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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 mi 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 envelopes trees, 
and every other matter that comes in its way, which it either con- 
sumes or preserves, according as the peculiar nature of each are 
liable to be affected by its juices : preserving its own properties un- 
diminished, 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 decomposition 
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 hypothesis, I will only dwell, for a little time, on two or 
three circumstances which I think strongly oppose it. 
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 confervce and the mosses, and par- 
* The Natural History of Oxfordshire, by Dr. Plott. p. 16. 
