or MOSSES. See Musci, Botany Index.

Moss on Trees, in gardening. The growth of large quantities of moss on any kind of tree is a distemper of very bad consequence to its increase, and much damages the fruit of the trees of our orchards.

The present remedy is the scraping it off from the body and large branches by means of a kind of wooden knife that will not hurt the bark, or with a piece of rough hair cloth, which does very well after a soaking rain. But the most effectual cure is the taking away the cause. This is to be done by draining off all the superfluous moisture from about the roots of the trees, and may be greatly guarded against in the first planting of the trees, by not setting them too deep.

If trees stand too thick in a cold ground, they will always be covered with moss; and the best way to remedy the fault is to thin them. When the young branches of trees are covered with a long and flaggy moss, it will utterly ruin them; and there is no way to prevent it but to cut off the branches near the trunk, and even to take off the head of the tree if necessary; for it will sprout again; and if the cause be in the meantime removed by thinning the plantation, or draining the land and stirring the ground well, the young shoots will continue clear after this.

If the trees be covered with moss in consequence of the ground's being too dry, as this will happen from either extreme in the soil, then the proper remedy is the laying mud from the bottom of a pond or river pretty thick about the root, opening the ground to some distance and depth to let it in; this will not only cool it, and prevent its giving growth to any great quantity of moss, but it will also prevent the other great mischief which fruit-trees are liable to in dry grounds, which is the falling off of the fruit too early.

The mosses which cover the trunks of trees, as they always are freest and most vigorous on the side which points to the north, if only produced on that, serve to preserve the trunk of the tree from the severity of the north winds, and direct the traveller in his way, by always plainly pointing out that part of the compass.

Moss is also a name given to boggy ground in many parts of England, otherwise called a fen and 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 standing with their stumps erect, and their roots piercing the ground in a natural posture as when growing. Many of those trees are broken or cut off near the roots, and lie along, and this usually in a north-east direction. People who have been willing to account for this, have usually refuted it into the effect of the deluge in the days of Noah; but this is a very wild conjecture, and is proved false 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, but many of them have the evident marks of human workmanship upon them, some being cut down with an axe, some split, and the wedges still remaining in them; some burnt in different parts, and some bored through with holes. These things are also proved to be of a later date than the deluge, by other matters found among 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, originally grew in the very places where we now find them, and have only been thrown down and buried there, not brought from elsewhere. It may appear indeed 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, yet are not the species usually called the fir, but pitch-tree; and Caesar has no where said that pitch-trees did not grow in England. Norway and Sweden yet abound with these trees; and there are at this time whole forests of them in many parts of Scotland, and a large number of them wild upon a hill at Wareton in Staffordshire to this day.

In Hatfield marth, where such vast numbers of the fossil trees are now found, there has evidently once been a whole forest of them growing. The last of these was found alive, and growing in that place within 70 years last past, and cut down for some common use.

It is also objected by some to the system of the firs growing where they are found fossil, that these countries are all bogs and moors, whereas these sorts of trees grow only in mountainous places. But this is founded on an error; for though in Norway and Sweden, and some other cold countries, the fir kinds all grow upon barren and dry rocky mountains, yet in warmer places they are found to thrive as well on wet plains. Such are found plentifully in Pomerania, Livonia, and Courland, &c. and in the west parts of New England there are vast numbers of fine lately trees of them in low grounds. The whole truth seems to be, that these trees love a sandy soil; and such as is found at the bottoms of all the mosses where these trees are found fossil. The roots of the fir kind are always found fixed in these; and those of oaks, where they are found 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 to be made but that they originally ginally grew there. When we have thus found that all the foible trees we meet with once grew in the places where they are now buried, it is plain that in these places there were once noble forests, which have been destroyed at some time; and the question only remains how and by whom they were destroyed. This we have reason to believe, by the Roman coins found among them, was done by the people of that empire, and that at the time when they were established or establishing themselves here.

