Bog

a quagmire covered with vegetable growth. The term is Irish, meaning soft, or, as some claim, trembling like jelly. The Scots term is moss hag. It is difficult to distinguish between bog, swamp, marsh, morass, fen, and quagmire. Moss hag is expressive of the vegetable growth, and quagmire, or quake mire, is expressive of the spongy, shaky nature of a bog.

Bogs are most frequent in the northern part of the world. The most common form is the peat bog. Bogs may form wherever the surface is reasonably level, provided the supply of moisture be sufficient. A mossy growth acts like a sponge. Peat bogs of great extent are found on gentle mountain slopes, providing mists are frequent. Owing to some peculiarity the mosses of bogs do not decay. The new plants mount above the old for ages, and not infrequently elevate the surface of a bog far above the surrounding country. The Dismal Swamp on the border of Virginia and North Carolina is several feet above the level of the adjacent solid land. According to recent accounts certain bogs in Ireland have grown so high, and have become so swollen, that they have broken loose or burst, and have poured forth a destructive torrent over meadows and fields, even burying houses beneath a slide of peat and mud. The government has been called upon to drain these bogs to prevent further destruction of property.

Bogs make the richest of fields and meadows. They require thorough drainage. If the deposit of vegetable growth be heavy, it is necessary to mix in earth to afford a footing for the bacteria or germs of decay. Though rich in the materials required by the roots of grasses and field crops, pure peat will lie forever without rotting and becoming available, unless decay be started by the admixture of earth or manure. Once started, decay will continue. A peat bed once set to grass is likely to yield a crop of hay for an indefinite time.

The term bog-trotter is applied in derision to the inhabitants of a bog country, particularly to the people of certain districts of Ireland. When it is known that some of these bogs are forty feet deep, and that once beyond his depth a person is gone forever, the skill of the bog-trotter who speeds across these quagmires, springing from tussock to tussock with an unerring knowledge of what will support his foot and what will not, does not seem so light a matter. Peat diggers in the Solway bogs of Scotland have come upon a horse and man in complete armor, and tradition has it that the rest of an army lies farther in. The genuine peat bog, being free from the germs of decay, preserves both flesh and fallen trees indefinitely.

The most celebrated bog of antiquity is the Serbonian Bog situated between the delta of the Nile and the Suez Canal. When concealed by drifted sand, it proved the destruction of the unwary.

--Milton, Paradise Lost.