rains this enlargement is so 

 much increased that distant objects are concealed from 

 view until evaporation and drainage have caused sub- 

 sidence to the ordinary level. Before Ashton Moss 

 (between Droylsden and Ashton-under-Lyne) was drained, 

 trees and houses were often lost to view for many days, 

 by persons residing on the opposite side. 



That this is the true origin of the mosses is rendered 

 fairly certain by the circumstance of works of human art 

 having often been found at the bottom. When Ashton 

 Moss was drained, there were found under the peat a 

 Celtic axe and some Roman coins;* and in another part, 

 at the foot of one of the old stumps of trees, a quantity of 

 charred wood, betokening that a fire had once been 

 lighted there. The coins would naturally suggest that 

 some old Roman soldier had had a hand in the kindling, 

 and the well-known fact of the extensive felling of 

 trees by the Romans, both in road-making, and to aid 

 them in the subjugation of the country, has led to the 

 belief with some, that to these people may partially be 

 attributed the origination of the mosses. The trees and 

 scattered branches encumbering the ground, are supposed 

 to have checked the free passage of floods and other 

 water, which, becoming stagnated, gradually destroyed 



* See a description of these coins in the Ashton Reporter, of 

 March I4th, 1857. 



