June, 1897.] 141 



BOG-BURSTS, WITH SPHCIAI. REJ^KRHNCE TO THE 

 RECENT DISASTER IN CO. KERRY. 



BY R. LLOYD PRAKGER, B.K. 

 [Read before the Dublin Naturalists' Field Club, 9th February, 1897.] 



In the early hours of the morning of 28th December, 1896, 

 the Knocknageeha bog, situated at the head of the Ownacree 

 valley, seven miles N.N.E. of Headford, near Killarney, burst, 

 and discharged a fluid mass, which, pouring down the valley 

 of the Ownacree, devastated the surrounding country in its 

 course. 



Without loss of time the Royal Dublin Society appointed a 

 committee, consisting of Professor W. J. Sollas, Dr. A. F. 

 Dixon, Mr. A. D. Delap, and myself, to investigate and to 

 report on the phenomenon. The Committee left Dublin on 

 the afternoon of Friday, January 2nd, and devoted the 

 following three days to the work. 



Our report was presented to the Society on 20th January'. 

 This evening I can best bring the subject under your notice 

 by reading extracts from that report, and exhibiting on the 

 screen maps and sections of the place, and photographs taken 

 by Dr. Dixon, adding such comments as may be necessary for 

 their elucidation. 



A dry summer had been followed by a wet autumn, and, 

 about nightfall on December 27th, a heavy downpour of rain 

 set in, accompanied by a south-easterly gale. Somewhere 

 between two and three o'clock the following morning, the 

 edge of the bog, which overlooks the Ownacree valley, gave 

 way, and liberated a vast flood of peat and water. There was 

 no immediate warning of the catastrophe, and no one 

 witnessed the actual rupture. 



Although the outburst was clearly not instantaneous, it 

 evidently proceeded with great rapidity, as is witnessed by the 

 circumstances of a lamentable loss of life. The bog gave way 

 along the line of a turf-cutting from 4 to 10 feet deep, parallel 



■The Report of the Committee will be found in Scientific Proceedings^ 

 R.D.S.y vol. viii. (n.s ), part v.. No. 57. The illustrations which 

 accompany the present paper are taken from this Report, by kind per- 

 mission of the Royal Dubhn Society. 



A 



