MOSSES. 23 



to the southern hemisphere, and forbids the heath to vege- 

 tate in the New World, exercises its inexplicable influence 

 over the unassuming moss. But when the traveller reaches 

 the 45th degree of latitude, and examines the peat of the 

 Chonos Archipelago, or the Falkland Islands and Tierra de] 

 Fuego, he again finds an abundant growth of our friendly 

 tribe. 



Forests occupied in old times the site of those vast feus 

 where our brethren became developed in all their greenness 

 and luxuriance, and which, known by the name of mosses, 

 comprise a wide range of country. Such mosses owe 

 their origin to the fall of trees, and the obstruction caused 

 by their branches to the free drainage of atmospheric waters. 

 Thus, in Mar forest, in Aberdeenshire, travellers relate that 

 large trunks of Scotch fir, which had fallen from age, were 

 soon covered with moss; thus, also, the overthrow of a 

 forest by a storm, gave rise to a peat-moss near Lochbroom, 

 in Ross-shire. 



Observe the wonderful construction of this usurping 



