File:The story of our continent - a reader in the geography and geology of North America - for the use of schools (1893) (14778632082).jpg

Identifier: storyofourcontin1893shal (find matches)
Title: The story of our continent : a reader in the geography and geology of North America : for the use of schools
Year: 1893 (1890s)
Authors: Shaler, Nathaniel Southgate, 1841-1906
Subjects: Physical geography Geology
Publisher: Boston : Ginn & Co.
Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: LYRASIS members and Sloan Foundation

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n the moist air they soon form a thickcoating of sponge-like interlacing stems. This sheetof vegetation rapidly extends off over the surface ofthe water, at first floating on the surface ; but as itthickens, gradually sinking until the mass rests uponthe bottom. The upper part of the moss sheet alone isliving; the lower portion is dead. This lower part doesnot completely decay, as it would if freely exposed tothe open air, but is converted into a blackened mass ofsoft woody matter which gradually adheres together,making a uniform deposit of a very dark color knownas peat, and which we may regard as the first stage ofcoal. In moist air, such as is found in Scotland and Ire-land, the moss not only extends out over the water ofthe pool on the margins of which it began to grow, butalso climbs up the neighboring slopes, provided theybe not too steep, and extends as a mantle over the sur-face of the country. In these elevated situations themoss is able to grow by virtue of a large amount of
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THE GROWTH OF NORTH AMERICA. 43 water which it holds in exactly the manner in whichwater is retained in a sponge. Although, as on thesurface of the lake, the lower part of the moss dies, itis kept from perfect decay by the water with which it issurrounded, so that there also it becomes converted intopeat. Peat is in fact very like coal in most regards, exceptits compactness, and we may fairly assume that all coal-beds were originally in the condition of our bogs. Whatis now firm material could originally be cut by a spadeas our peats can be. Peat, when dried in the sun,affords the poor fuel, which serves the country peoplein Northern Europe, and it is sometimes still used inthis country. The material was brought into its firmershape in the following way: after the deposit in theswamp had been formed in the manner above described,though through the agency of other plants than theliving mosses, a change in the height of the sea carriedthe morass to some depth below the level of the watestoryofourcontin1893shal

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