SOLWAY Moss, a tract of land in Cumberland, celebrated for an eruption of a very remarkable kind, which is thus described by Mr. Gilpin.
" Solway Moss is a flat area about seven miles in circumference. The substance of it is a gross fluid, composed of mud and the putrid fibres of heath, di luted by internal springs, which arise in every part. The surface is a dry crust, covered with moss and rushes, offering a fair appearance over an unsound bottom, shaking with the least pressure. Cattle, by instinct, know and avoid it. Where rushes grow the bottom is soundest. The adventurous passenger, therefore, who sometimes, in dry seasons, traverses this perilous waste, to save a few miles, picks his cautiaus way over the rushy tussocks as they appear before him. if his foot slips, or if he ventures to desert this mark of security, it is possible he may never more be heard of. On the south, Solway Moss is hounded by a cultivated plain, which declines gently through the space of a mile to the river Esk. This plain is lower than the moss, being separated from it by a breast-work, formed by digging peat, which makes an irregular though perpendicular line of low black boundary. It was the bursting of the moss through this peat breast-work, over the plains between it and the Esk, that occasioned the dreadful inundations that destroyed so large a district. The more remarkable circumstances relating to this ca lamitous event were these:— On the 13th of November 1771,in a dark tempestu ous night,* the inhabitants of the plain were alarmed with a dreadful crash, which they could no way ac count for, many of them were then in the fields watch ing their cattle, lest the Esk, which was then rising violently in the storm, should carry them off. In the meantime, the enormous mass of fluid substance, which had burst from the moss, moved slowly on, spreading itself more and more as it got possession of the plain. Some of the inhabitants, through the terror of the night, could plainly discover it advanc ing like a moving hill. This was, in fact, the case; foe the gush of mud carried before it, through the first two or three hundred yards of its course, a part of the breast-work, which though low, was yet seve ral feet in perpendicular height; hut it soon deposited this solid mass, and became a heavy fluid. One house after another it spread round, filled, and crushed into ruins, just giving time to the terrified inhabitants to escape. Scarcely any thing was saved except their lives; nothing of their furniture, few of their cattle. Some people were even surprised in their beds, and had the additional distress of flying naked from the ruins. The morning light explained the cause of this amazing scene of terror, and showed the calamity in its full extent; and yct, among all the conjectures of that dreadful night, the mischief' that really happened had never been supposed. Lands which in the even
ing would have let for twenty shillings an acre, in the morning were not worth sixpence. On this well-cul tivated plain twenty-eight families had their dwell ings and little farms; every one of which, except per haps a few who lived near the skirts of it, had the world totally to begin again. Who could have im agined that a breast-work, which had stood for ages, should at length give way? or that these subterrane ous floods, which had been bedded in darkness since the memory of man, should ever have burst from their black abode? This dreadful inundation, though the first shock of it was most tremendous, continued still spreading for many weeks, till it covered the whole plain; an area of 500 acres, and like molten lead pour ed into a mould, filled all the hollows of it, lying in some parts thirty or forty feet deep, reducing the whole to one level surface." Gilpin's Observations on the Mountains and Lakes of Cumberland.
In order to clear the arable and pasture land of this accumulation of moss, Mr. Wilson from Yorkshire, adopted a very ingenious plan. He formed, in the higher grounds, two large reservoirs, which he filled with water, the whole force of which he directed against a large knoll in front of Netherby House, and afterwards against the accumulated masses, which he succeeded in washing away into the channel of the Esk. Dr. Graham of Netherby had sent for a person to survey the ground, and estimate the expense of re moving the moss in the ordinary way. The estimate was L.1300; but while the matter was under consid eration Wilson suggested that it might be done cheaper, and by the method which we have mention ed he effected it for less than L.20! Another account of the eruption of this moss, by Mr. J. Walker of Moffat, will be found in the Philo sophical Transactions for 1772, vol. lxii. p. 123. Ac cording to Mr. Walker, the mossy ridge was reduced no less than twenty-five feet; but what is not easily explained, he makes the eruption take place on the 16th December 1772, whereas Gilpin places it on the 13th November 1771. Mr. Walker mentions the re markable case of a cow, the only one out of eight in the same byre that was saved. It had stood sixty hours up to the neck in mud and water; and when it was taken out it did not refuse to eat, but it would not taste water, nor even look at it, without manifest signs of horror. It was soon, however, reconciled to it, and was then likely to recover.