Definition of "morass"

Seven miles to the north of Venice, the banks of sand, which near the city rise little above low-water mark, attain by degrees a higher level, and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea.

1853, John Ruskin, “Torcello”, in The Stones of Venice, volume II (The Sea-Stories), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], § I, page 11

I wrote to Sacramento about that historical marker, and they've been kicking it around their bureaucratic morass for months.

1966, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 4, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York: Bantam Books, published 1976, page 67