Bogs have long been looked on as places of myth and mystery; the haunts of strange, unearthly creatures where eerie perils await the unwary stranger. Common sense may dispel these ideas, but the bog remains a fascinating, topsy-turvy world where it is possible to walk on water, watch plants eat animals and reach through a dark window into the past.

In the Adirondacks, bogs commonly form in shallow lakes, ponds or wet depressions having little inflow or outflow of water. Lack of drainage leads to the accumulation of waterlogged, partially-decomposedorganic debris called peat. As more and more matter accumulates the bog basin slowly fills. Peat deposits release weak acids into the water and it becomes saturated with various compounds that impart a characteristic tea-colored stain. Sunlight is unable to penetrate as deeply as before, and this reduces the ability of submerged green plants to enrich the bog with oxygen.

Bacteria and fungi, which are the principal decomposers of organic material, operate most efficiently in warm, moist (not wet) oxygen-rich environments. Breakdown of dead organisms into simpler compounds and elements is hindered by the cool climate, excessive wetness and lack of oxygen in bogs. The cycle of growth and decay that typifies other types of wetlands eventually slows to a virtual standstill.

Sphagnum moss, sedges and low shrubs gain a foothold and spread rapidly. Gradually the moss and other plants thicken into a living carpet that partially engulfs woody stems, grassy clumps and floating leaves of buckbean. A tangled mass of stems, leaves and roots grows slowly outward from the bog's edge and blankets the pond, sealing its depths from light and oxygen. This causes more and more acids to accumulate in the water.

Once the bog becomes strongly acidified a curious phenomenon takes place. Plants find this water difficult to absorb in much the same way as animals have difficulty drinking salty liquids. Under these conditions two qualities are favored: ability to conserve precious water reserves and adaptation to low nutrient levels.

Members of the heath family such as bog laurel, Labrador tea, leatherleaf, bog rosemary and cranberry are well suited to bog life for they have leaves which retard evaporation through such adaptations as waxy coatings, rolled edges and fuzzy undersides. Pitcher plants and sundews are also found here for they have evolved simple yet effective insect-trapping devices that digest their victims and provide the plants with nitrogen, a nutrient that is otherwise in very limited supply. Delicate wildflowers such as grass pink and white-fringed orchids hold a surprise: they are growing here far from the land of their evolutionary origins in a habitat that features many of the acid, infertile conditions typical of jungle environments.

Journeying across the surface of a bog is much like walking on a water bed for the mat often floats above an open pool and is little more than an amorphous mass in which one slowly sinks until a new state of equilibrium is reached. Dead plant material falls from the mat like a fine rain, filling the pool with peat. Once this organic matter leaves the shallow layer of oxygenated water near the surface it undergoes little, if any, decomposition.

For the most part bog water contains large numbers of a few acid-tolerant species of microscopic animals and blue-green algae. Several insects spend at least part of their life cycle in bogs but most are only visitors. Frogs take advantage of this insect life and in turn may become prey for a northern harrier or an American kestrel. Many Adirondack specialties can be found here, including black-backed and three-toed woodpeckers, spruce grouse, Lincoln's sparrow, olive-sided flycatcher, rusty blackbird and the curious little bog lemming. You may be fortunate enough to receive an inquisitive visit from a family of gray jays -- northern couterparts of the more familiar blue jay -- whose repertoire of muted calls befits their ghostly flight.

The bog is a tomb of history. Bodies of long-extinct beasts such as the mastadon, mammoth and ground sloth have been found preserved in their darkness (though not within the park), trapped and suffocated in the prehistoric muck. All bogs are richly endowed with the identifiable remains of plants, including pollen from trees and wildflowers growing in the general region. Since each kind of plant sheds a distinctive form of pollen, scientists can insepect various layers of peat and determine the nature of the vegetation in and around the bog at different times since the last glaciation. From this information basic climatic data can be deduced. Our cool, moist climate that favors the growth of spruce and fir represents a recent return to conditions reminiscent of early-postglacial times. Intervening climates were generally warmer; the relatively dry periods favored the growth of pine, and the moist periods favored hemlock.