nearly as large as Scotland, is principally covered with mosses, these plants forming more than a fourth part of its whole flora; while the black lifeless soil of New South Shetland, one of the most southern points in the Antarctic regions, is covered with faint specks of mosses struggling for existence. In the extreme north and the extreme south, they thus form the principal vegetation of large portions of the earth's surface.

It

Mosses are seldom associated with historical or personal incidents. There are two species, however, which derive an additional interest from this connexion. has been ascertained that the hyssop, which formed the lowest limit in the descending scale of Solomon's botanical knowledge, and which was frequently employed in the temple service of the Jews for purposes of purification by water or blood, is identical with the little beardless moss (Gymnostomum truncatulum), which is abundant on banks, walls, and fallow fields in this country. It has been found in little scattered tufts on the walls of Jerusalem, the kind of situation indicated in Scripture as its natural growing place. It is little more than half-an-inch in height, but it is very much branched, and forms sometimes large continuous patches, which could easily be employed as sponges. The specimens found in the East are considerably larger than those which occur in this country; so that there is every probability that the reference of Hasselquist, who called it Hyssopus Solomonis, is correct. The moss which so

deeply interested the feelings of Mungo Park in the African desert, as to revive his drooping spirits when overcome with fatigue, has been found, by means of

1

original specimens, to be the little fern-like fork-moss (Dicranum bryoides), 1 a frequent denizen of moist banks in woods in this country, although, from its very minute size, often overlooked. There is one peculiar species, the cord moss (Funaria hygrometrica), called la charbonnière in France, from its growing in the woods where anything has been burned, and particularly abundant on old walls, whose stem possesses the curious hygrometric action observable in the teeth of other species. In dry weather it becomes corded, while it uncoils and straightens in moist weather, and thus forms an excellent natural hygrometer. As particular illustrations of the beauty of mosses, which can be perfectly seen and appreciated by the naked eye, may be instanced the Splachnum rubrum of the North American bogs, with its large, bright red, flagon-shaped fruit-vessel, and its broad, pellucid, soft green leaves; the common long-leaved thyme moss2 of our own woods, with its exquisite, prominent undulated foliage, like a palm-tree in miniature; and the Neckera crispa, which is perhaps the loveliest of all the species, investing rocks and trunks of trees with its richly-coloured and glossy leaves. When spreading over trees, it is of a dark, dull green colour; but when occurring on dry lichen-clad rocks, over which its closely-adhering stems and leaves creep for many a yard, it assumes a bright yellowish-green, glossy hue, changing gradually and imperceptibly downwards, until the old leaves become of a singularly rich dark brown or red colour. When the sunbeams and shadows are flickering over its crisped and silken leaves, it forms

one of the most beautiful objects upon which the eye can rest.

Mosses directly serve very few purposes in the economy of man. They are often employed for packing articles, for which they are admirably adapted; and Linnæus informs us that the Swedish peasantry fill up the spaces between the chimney and the walls in their houses with a particular kind, which prevents the action of the fire by the exclusion of air. Another species is sometimes employed in the manufacture of mats and brooms. The bog-moss supplies materials for mattresses. The Laplanders use it instead of clothes for their new-born babes, packing their cradles firmly with it; and in seasons of scarcity it enters into the composition of their bread. The dense fork moss, when twisted, is used by the Esquimaux for lamp-wicks, a purpose which it very inadequately performs. But this is about all that can be said of their value to man. In the economy of nature, however, they are extremely useful. They contribute to the diffusion and preservation of vegetable life, both by the soil which their decay supplies, and by the shelter which they afford to the roots of trees and plants in very hot or very cold weather. Peat is almost enThis substance is usually

tirely composed of mosses. found in great basin-shaped hollows, or valleys among the hills, formerly covered with indigenous forests of birch, alder, and hazel, or with the waters of a mountain lake. In the former case, the rotting of the fallen trees produced a rich black mould where mosses luxuriated; these mosses acted like sponges, and absorbed the moisture from the atmosphere, and retained the rains

when they fell, forming shallow marshes around the fallen trees. More mosses were developed by this moisture, and more moisture was accumulated by these mosses; and thus the mutual process went on, one layer of moss decaying in its lower parts, and increasing by additions to its tops-the dead giving birth to the living -until at last the fallen trees were completely entombed, and a stratum of upwards of twenty feet of solid peat, in some instances, deposited above them. When, on the other hand, the basin-shaped hollows were originally occupied by lakes, the Sphagnum or bog-moss abounded in the waters, and spread so extensively, even from great depths, as through course of time to transform the lakes into quaking bogs, which, by the accumulation of drift, dust, and rubbish, and the decay of the original plants and the formation of new, became ultimately compressed into solid peat, covered upon the surface with heather, or a green vesture of grass or moss. The Sphagnum or bog-moss by which this great change was effected is of a singularly pale, almost snowy-white colour, a peculiarity exceedingly rare among plants, and sometimes attains a length of six or seven feet in deep water, its large air-cells imparting the necessary buoyancy to it. Its structure is in many respects different from that of all other mosses. Its branches are fasciculate and disposed around the stem in spirals; it has no roots whatever, but floats unattached in an upright position in the water; its cell-walls are perforated, and the leaf-cells contain a well-developed spiral; while the stem is composed of tissue, which, under the microscope, bears a close resemblance to the glandular structure of

the stems of coniferous trees. The seed-vessel is sessile among the leaves, and bursts in the centre, the lid flying off when the seed is ripe with considerable force, so as to give a distinctly audible report on a still summer day. It is extensively distributed in temperate regions, being almost unknown in the tropics, where the peat is formed by the decomposition of shrubby plants like the common heather. The peat of Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands, and the Galapagos Archipelago, is composed of this bog-moss. We may be able to form some idea of the vast importance of this moss, when we consider that peat-bogs occupy a tenth part of the whole of Ireland, and furnish in the Highlands of Scotland the largest proportion of the fuel consumed by the inhabitants.

It

is a singular fact that we owe our coals to the carbonized remains of ferns and their allies; and our peats to the decomposed tissues of mosses- two of the most useful and indispensable materials in our social economy to two of the humblest families in the vegetable kingdom. How true it is, that things which we are apt to despise or overlook on account of their minuteness and apparent insignificance, are not only full of lessons of beauty and wisdom, but are also made the means, in the hands of a kind Providence, of the greatest good to His creatures!

The plants whose peculiarities have been described in the preceding pages are called urn mosses, their fructification being urn-shaped, furnished with teeth, and closed with a lid. There is another large class, called scale mosses or liverworts (Hepatica or Jungermannia), so closely allied to the true mosses that they are frequently confounded even by an educated eye. Of these there