MOSS, a name given to swampy ground, which is otherwise called a fen or bog.

In many of these grounds, as well in England and Ireland as in other parts of the world, there are found vast numbers of trees with their stumps erect, and their roots piercing the ground in a natural posture, as when growing. Many of these trees are broken or cut off near the roots, and he along, for the most part in a north-east direction. Some persons, in attempting to account for this, have resolved it into the effect of the Deluge; but this is a very wild conjecture, and is proved to be groundless by many unanswerable arguments. The waters of this deluge might indeed have washed together a great number of trees, and buried them under loads of earth; but then they would have lain irregularly and at random, whereas they all lie lengthwise from south-west to north-east, and the roots all stand in their natural perpendicular posture, as close as the roots of trees in a forest.

Besides, these trees are not all in their natural state. Many of them bear evident marks of human workmanship, some being cut down with an axe, others split, and the wedges still remaining in them; some burned in different parts, and others bored through with holes. These things are also proved to be of a later date than the Deluge, by other matters found amongst them, such as utensils of ancient people, and coins of the Roman emperors.

It appears from the whole, that all the trees which we find in this fossil state grew originally in the very places where we now find them, and have been only thrown down and buried there, not brought from elsewhere. It may indeed appear an objection to this opinion, that most of these fossil trees are of the fir kind, and that Caesar says expressly that no firs grew in Britain in his time; but this is easily answered, by observing, that these trees, though of the fir kind, are not of the species usually called the fir, but pitch-tree; and Caesar has nowhere said that pitchtrees did not grow in England. Norway and Sweden abound with these trees; and there are still forests of them in many parts of Scotland, and a number of them upon a hill in Staffordshire to this day.

It is also objected by some to the system of the firs having grown where they are found fossil, that these countries are all bogs and moors, whereas such trees grow only in mountainous places. But this is founded on an error; for although in Norway and Sweden, and some other cold countries, the fir kinds all grow upon barren and dry rocky mountains, yet in warmer countries they are found to thrive as well upon wet plains. They are found plentifully in Pomerania, Livonia, and Courland; and in the western parts of New England there are vast numbers of fine stately trees of this kind in low grounds. The truth seems to be, that these trees love a sandy soil, such as is found at the bottoms of all the mosses where they are found fossil. The roots of the fir kind are almost always found fixed in these; and those of oaks, where they are discovered fossil in this manner, are usually found fixed in clay; so that each kind of tree is always found rooted in the places where they stand in their proper soil; and there is no doubt but that they originally grew there. Having thus found that all the fossil trees which we meet with once grew in the places where they are now buried, we may conclude that in these places there were once noble forests, which have, by some accident, been destroyed; and the only question that remains is, how and by whom this was effected. We have reason to believe, from the Roman coins found amongst them, that it was done by the people of that empire, at the time when they were established or establishing themselves here.

Their own historians tell us, that when their armies pursued the wild Britons, these people always sheltered themselves in the boggy woods and low watery forests. Caesar expressly mentions this, observing, that Cassibelaunus and his Britons, after their defeat, passed the Thames, and fled into such low morasses and woods that there was no pursuing them; and we are informed that the Silures secured themselves in the same manner when attacked by Ostorius and Agricoa. The same thing is recorded of Venutius king of the Brigantes, who, to secure himself, fled into the boggy forests of the midland part of this kingdom; and Herodian expressly states, that in the time when the Romans were pushing their conquests in these islands, it was the custom of theBritons to secure themselves in the thick forests which grew in boggy and wet places, and, when opportunity offered, to issue out thence and fall upon the invaders. The consequence of all this was the destruction of these forests. The Romans, finding themselves so plagued with parties of the natives issuing out upon them at all times from these forests, gave orders for cutting down and destroying all the forests in Britain which grew on boggy and wet grounds. These orders were punctually executed; and to this it is owing that at the present day we can hardly be brought to believe that such forests ever grew in our country as are now found buried in morasses.

