260 Account of the Bursting of a Bog in Ireland. 



dammed up and driven back, rose in its turn also, and 

 acquired additional and, at last, sufficient strength to break 

 through the barrier ; and as, but a few yards lower down, the 

 bed of the Maine suddenly sinks to a depth of 12 ft. and 

 upwards, the whole mass of bog was most providentially car- 

 ried down by the stream for seven miles, strewing its sides 

 with peat, and causing the river in some places to overflow its 

 naturally, for a flat country, rather lofty banks, into that huge, 

 magnificent, all but unrivalled sheet of water, the far-famed 

 Lough Neagh *, the marvellous stories respecting whose 

 healing and petrifying properties most persons have heard of, 

 and not a few believed ; but for which, it is perhaps almost 

 superfluous to add, there is not the slightest foundation what- 

 soever, f The bog with its contents did not cease flowing or 

 oozing into the Maine till -Wednesday, September 28. 



When the bog crossed the river, it killed all the fish : 

 many hundred weight of salmon and trout were collected by 

 the country people, who for leagues around had left their 

 houses, and congregated together in the greatest consternation, 

 to watch, by day and night, what direction the moving bog 

 seemed inclined to take. The eels alone appeared in their 

 element, writhing to and fro their slimy bodies, and revelling 

 in a state of the most luxuriant enjoyment in the deep black 

 mud. The loss ensuing from this event, as it fortunately 

 happened, was comparatively small : not more than seventy 

 acres of arable land, and a few stacks of hay, corn, and firing 

 were destroyed. The only living beings that suffered were 

 the fish and the hare abovementioned. A fact that struck 

 me as being very remarkable was, that the whole mass of this 

 new born bog (if I might be allowed the expression), from 

 200 to 300 yards on an average in width, nearly three quar- 

 ters of a mile in length, and at the greatest height 30 ft., had, 

 when I visited it (Thursday, October 15.), not the slightest 

 appearance of disturbance, but looked as if it had stood for 

 several hundred years exactly as I beheld it. At the spot 

 where the bog swelled up 30 ft., it sank after upwards of 20 ft. 

 below its original height, having always been considerably 

 raised, and a small circular pool of water occupied the hollow 

 caused by the depression. This put me in mind of the round 

 ponds described as frequently arising during the earthquakes 



* Lough Neagh, according to Inglis {Ireland in 1834), is, with the ex- 

 ception of Lake Ladoga, in Russia, a lake in Sweden, and the Lake of 

 Geneva, the largest sheet of water in Europe. 



f " Historia sabida de los ninos, no ignorada de los mozos, celebrada y 

 aun creida de los viejos, y con todo esto no mas verdadera que los milagros 

 de Mahoma." {Don Qvixote, por. 1. cap. v.) 



