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HANDY BOOK OF 
land, as also in most of such which abound in England, 
France, and Holland, they have been often observed with 
portions of their trunks standing erect, having their roots 
fixed to the subsoil, and consequently affording indubitable 
proofs that they once occupied the spot which now presents 
only a wild and denuded waste. In the marsh of Carragh 
comprising one of the wildest portions in the Isle of Man 
large trees are discovered, standing firm on their roots, 
though at the depth of eighteen or twenty feet below the 
surface. Indications, also, of large forests remain in Angle- 
sea, beneath whose branches Druids reared their huts the 
SPHAGNUM PALUSTRE GREY BOG-MOSS. 
very trees, it may be, around which waged the storm of 
war, when priestesses, with dishevelled hair, and torches in 
their hands, poured forth the most terrible execrations ; and 
the islanders, stimulated to fury by their Druids, vainly 
sought to repel the troops of Suetonius. Be this as it may, 
the fact is certain that Anglesea was one of the strongest 
holds of Druidism ; and that her groves of oak, wherein 
human victims were often sacrificed, were cut down by 
command of the Roman general. 
Some naturalists conjecture that trees may have been im- 
bedded in peat-mosses through sudden eruptions of water ; 
but the facts already mentioned show that such an hypothe- 
sis is inadmissible. It is likewise further disproved by the 
fact, that in Scotland, as in many parts of the continent, the 
largest trees are found in peat-mosses lying in the least ele- 
