()2 



KNOWLEDGE 



[April 1, 1892. 



tlie Sphagnum has been producing. It has been observed 

 in several places in Scotland, that the under side of fallen 

 trees which would be protected from decay by the tannin 

 of the Sphagnum is preserved, whilst the upper side has 

 decayed or rotted away. Year by year the process of decay 

 on the lower parts of the Sphagnum went on until the 

 water grew shallower and at last disappeared, leaving the 

 original morass choked and filled up by the Sphagnum and 

 the plants which it has nourished. On the top of this soil 

 have grown first the heath and bog shrubs which first 

 succeed the Sphagnum, and in time, as the soil has grown 

 more solid, forest trees. This is our second forest. This 

 first peat deposit, or the lower part of it at all events, 

 having been turned into the black peat impervious to water, 

 plays the same part in the second stage that the clay or 

 pan did in the first stage. Agam, the drainage of this 

 second level got stopped, and the forest bottom loaded with 

 stagnant water, the home of the Sphagnum ; together, the 

 water and the Sphagnum killed the forest trees, which 

 share the fate of their predecessors. The same history is 

 gone through again — the Sphagnum filling up the morass 

 and turning the water into dry land until it supports the 

 third forest. 



Dt'caij of the Mosa. — Tliere comes, however, in many 

 cases a time when this process is arrested ; the artificial 

 drainage of the soil, or the physical position of the area, 

 prevents the re-formation of a morass, and the Sphagnum 

 dies away. So in many parts, if not universally, in 

 Sedgmoor, in Somerset, it is almost impossible to gather 

 a bit of Sphagnum, and the peat is well known to the turf 

 diggers not to be reproduced. Here the regulated drainage 

 of the level maintains the surface in the condition of 

 meadows or agricultural land. But in many cases, 

 especially on mountain sides or tops, when the Sphagnum 

 has died, and the peat undergone its last change into black 

 earth, a process of decay sets in under the influence of air 

 and water. The water lies in holes or " hags," or flows in 

 sluggish streams, wearmg away the dead peat ; and the 

 surface of the soil is broken and uneven , small patches of 

 green surface ^^■ith a rough growth of sedge or grass being 

 surrounded by wider spaces of black earth. Such is, or 

 was some years ago, the condition of the peat on the top 

 of Kinder Scout in Derbyshire ; on the parts of Dartmoor 

 aroimd Cranmere Port ; and such also it is described to be 

 on many of the Lowland hills of Scotland. 



Sedijmuor. — In some cases the Peat Mosses have been 

 originally arms of the sea, and the peat has only grown 

 after the exclusion of the salt water. Such appears to be 

 the history of Sedgmoor, the great plain of Central Somerset. 

 Northward it is bounded by the Mendips ; eastward lies 

 Glastonbury with its Tor or hill ; westward the Bristol 

 Channel. The plain is intersected by the low line of the 

 Pouldon Hills, once a long level-backed island or pro- 

 montory in the estuary and afterwards in the morass ; and 

 the way in which the villages lie and the moor is appor- 

 tioned between them suggests that the Pouldon Hills and 

 some other spots which slightly rise above the level of the 

 Moss were the original seats of population. Originally 

 this whole area appears to have been open to the Bristol 

 Channel, of which it formed a bay or recess. The Burtle 

 beds are a marine deposit well seen at the slight elevation 

 on which the village of Burtle stands, which have been 

 traced in various places along the borders of the moor and 

 indicate the old line of beach. A curious confirmation of 

 this geological fact is aflbrded by the presence — the one on 

 Shapwick Heath, and the otlier near Glastonbury — of two 

 plants (the Utuiicx maritimus and the Viciu lutca) which 

 are sliore plants, but which have until recently maintained 

 their places as remains of the ancient marine flora, show- 



ing the retreat of the sea. The Vicia hitea has, I believe, 

 recently succumbed in this intei'esting locality to the 

 British collector. The description of Glastonbury as the 

 Isle of Avalon, and the account of the bringing of the 

 body of King Arthur from Tintagel to its resting-place 

 at Glastonbury, are confirmations from tradition of the 

 same fact. 



Then a change came over the district, apparently by the 

 formation of barriers of sand or mud along what is now 

 the shore of the Bristol Channel, and along the sides of 

 the overflowing rivers, and in that way the sea-water was 

 shut out, and a depressed region left with a mud surface ; 

 on this there arose a forest of oak, ash, and yew, then the 

 water stagnated, and in it the Sphagnum grew, and 

 gradually filled it up, killing the growth of trees on the 

 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 Romans 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 iu 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 

 flood ; without it we should have had no Mosses on the 

 confines of England and Scotland, and where would have 

 bejn the border warfare and the border minstrelsy '? where 

 the Moss hags in which the hunted Covenanters sought 

 for shelter and freedom of worship ? To come southward, 

 by force of its growth, the broad meadows of Somerset 

 have been built up, and the dark waters on which the 

 mysterious barge bore the dead Arthur from Tintagel to 

 Avalon have been turned into the green pastures of Glas- 

 tonbury and Meare and the battle-field of Sedgmoor. 



Hepaticece. If my reader will once again refer to table 

 A, he will see that the Hepaticeas, the lowest group of 

 Mosses, when that word is used in its wider signification, 

 yet remain for some little notice. I am afraid that most 

 p)eople slight them greatly, and feel little inclination to 

 examine them ; and yet they possess a beauty of their 

 own — a great diversity of form, and points of great interest 

 and importance to the botanist. 



Popularly these little plants would probably be considered 

 Mosses, and it may be hard to say whether or no they 

 deserve the name, and so botanists use two Latin woi'ds 

 for the one English one, and allow them to be Muscines, 

 though not Musci. 



In the springtime, anyone who carefully looks may find. 