Their own historian tells us, that when their armies pursued the wild Britons, these people always sheltered themselves in the miry woods and low watery forests. Caesar expressly says this; and observes, that Cassibelanus and his Britons, after their defeat, passed the Thames, and fled into such low marshes and woods, that there was no pursuing them: and we find that the Silures secured themselves in the same manner when attacked by Ostorius and Agricola. The same thing is recorded of Venutius king of the Brigantes, who fled to secure himself into the boggy forests of the midland part of this kingdom: and Herodian expressly says, that in the time of the Romans pushing their conquests in these islands, it was the custom of the Britons to secure themselves in the thick forests which grew in their boggy and wet places, and when opportunity offered, to issue out thence and fall upon the Romans. The consequence of all this was the destroying all these forests; the Romans finding themselves so plagued with parties of the natives issuing out upon them at times from these forests, that they gave orders for the 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 this day we can hardly be brought to believe that such forests ever grew with us as are now found buried.

The Roman historians all agree, that when Suetonius Paulinus conquered Anglesea, he ordered all the woods to be cut down there, in the manner of the Roman generals in England: and Galen tells us, that the Romans, after their conquest in Britain, kept their soldiers constantly employed in cutting down forests, draining of marshes, and paving of bogs. Not only the Roman soldiers were employed in this manner, but all the native Britons made captives in the wars were obliged to assist in it: and Dion Cassius tells us, that the emperor Severus lost no less than 50,000 men in a few years time in cutting down the woods and draining the bogs of this island. It is not to be wondered at, that such numbers executed the immense destruction which we find in these buried forests. One of the greatest subterranean treasures of wood is that near Hatfield; and it is easy to prove, that these people, to whom this havoc is thus attributed, were upon the spot where these trees now lie buried. The common road of the Romans out of the south into the north, was formerly from Lindum (Lincoln), to Segelochum (Little Burrow upon Trent), and from thence to Danum (Doncaster), where they kept a standing garrison of Crispianian horse. A little off on the east, and north-east of their road, between the two last-named towns, lay the borders of the greatest forest, which swarmed with wild Britons, who were continually making their fallies out, and their retreats into it again, intercepting their provisions, taking and destroying their carriages, killing their allies and passengers, and disturbing their garrisons. This at length so exasperated the Romans, that they were 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 Finningsby: this is evident from their fortifications yet remaining.

There is a small town in the neighbourhood called Osterfield; and as the termination field seems to have been given only in remembrance of battles fought near the towns whose names ended with it, it is not improbable 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 this forest, which at that time overspread all this low country. On this the conquerors taking advantage of a strong south-west wind, set fire to the pitch-trees, of which this 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, except a few large ones which they left standing as memories of the destruction of the rest. These single trees, however, could not stand long against the winds, and these falling into the rivers which run through the country, interrupted their currents; and the water then overspreading the level country, made 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, and 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 burnt and felled trees buried under a new-formed spongy and watery earth, and afterwards found on the draining and digging through this earth again.

Hence it is not strange that Roman weapons and Roman coins are found among these buried trees; and hence it is that among the buried trees some are found burnt, some chopped and hewn; and hence it is that the bodies of the trees all lie by their proper roots, and with their tops lying north-east, that is, in that direction in which a south-west wind would have blown them down: hence also it is, that some of the trees are found with their roots lying flat, these being not cut or burned down, but blown up by the roots afterwards when left single; and it is not wonderful, that such trees as these should have continued to grow even after their fall, and shoot up branches from their sides which might easily grow into high trees. Phil. Trans. No 275.

By this system it is also easily explained why the moor foil in the country is in some places two or three yards thicker than in others, or higher than it was formerly, since the growing up of peat-earth or bog-ground is well known, and the foil added by overflowing of waters is not a little.

