ABSTRACT
Peat-Ground, bordered by high land on the south, east and west covers, broadly speaking, the Isle of Ely 1 and parts of the adjoining counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon and Lincoln. To the north it merges with the silt which extends westwards from Thorney to Guyhirne and then southwards, like a long narrow tongue, as far as Littleport along the old course of the Ouse as it once flowed from Littleport to join the sea at Wisbech. The area of peat shown on the accompanying map 2 (Fig. 1) is certainly greater than it is today for now, especially in the western Fens, clay has in many places replaced the peat while, on the highland boundaries, the latter has thinned to such an extent that it is now mixed with the mineral subsoil. It is in the Isle of Ely that the peat is still deepest and purest. Here are some 300,000 acres of it, varying in depth from a few inches to some 16 ft. and broken only by the extensive clay and gravel ‘islands’ on which stand the city of Ely and the towns of March and Chatteris, and such lesser ‘islands’ as those of Manea, Stonea and Shippea Hill. The Fenland peat areas https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315730745/b2d6a409-d5db-43c4-82ac-6b8be0e35f3a/content/pg195_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
