220 CHAT MOSS DESCRIBED. CHAP. XII. 



of carrying a railway along, under, or over such a mate- 

 rial as that of which it consisted, would certainly never 

 have occurred to an ordinary mind. Michael Drayton 

 supposed the Moss to have had its origin at the Deluge. 

 Nothing more impassable could have been imagined 

 than that dreary waste ; and Mr. Giles only spoke the 

 popular feeling of the day when he declared that no 

 carriage could stand on it '"short of the bottom." In 

 this bog, singular to say, Mr. Roscoe, the accomplished 

 historian of the Medicis, buried his fortune in the hope- 

 less attempt to cultivate a portion of it which he had 

 bought. 



Chat Moss is an immense peat-bog of about twelve 

 square miles in extent. Unlike the bogs or swamps of 

 Cambridge and Lincolnshire, which consist principally 

 of soft mud or silt, this bog is a vast mass of spongy 

 vegetable pulp, the result of the growth and decay of 

 ages. The spagni, or bog-mosses, cover the entire area ; 

 one year's growth rising over another, the older 

 growths not entirely decaying, but remaining partially 

 preserved by the antiseptic properties peculiar to peat. 

 Hence the remarkable fact that, although a semifluid 

 mass, the surface of Chat Moss rises above the level of 

 the surrounding country. Like a turtle's back, it declines 

 from the summit in every direction, having from thirty 

 to forty feet gradual slope to the solid land on all sides. 

 From the remains of trees, chiefly alder and birch, 

 which have been dug out of it, and which must have 

 previously flourished upon the surface of soil now deeply 

 submerged, it is probable that the sand and clay base 

 on which the bog rests is saucer-shaped, and so retains 

 the entire mass in position. In rainy w^eather, such is 

 its capacity for water that it sensibly swells, and rises in 

 those parts where the moss is the deepest. This occurs 

 through the capillary attraction of the fibres of the sub- 

 merged moss, which is from twenty to thirty feet in 

 depth, whilst the growing plants effectually check evapo- 