As the Romans were the destroyers of this great and noble forest, so they were probably also of the several other ancient forests; the ruins of which furnish us with 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 fofile wood found there; but though they did not cut down these forests, others did; and the origin of the bog-wood is the same with them and with us. Holingshed informs us, that Edward I. being not able to get at the Welsh because of their hiding themselves in boggy woods, gave orders at length that they should all be destroyed by fire and by the axe; and doubtless the roots and bodies of trees found in Pembroke-shire under ground, are the remains of the execution of this order. The fofile wood in the bogs of the island of Man is doubtless of the same origin, though we have not any accounts extant of the time or occasion of the forests there being destroyed; but as to the fofile 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, to secure his conquests, by cutting away the places of resort of rebels. For a fuller detail of the natural history of mofs, see Essays on this subject by the Rev. Mr Rennie of Kilflyth.

MOVING-MOSS. We have an account in the Philosophical Transactions of a moving moss near Churchtown in Lancashire, which greatly alarmed the neighbourhood as miraculous. The moss was observed to rise to a surprising height, and soon after sunk as much below the level, and moved slowly towards the south.

A very surprising instance of a moving moss is that of Solway in Scotland, which happened in the year 1771, after severe rains which had produced terrible inundations of the rivers in many places. For the better understanding of this event, we shall give the following description of the spot of ground where it happened. Along the side of the river Esk there is a vale, about a mile broad, less or more in different places. It is bounded on the south-east by the river Esk, and on the north-west by a steep bank 30 feet in height above the level of the vale. From the top of the bank the ground rises in an easy ascent for about a quarter of a mile, where it is terminated by the moss; which extends about two miles north and south, and about a mile and a half east and west, and is bounded on the north-west by the river Sark. It is probable that the solid ground from the top of the bank above the vale was continued in the same direction under the moss, before its eruption, for a considerable space; for the moss at the place where the eruption happened, was inclined towards the sloping ground. From the edge of the moss there was a gully or hollow, called by the country people the gap, and said to be 30 yards deep where it entered the vale; down which ran a small rill of water, which was often dry in summer, having no supply but what filtered from the moss. The eruption happened at the head of this gap, on Saturday November 16, 1771, about ten or eleven at night, when all the neighbouring rivers and brooks were prodigiously swelled by the rains. A large body of the moss was forced, partly by the great fall of rain, and partly by some springs below it, into a small beck or burn, which runs within a few yards of its border to the south-east. By the united pressure of the water behind it, and of this beck, which was then very high, it was carried down a narrow glen between two banks about 300 feet high, into a wide and spacious plain, over part of which it spread with great rapidity. The moss continued for some time to send off considerable quantities; which, being borne along by the torrent on the back of the first great body, kept it for many hours in perpetual motion, and drove it still farther on. This night at least 400 acres of fine arable land were covered with moss from 3 to 12 or 15 feet deep. Several houses were destroyed, a good deal of corn loft, &c., but all the inhabitants escaped. When the waters subsided, the moss also ceased to flow; but two pretty considerable streams continued to run from the heart of it, and carried off some pieces of mossy matter to the place where it burst. There they joined the beck already mentioned; which, with this addition, resumed its former channel; and, with a little assistance from the people of the neighbourhood, made its way to the Esk, through the midst of that great body of moss which obstructed its course. Thus, in a great measure drained, the new moss fell several feet, when the fair weather came in the end of November, and settled in a firmer and more solid body on the lands it had overrun. By this inundation about 800 acres of arable ground were overflowed before the moss stopped, and the habitations of 27 families destroyed. Tradition has preserved the memory of a similar inundation in Montrose in Scotland. A moss there altered its course in one night, and covered a great extent of ground.

MOSS Troopers, a rebellious sort of people in the north of England, who lived by robbery and rapine, not unlike the tories in Ireland, the bucaniers in Jamaica, or banditti of Italy. The counties of Northumberland and Cumberland were formerly charged with a yearly sum, and a command of men, to be appointed by justices of the peace, to apprehend and suppress them.