120 



Rankin : The Peat-Moors of Lonsdale. 



The accumulation of peat has proceeded for many centuries, 

 and even continues to-day where the life conditions are at all 

 favourable, despite the interference of man, directly or in- 

 directly exerted. The low-lying peat moors have by the chance 

 neighbourhood of the peasantry, suffered most ; having in the 

 past supplied them with the major part of their fuel, and even 

 to-day contributing much. Plains now extensively cultivated 

 with grain and root crops were within historic times wholly 

 quaking mosses. The large and great moors still remaining, 

 especially about the township limits, are plainly the residues 



Fig. 1. 

 Sea Caves in Limestone at Gilpin Bank. 



5A miles inland. 



of wide wastes. The hill moors have suffered much less from 

 the activities of man, and even then, only on the edges against 

 the " intakes " or upland pastures. The decay of these moors, 

 which can be seen here and there, as on broad summit ridges 

 or passes between the valleys, where stacks of peat in all stages 

 of disintegration, from the scarcely grooved masses, through 

 the detached " outliers " capped by a still growing vegetation, 

 to the crumbling heap of peat fibre and dust, the plaything of 

 every storm, and the final patch of dark mud, this takes greater 

 toll of the moors than man's needs. But, regarding the great 

 mass of peat-moors on the fells of the district, the loss from 

 either cause is proportionately not considerable. Sheets of 

 peat, many feet in thickness, mantle square miles of moorland 



Naturalist, 



