DESICCATION OF LAKES AND TURBARIES. 



559 



these cavities having been gradually filled with silt, have become turbaries, and others 

 cultivated land. 



The most superficial examination of North Salop and Cheshire affords abundant 

 evidence of these modern operations, and shows that large tracts, formerly occupied by 

 sheets of water, have been drained, and converted into turbaries and mosses resting upon 

 sand and gravel. That many of these turbaries were anciently lakes, or marshy wood- 

 lands, is completely proved by their contents. In the great Whixall Moss, between 

 Prees and Ellesmere, which is even now impassable in many parts, dogs having been 

 there lost in the pursuit of game, are found vast numbers of prostrate oak, birch, and fir 

 trees, with fir-cones, generally in good preservation 1 . 



Wherever the descent is adequate, these lakes, after having been marshy woodlands 

 and mosses, have in many places been brought into cultivation. A good example of 

 this process is seen between the towns of Wellington and Newport, and is known under 

 the name of the £C Wild or Weald Moors." I am indebted to Mr. T, Eyton for di- 

 recting my attention to this district, and for pointing out to me a short account of it by 

 the Rev. G. Plaxton^ who was incumbent of the parish of Kinnardsey, in the year 1673. 

 Much of the surface of the " Wild Moors," (now arable land) was then an impassable 

 bog, and the author inferred, that at no distant period, the whole tract was a marsh, 

 except those places which having the word " Ey" affixed to their names, appear to have 

 been islands. Thus we have Eyton (or the town surrounded by water) , Kinnardsey (Kin- 

 nard's Island) . In proof of a large portion of this tract having once been a forest, after- 

 wards a peat bog, Mr. Plaxton cites the existence of large trees at various spots, in which 

 (as may be now observed in Ireland) the peat had shrunk and left them standing " as 

 if on high stilts 2 ," whilst he states that the fibrous and decomposed materials of which 

 large portions of the surface were composed, exactly resembled that " sludge or refuse 

 which floods would leave upon the ground." (Phil. Trans. 1707.) 



Mr. Eyton, sen., pursues his conjectures further, and conceives that the "Wild 

 Moors " were not merely marshes occasionally flooded, but in more remote periods 

 were constantly covered by water. This he infers, 1 . From the names of all the places 

 in which the New Red Sandstone rises up as islands through the moory surface, 

 containing the syllable "Ey" (water). 2ndly. From the point where the surface of 

 the moors or supposed lakes decrease in breadth being called Longford, indicating a 

 communication between the opposite banks. 3rdly. From the adjoining town being 

 called Newport 3 , implying a site to which the lake was once navigable, and to which 



1 The Rev. Thomas Egerton informs me, that this moss having been cut into to a depth of 40 feet near its 

 edge, many of these trees were found, and that the bottom of the accumulation was white and grey sand. 



2 To any one acquainted with the bogs of Ireland such appearances are familiar. "We may, indeed, account 

 for the shoots of trees being found in peat, by supposing that when the lakes were drained, certain islets upon 

 which trees grew, subsided during the general desiccation, and became merged in the bog. 



3 Port is sometimes used for gate (Scotland). Is the etymology in the text conclusive ? — R. I. M. 



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