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feculence had some unknown deleterious quality. But the flower-pots having been allowed to remain in their place, that part ofthe middle leaf, within the socket, had pushed vigorously forth,and the plant continued to thrive till it put forth two strong off-sets before it was removed. • A little of this moss-water was e-vaporated, and the sediment appeared almost solely undecom-posed fragments of the plants, lying loose and uncompact, andcould not be formed in a mass.
The water expressed from the lower stratum of moss, seemedto adhere as rigidly to the feculence suspended in it, as the o-ther. Accident, however, discovered a mode of separating them.A greater quantity of this liquid, having been kept than wasthought necessary on the former occasion, a part of it was placedin a heat above 80 ° of Fahrenheit, to accelerate evaporation.After it had stood there for some time, the water appeared lim-pid, swimming above the feculent matter. It would seem, thatsuch a degree of heat had enlarged the volume of the water,without affecting the mossy substance in the same manner. Inthis way, plenty of limpid w^ater was decanted off the surface.When a solution of sulphat of iron was dropped on it, and paperstained with vegetable blue plunged in it, no change appearedin either case ; nor did it give any sense of acidity when takeninto the mouth. It was vapid water, resembling that found inrushy bogs, and left a slight clamminess in the mouth. It wasobserved also, that the skin, when wetted with the moss-water,felt slightly stiff as it dried, as if it had been a weak solution ofgum or starch. When the evaporation was completed, the sedi-ment lay compact; and working in the hand, formed it into asolid ball, w’hich, after being dried, and plunged into a vessel ofwater, sunk to the bottom. Part of this sediment, before beingfully evaporated, was poured round a young plant growing insand, and seemed to promote its growth. Some small fragmentspf the plants were visible in this sediment; but the greatest partwas disorganized matter.
Here it may perhaps be allowable, to suspend the narration ofthese little experiments, just to observe, that besides the vegeta-ble ingredients of pure moss, it has perhaps an animal one, of noinconsiderable extent. In every tuft of sphagnum, in the abovemoss, which was opened, ants were swarming in thousands, withtheir larva: along with them. This, too, is common to this sub-stance in other places. A person w'ho had several years ago filleda handkerchief with sphagnum, from a peat-moss more than 60 milesdistant from the one in question, reports, that after it had beencarried some miles, it was spread before a fire to dry ; that thou-sands of ants, issuing from it, dispersed over the whole body ofthe person employed in spreading it, and bit him so cruelly, thathe was obliged to fly, and shift himself, to get rid of those bitterbosom foes. This is a piece of natural history, of which, it isbelieved, hitherto no notice has been taker.. Natural historians