BCEUF, BAYOU, an overflow stream in Arkansas and Louisiana, fed in time of inun dation by the Mississippi. It unites with Washita river, and at high water offers 100 in. of steamboat navigation.
BOG, land covered with peat, the spongy texture of which, containing water, con verts it into a kind of quagmire. The term PEAT-BOG is sometimes employed as more perfectly distinctive of the true B. from every other kind of swamp or morass; the term PEAT-MOSS IS also sometimes employed, particularly in Scotland, and even simply Moss. The word B. is of Irish origin, beir.g from a Gael root signifying a bobbing, quaking motion.
Bogs of great extent exist in some of the northern parts of the world. A very con siderable part of the surface of Ireland is occupied with them. The B. of Allen (see ALLEN, Boo OF) is the most extensive in the British islands, although its continuity rs not altogether unbroken, strips of arable land intersecting it here and there. The Sol way moss (q.v.), on the western borders of England and Scotland, is about 7 tu. in cir cumference, Chatmoss (q.v.), in Lancashire, famous for the engineering difficulties which it presented to the formation of the first great English railway, is 12 sq.m. in extent. The swamps of thu e. of England are in general not peat-bogs, but consist chiefly of soft mud or silt.
The general surface of a B. is always nearly level, but it is usually varied with rushy tussocks rising above the rest, and having a rather firmer soil: By the continued growth of peat, the surface of a B. is gradually elevated; that of Chatmoss, for exam ple, rises above the level of the surrounding country, having a gradual slope of 30 or 40 ft. from the center to the solid land on all ides. In rainy weather, it sensibly swells, the spongy mass imbibing water, whilst the mosses and other growing plants on the sur face prevent evaporation. Occasionally, the quantity of water becoming excessive, a B. bursts, and pours a terrible deluge down the course of a stream, causing great devastation, not only by the force of its torrent, but by the enormous quantities of peat which it deposits upon meadows and cultivated fields, as has recently happened in some memorable instances in Ireland. The depth of a B. is sometimes more than 40 feet.
The spongy mass of which it is formed shakes on the least pressure. Sometimes it is impossible to traverse it; in other cases, it is possible only for those who are well accus tomed to it, a false step being a plunge into a quagmire, in a man sinks as in a quicksand. Safety is sometimes insured by " pattens"—boards fastened upon the soles of the feet—a method which Mr. Roscoe of Liverpool, in his extensive operations for reclaiming kind from Chatmoss, employed also to enable horses to work upon its surface. It was not the least remarkable triumph of the genius of Stephenson, to extend the same principle to the support of the railway. Tradition reports that at the battle of Solway, in 1542, a fugitive troop of horse plunged into the moss, which instantly closed upon them; and in the end of the 18th c., this tradition was confirmed by the discovery, made by peat-digging, of a man and horse in complete armor.
One of the remarkable phenomena of peat-bogs is the frequent presence of roots and fallen trunks of trees, in a good state of preservation, many fort below the surface. From the black bog-oak of Ireland, various small fancy articles are manufactured. The circumstance of trees being found imbedded in hogs, leads to the conclusion that in many instances these morasses originated in the decay or partial destruction of ancient forests. This subject, however, along with all that relates to the origin and nature of bogs, will be treated in the article PEAT. It may be proper here to mention that there is a popular division of bogs into two classes—red bogs and black bogs; the decomposition of the vegetable matter in the former being less perfect. and the substance, consequently, more fibl.:ets and light than, in the latter. There is indeed no precise line of distinction, and all Intermediate conditions occur.. The most extetiSive bogs are red bogs, and they are said to cover 1,500,000 acres in Ireland. _Black bogs, although comparatively of small extent, are more numerous, particularly in elevated districts, for which reason they are sometimes called mountain bogs. The depth of red bogs is usually much greater than that of black bogs.