re, may so develop as to form a floating carpet, whereon the
leaves of the neighboring wood, and dust scattered by the wind collect,
bearing down the mass, which again increases above, or is reproduced
until the water is filled to its bottom with vegetable matter.

It is not rare to find in our bogs, patches of moss of considerable area
concealing deep water with a treacherous appearance of solidity, as the
hunter and botanist have often found to their cost. In countries of more
humid atmosphere, they are more common and attain greater dimensions. In
Zealand the surfaces of ponds are so frequently covered with floating
beds of moss, often stout enough to bear a man, that they have there
received a special name "_Hangesak_." In the Russian Ural, there occur
lakes whose floating covers of moss often extend five or six feet above
the water, and are so firm that roads are made across them, and forests
of large fir-trees find support. These immense accumulations are in fact
floating moors, consisting entirely of peat, save the living vegetation
at the surface.

Sometimes these floating peat-beds, bearing trees, are separated by
winds from their connection with the shore, and become swimming peat
islands. In a small lake near Eisenach, in Central Germany, is a
swimming island of this sort. Its diameter is 40 rods, and it consists
of a felt-like mass of peat, three to five feet in depth, covered above
by sphagnums and a great variety of aquatic plants. A few birches and
dwarf firs grow in this peat, binding it together by their roots, and
when the wind blows, they act as sails, so that the island is constantly
moving about upon the lake.

On the Neusiedler lake, in Hungary, is said to float a peat island
having an area of six square miles, and on lakes of the high Mexican
Plateau are similar islands which, long ago, were converted in fruitful
gardens.

3. _The different kinds of Peat._

Very great differences in the characters of the deposits in our
peat-beds are observable. These differences are partly of color, some
peats being gray, others red, others again black; the majority, when
dry, possess a dark brown-red or snuff color. They also vary remarkably
in weight and consistency. Some are compact, destitute of fibres or
other traces of the vegetation from which they have been derived, and on
drying, shrink greatly and yield tough dense masses which burn readily,
and make an excellent fuel. Others again are light and po