The Roman historians all agree, that when Suetonius Paulinus conquered Anglesey, he ordered all the woods to be cut down there, in the same manner as the Roman generals had done in England; and Galen tells us, that the Romans, after their conquest in Britain, kept their soldiers constantly employed in cutting down forests, draining marshes, and paving bogs. And not only were the Roman soldiers employed in this manner, but all the native Britons made cap-tivesin the wars were obliged to assist in it; and Dion Cassius informs us, that the Emperor Severus lost no fewer than fifty thousand men in a short time in cutting down the woods and in draining the bogs of this island. It is not to be wondered at that such numbers executed the immense destruction of which we find evidence in these buried forests. One of the greatest subterranean treasures of wood is that near Hatfield; and it is easy to prove that the people to whom this havock has been attributed were upon the spot where these trees now lie buried. The common road of the Romans from the south to the north proceeded from Lindum or Lincoln to Segelochum or Little Burrow upon Trent, and thence to Danum or Doncaster, where they kept a standing garrison of Crispinian horse. A little off on the east and north-east of their road, between the two last-named towns, lay the borders of the great forest, which swarmed with wild Britons, who were continually sallying out, and retreating to it again; intercepting their provisions, taking and destroying their carriages, killing their allies and passengers, and disturbing their garrisons. This at length exasperated the Romans so much, that they determined to destroy it; and to do this safely and effectually, they marched against it with a great army, and encamped on a great moor not far from Finningly. This is⅛ evident from their fortifications yet remaining.

There is a small town in the neighbourhood called 0s- terfield ; and as the termination field seems to have been given only in remembrance of battles fought near the towns whose names have this termination, it is not improbable [7:15:573]that a battle was fought here between all the Britons who inhabited this forest and the Roman troops under Ostorius. The Romans slew many of the Britons, and drove the rest back into the forest, which at that time overspread all the low country. On this the conquerors, taking advantage of a strong south-west wind, set fire to the pitch-trees, of which the forest was principally composed; and when the greater part of the trees were thus destroyed, the Roman soldiers and captive Britons cut down the remainder, excepting a few large ones, which they left standing as memorials of the destruction of the rest. These single trees, however, could not stand long against the winds, but falling into the rivers which run through the country, interrupted their currents; and the water then overspreading the level country, formed one great lake, and gave origin to the mosses or moory bogs, which were afterwards formed there by the workings of the waters, the precipitation of earthy matter from them, the putrefaction of rotten boughs and branches of trees, and the vast increase of water-moss and other such plants which grow in prodigious abundance in all these sorts of places. Thus were these burned and felled trees buried under a newly-formed spongy and watery earth, and afterwards found on draining and digging through this deposit.

Hence it need not appear strange that Roman weapons and Roman coins are found amongst these buried trees; and hence also it is that amongst the buried trees some are found burned, some chopped and hewn; that the bodies of the trees all lie by their proper roots, and with their tops lying north-east, that is, in the direction in which a southwest wind would have blown them down; and that some of the trees are found with their roots lying flat, these being not cut nor burned down, but blown up by the roots afterwards when left single. It is not wonderful, that such trees as these should have continued to grow even after their fall, and to shoot up branches from their sides which might easily grow into high trees.

By this system it is also easily explained why the moorland soil in the country is in some places two or three yards thicker than in others, or higher than it formerly was, since the growing up of peat-earth or bog-ground is well known, and the soil added by the overflowing of waters is by no means inconsiderable.

As the Romans destroyed this great and noble forest, so they probably also destroyed several other ancient forests, the ruins of which furnish the bog-wood of Staffordshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and other counties. But as the Romans were not much in Wales, in the Isle of Man, or in Ireland, it is not to be supposed that forests cut down by these people gave origin to the fossil wood found there; but although they did not cut down these forests, others did, and the origin of the bog-wood is the same with them as it is with us. Holingshed informs us, that Edward I. being unable to get at the Welsh because of their hiding in boggy woods, gave orders that these should all be destroyed by fire and by the axe; and doubtless the roots and bodies of trees found in Pembrokeshire under ground are the remains of the execution of this order. The fossil wood in the bogs of the Isle of Man is doubtless of the same origin, although we have not any account extant of the time nor the occasion of the forests there being destroyed; but as to the fossil trees of the bogs of Ireland, we are expressly told that Henry II. when he conquered that country, ordered all the woods to be cut down that grew in the low parts of it, in order to secure his conquests, by cutting away the places of resort for rebels.