On a Section through Glazebrook Moss, Lancashire

Abstract

T he Wigan Junction Railway now being constructed runs, for the length of a mile, through Glazebrook Moss. Walking from Glazebrook Station, on the Cheshire Lines Railway, towards Kenyon Junction, on the old Liverpool and Manchester Railway, we come, in about half a mile, upon the edge of the Moss, and here the Wigan Junction Railway goes through it in a cutting. In the deepest part the moss is about 18 feet from the actual surface to the boulder-clay on which it rests; but the drainage produced by the cutting has caused the moss to sink from 7 to 8 feet on either side in its vicinity. The bulk of the moss is of the ordinary nature, and looks, on drying, more like sawdust than any thing else. Near the base, for 3 or 4 feet upwards, are the remains of trees—branches imbedded in the peat. Where the peat has been excavated down to the boulder-clay the stools of trees, in the position they had grown in, are now to be seen ; they are, with one exception, so far as I saw, either oak or birch; and the whole of the peat being removed from about them shows very plainly the roots penetrating into the clay. The upper layer of clay is of a grey colour, and is evidently the top-wash of the boulder-clay. A splendid prostrate trunk of an oak was bared when I viewed the cutting; it measured 46 feet long as far as exposed, and was fully