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PRACTICABILITY OF IMPROVING IRELAND, AND 



GREAT ENCOURAGEMENT FOR JOINT-STOCK 



COMPANIES. 



BY SIMON PURDON, ESQUIRE. 



WHILE endeavouring to shew that the means of improving Ireland 

 are completely within our reach, it would be useless to make the at- 

 tempt, unless we were to overcome that inveterate prejudice which 

 blinds many who look at Ireland through a distempered vision, and 

 with a most superficial information. It will be necessary to show 

 such persons that they are entirely mistaken, when they would charge 

 the nature of Irishmen, and the frame of the Irish mind, with an 

 abandonment that would render her people incapable of improve- 

 ment ; and only calculated to embarrass and oppose. I shall, there- 

 fore, in the course of this paper, call to my aid the most impartial 

 authorities both English and Scotch. 



There is not any country we know of, of like extent, so well fur- 

 nished, both internally and externally, with natural advantages, as 

 Ireland is. Twenty-nine of the rivers have been found by actual 

 Survey, to be fit and capable of being rendered in a great part navi- 

 gable, affording, together with the canals already made, and with the 

 sinuous line of the sea coasts, an inland and sea navigation of not less 

 than 2,700 miles, and placing about 18,685 square miles equal to 

 11,985,400 acres, within five miles of some navigation. 



Providence seems to have intended the river channels for the dis- 

 charge of that superfluous water, which is the immediate cause of 

 the extensive bogs that disfigure Ireland. 



Therefore by the improvement of the river navigation, the drain- 

 age of the bogs would be mainly effected. The estimate for the 

 river improvements was three millions sterling; but the sum of 

 1,300,000 of that amount ought to be debited to the bogs; since 

 so much value would arise in favour of the improvement of the 

 latter; and so the two improvements would proceed pari passu. 



There is proof that many of the Irish rivers at present roll in 

 channels, several feet above their former elevations ; and the obstruc- 

 tions to these channels, whether natural or artificial, have expanded 

 what were once navigable rivers, either into extensive lakes, to the 

 destruction of much valuable land, or turned the courses of such rivers 

 over rapids ; whereby inland navigation and communication have 

 been not only diminished but entirely interrupted. From the nature 

 of bogs, the peaty soil upon the present margins of these erratic rivers 

 has grown up to the same height with them. So that it is evident 



