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determined to grow in one place and not in another ; the Doctor 

 acknowledges he cannot pretend to say. But from every considera- 

 tion he thinks there is much reason to believe, that moss is, in effect, 

 a vegetable matter sui generis, which is produced in proper circum- 

 stances, though we are as yet ignorant of what these circumstances 

 are ; that it continues to increase to an immense magnitude, 

 and to live to an indefinite age ; and that in its progress it enve- 

 lopes trees, and every other matter that comes in its way, which it 

 either consumes or preserves, according as the peculiar nature of 

 each are liable to be effected by its juices : preserving its own pro- 

 perties undiminished, as far as we yet know, until some part of it 

 be cut off from the general mass; after which, as has been said, it 

 evidently ceases to live, and goes through the same process of de- 

 composition and decay as every other vegetable substance. 



A similar opinion with this of Dr. Anderson's was entertained by 

 Dr. Plott, who says, that the stringy roots that, together with the 

 bitumen, make up the peats, do never flourish above the surface ; 

 and if so, he says, I am confirmed in an opinion, that there are 

 many subterraneous plants not noted, of which I intend a diligent 

 inquiry *. 



Without trespassing upon your time with a regular discussion of 

 the Doctor's hypotheosis, I will only dwell, for a little time, on two 

 or three circumstances which I think strongly opposeit. 



Did peat owe its formation to the supposed moss plant* we should 

 not expect to find it, as it often is found, almost entirely composed 

 of other species of vegetable matter. Indeed that which is here 

 supposed to have originated, in one particular mode of vegetation, 

 appears to depend on a certain change which affects vegetable 

 matter in general; but perhaps some parts of the vegetable crea- 

 tion more than others* Thus the conferva and the, mosses, and par- 



* The Natural History of Oxfordshire, by Dr. Plott, p. 16, 



