DIFFERENT KINDS OF BOGS. 72:3 



numerous watercourses. The flora of these high peat-hogs is 

 the same in hoth cases. The arching of their surface (from 

 which the term high peat-bog arises) consists in a gradual, 

 upward slope from their margins towards their centre. This 

 upward slope is sometimes inconspicuous, hut often reaches 

 20 to 23 feet, or even 33 feet, as in the Ems-moor and in East 

 Prussia. High bogs originate at their highest point from which 

 they tend to spread in all directions ; this is due to the hygro- 

 scopic nature of the moss {Sjyhagmnn), so that water constantly 

 flows from the margins of a bog, rendering the surrounding land 

 swampy. In this way even permeable soil may become covered 

 with peat, the bog consequently spreading. Most bogs in 

 mountainous regions are high peat-bogs, fens being rare in such 

 localities. 



2. Morasses or ]\[eadoic-hogs. 



Morasses, as in the Bavarian plateau, have a completely 

 different flora from high bogs. In the first place there are no 

 peat-mosses, heath-plants or mountain-pines ; in their place, 

 species of Hypnum and sour herbage appear which are their 

 chief components, while stunted Scotch pines are here and 

 there disseminated. High bogs are readily distinguished, even 

 at a distance, by the appearance of the heather and red-tinted 

 S])lia[i)ium, but morasses resemble extensive sour meadosvs. 



In the Bavarian plateau, morasses have a subsoil of boulders 

 and gravel brought down from the mountains and usually 

 covered by a thin layer of amorphous calcareous marl, termed 

 locally .'i lin which forms an impermeable base for the bog. The 

 surface of morasses is horizontal, and they are more frequent in 

 low lands near rivers than in depressions among hills, wheie 

 high bogs prevail ; they are more extensive than the latter in 

 southern Bavaria. 



3. Fens. 



The fens of the North German plain have much the same 

 appearance as the morasses of the Swabian pleateau, as they are 

 also foimed of sour herbage, such as rushes, sedges, cotton- 

 sedge {Eriojyhonim) and moss ; but according to Sprengel, they 



3 A 2 



