The soft complaining flute The woes of hapless lovers, Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs and desperation Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pain, and height of passion, But oh, what art can teach, Orpheus could lead the savage race; But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher: As from the power of sacred lays So when the last and dreadful hour DRYDEN. 22. THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP. There are many swamps or morasses in this low, flat region, and one of the largest of these occurs between the towns of Norfolk and Weldon. We traversed several miles of its northern extremity on the railway, which is supported on piles. It bears the appropriate and very expressive name of the Great Dismal," and is no less than forty miles in length from north to south, and twenty-five miles in its greatest width from east to west, the northern half being situated in Virginia, the southern in North Carolina. I observed that the water was obviously in motion in several places, and the morass had somewhat the appearance of a broad, inundated river-plain, covered with all kinds of aquatic trees and shrubs, the soil being as black as in a peat-bog. The accumulation of vegetable matter going on here in a hot climate, over so vast an area, is a subject of such high geological interest, that I shall relate what I learned of this singular morass. It is one enormous quagmire, soft and muddy, except where the surface is rendered partially firm by a covering of vegetables and their matted roots; yet, strange to say, instead of being lower than the level of the surrounding country, it is actually higher than nearly all the firm and dry land which encompasses it, and, to make the anomaly complete, in spite of its semi-fluid character, it is higher in the interior than towards its margin. The only exception to both these statements is found on the eastern side, where, for the distance of about twelve or fifteen miles, the streams flow from slightly elevated but higher land, and supply all its abundant and overflowing water. Towards the north, the east, and the south the waters flow from the swamp to different rivers, which give abundant evidence, by the rate of their descent, that the Great Dismal is higher than the surrounding firm ground. Upon the whole, the centre of the morass seems to lie more than twelve feet above the flat country round it. Some small ridges, however, of land must have existed in the original plain or basin, for these now rise like low islands in various places above the general surface. But the streams to the westward do not bring down any sediment. The soil of the swamp is formed of vegetable matter, usually without any admixture of earthy particles. We have here, in fact, a deposit of peat from ten to fifteen feet in thickness, in a latitude where, owing to the heat of the sun and the length of the summer, no peat-mosses like those of Europe would be looked for under ordinary circumstances. In countries like Scotland and Ireland, where the climate is damp and the summer short and cool, the natural vegetation of one year does not rot away during the next in moist situations. If water flows into such land, it is absorbed, and promotes the vigorous growth of mosses and other aquatic plants; and when they die, the same water arrests their putrefaction. But, as a general rule, no such accu mulation of peat can take place in a country like that of Virginia, where the summer's heat causes annually as large a quantity of dead plants to decay as is equal in amount to the vegetable matter produced in one year. There are many trees and shrubs in the region of the Pine Barrens (and the same may be said of the United States generally), which, like our willows, flourish luxuriantly in water. The juniper trees or white cedars stand firmly in the softest part of the quagmire, supported by their long taproots, and afford, with many other evergreens, a dark shade, under which a multitude of ferns, reeds, and shrubs, from nine to eighteen feet high, and a thick carpet of mosses, four or five inches high, spring up, and are protected from the rays of the sun. When these are most powerful, the large cedar and many other deciduous trees are in full leaf. The black soil formed beneath this shade, to which the mosses and the leaves make annual additions, does not perfectly resemble the peat of Europe, most of the plants being so decayed as to leave little more than soft black mud, without any traces of organization. This loose soil is called sponge by the labourers; and it has been ascertained that, when exposed to the sun and thrown out on the bank of a canal where clearings have been made, it rots entirely away. Hence it is evident that it owes its preservation in the swamp to moisture and the shade of the dense foliage. The evaporation continually going on in the wet, spongy soil during summer cools the |