18 HAXDT BOOK OF 
45th deg. of latitude, and botanically analyses the peat of 
Terra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands, or the Chonos 
Archipelago, he meets again the well-known Sphagnum, 
which he has perhaps gathered in some green lane or wood- 
side near his far-off home. 
And yet, though locally restricted, a vast extent of 
Europe is covered with this kind of moss. In Ireland, es- 
pecially, it occupies with different kinds of aquatic plants, 
though in a far greater degree a tenth of the whole island. 
One of the bogs beside the Shannon is fifty miles in length 
by two or three broad ; and the great marsh of Montoire, 
near the mouth of the river Loire which gives a name to a 
department of France north of La Vendee, is more than 
fifty leagues in circumference. It is also a curious and well- 
authenticated fact, that several northern European mosses 
occupy the place of pine and oak woods that have ceased to 
exist within the historical era. 
The same recent origin may be attributed to several in 
this country. We have already instanced that of Loch- 
broom, in Rosshire ; Hatfield Moss, in Yorkshire, may be 
likewise mentioned. Local history preserves the fact, that 
a vast forest occupied its site, about eighteen hundred years 
since a very ancient forest, without doubt, as prostrate 
oaks have been discovered above one hundred feet long 
fir-trees also, some more than ninety feet in length : all of 
which were eagerly purchased for masts and keels of 
ships. 
The noble trees, which war or storms laid prostrate, 
sheltered, without doubt, men of different races. Our 
British ancestors dwelt among them ; and recent drainage, 
with the removal of peat accumulations, have laid open 
Roman roads in the same moss of Hatfield, as also in that 
of Kincardine, and several others ; a fact which, taken in 
connection with the absence of British remains, goes far to 
prove, that a considerable portion of the European peat- 
bogs originated in the time of Julius Csosar ; more especially 
