In more southern countries, other water-loving plants lead to the formation of climbing bogs. Of these, the commonest and most effective are the species of reeds, of which our Indian cane is a familiar example. Brakes of this vegetation, plentifully mingled with other species of aquatic growth, form those remarkable climbing bogs known as the Dismal and other swamps, which numerously occur along the coast line of the United States from southern Maryland to eastern Texas. Climbing bogs are particularly interesting, not only from the fact that they are eminently peculiar effects of plant growth, but because they give us a vivid picture of those ancient morasses in which grew the plants that formed the beds of vegetable matter now appearing in the state of coal. Each such bed of buried swamp material was, with rare exceptions, where the accumulation took place in lakes, gathered in climbing bogs such as we have described. Lake bogs occur in all parts of the world, but in their best development are limited to relatively high latitudes, and this for the reason that the plants which form vegetable matter grow most luxuriantly in cool climates and in regions where the level of the basin is subject to less variation than occurs in the alternating wet and dry seasons which exist in nearly all tropical regions. The fittest conditions are found in glaciated regions, where, as before noted, small lakes are usually very abundant. On the shores of one of these pools, of size not so great that the waves may attain a considerable height, or in the sheltered bay of a larger lake, various aquatic plants, especially the species of pond lilies, take root upon the bottom, and spread their expanded leaves on the surface of the water. These flexible-leaved and elastic-stemmed plants can endure waves which attain no more than a foot or two of height, and by the friction which they afford make the swash on the shore very slight. In the quiet water, rushes take root, and still further protect the strand, so that the very delicate vegetation of the mosses, such as the _Sphagnum_, can fix itself on the shore.