Note 18 — Chapter I
Reading edition
The English nomenclature of this geographical feature does not seem well settled. We have bog, swamp, marsh, morass, moor, fen, turf moss, peat moss, quagmire, all of which, though sometimes more or less accurately discriminated, are often used interchangeably, or are perhaps employed, each exclusively, in a particular district. In Sweden, where, especially in the Lappish provinces, this terr-aqueous formation is very extensive and important, the names of its different kinds are more specific in their application. The general designation of all soils permanently pervaded with water is Kärr. The elder Læstadius divides the Kärr into two genera: Myror (sing. myra), and Mossar (sing. mosse). "The former," he observes, "are grass-grown, and overflowed with water through almost the whole summer; the latter are covered with mosses and always moist, but very seldom overflowed." He enumerates the following species of Myra, the character of which will perhaps be sufficiently understood by the Latin terms into which he translates the vernacular names, for the benefit of strangers not altogether familiar with the language and the subject: 1. Hömyror, paludes graminosæ. 2. Dy, paludes profundæ. 3. Flarkmyror, or proper kärr, paludes limosæ. 4. Fjällmyror, paludes uliginosæ. 5. Tufmyror, paludes cæspitosæ. 6. Rismyror, paludes virgatæ. 7. Starrängar, prata irrigata, with their subdivisions, dry starrängar or risängar, wet starrängar and fräkengropar. 8. Pölar, laeunæ. 9. Gölar, fossæ inundatæ. The Mossar, paludes turfosæ, which are of great extent, have but two species: 1. Torfmossar, called also Mossmyror and Snottermyror, and, 2. Björnmossar.
The accumulations of stagnant or stagnating water originating in bogs are distinguished into Trāsk, stagna, and Tjernar or Tjärnar (sing. Tjern or Tjärn), stagnatiles. Trāsk are pools fed by bogs, or water emanating from them, and their bottoms are slimy; Tjernar are small Träsk situated within the limits of Mossar.—L. L. Læstadius, om Möjligheten af Uppodlingar i Lappmarken, pp. 23, 24.