0, and sometimes of 40, or more, feet.
In this country it is only in low places, where streams become
obstructed and form swamps, or in bays and inlets on salt water, where
the flow of the tide furnishes the requisite moisture, that our
peat-beds occur. If we go north-east as far as Anticosti, Labrador, or
Newfoundland, we find true moors. In these regions have been found a few
localities of the _Heather_ (_Calluna vulgaris_), which is so
conspicuous a plant on the moors of Europe, but which is wanting in the
peat-beds of the United States.

In the countries above named, the weather is more uniform than here, the
air is more moist, and the excessive heat of our summers is scarcely
known. Such is the greater humidity of the atmosphere that the
bog-mosses,--the so-called _Sphagnums_,--which have a wonderful avidity
for moisture, (hence used for packing plants which require to be kept
moist on journeys), are able to keep fresh and in growth during the
entire summer. These mosses decay below, and throw out new vegetation
above, and thus produce a bog, especially wherever the earth is springy.
It is in this way that in those countries, moors and peat-bogs actually
grow, increasing in depth and area, from year to year, and raise
themselves above the level of the surrounding country.

Prof. Marsh informs the writer that he has seen in Ireland, near the
north-west coast, a granite hill, capped with a peat-bed, several feet
in thickness. In the Bavarian highlands similar cases have been
observed, in localities where the atmosphere and the ground are kept
moist enough for the growth of moss by the extraordinary prevalence of
fogs. Many of the European moors rise more or less above the level of
their borders towards the centre, often to a height of 10 or 20 and
sometimes of 30 feet. They are hence known in Germany as _high_ moors
(_Hochmoore_) to distinguish from the level or dishing _meadow-moors_,
(_Wiesenmoore_). The peat-producing vegetation of the former is chiefly
moss and heather, of the latter coarse grasses and sedges.

In Great Britain the reclamation of a moor is usually an expensive
operation, for which not only much draining, but actual cutting out and
burning of the compact peat is necessary.

The warmth of our summers and the dryness of our atmosphere prevent the
accumulation of peat above the highest level of the standing water of
our marshes, and so soon as the marshes are well drained, the peat
ceases to form