1874.] Peat Bogs. 295 
the facts witnessed in Ireland will be those chiefly consi- 
dered, but at the same time some reference will be made to 
places in Scotland or England as they show the similarity 
of the growth of peat in the three countries. 
There does not appear to be in Ireland any peat accumu- 
lations under the undoubted normal boulder-clay-drift. 
Near Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, there is a black peaty bed 
under ‘‘forty-three feet of hard calcareous clay, with 
numerous lumps of limestone intermixed, but unstratified.”* 
In Boleyneendorrish Valley, near Gort, Co. Galway, 
there is an argillous peat under about 25 feet of a glacial 
drift,t and in some of the pits of the Newtown Colliery, 
Queen’s Co., 3 feet of peat was found under 96 feet of drift 
which was, at least in part, glaciai. From this it will be 
seen that although such peaty accumulations may not have 
been formed prior to the glacial period, yet that some are 
evidently intraglacial,—that is, they were formed subsequent 
to the beginning and prior to the end of the glacial period. 
There are also fragments of peat found in the marine 
gravels in the country west of the south portion of Lough 
Corrib, Co. Galway. These gravels, when compared with 
the gravels of the “‘ Esker Sea period” of the central plain 
of Ireland, seem to be evidently recent ; still they appear to 
have been formed before the final disappearance of the ice 
from the neighbouring highlands, as ice-carried erratics are 
occasionally found lying upon them. In the peaty accumu- 
lations of Boleyneendorrish, Dr. Melville, of the Queen’s 
University and Queen’s College, Galway, detected numerous 
cones of the Pinus sylvestris, cones of the A bies excelsa, DeC., 
fragments of wood (chiefly coniferous), portions of branches, 
scales of bark, pieces of fir bark, an imperfect hazel nut, 
and leaves of plants, which prove the presence of such 
trees on the western portion of the British Islands during at 
least the latter portion of glacial times. 
Submarine peat is not uncommon off the coast of Ireland, 
and in many of the estuaries and brackish water lagoons. 
In the east of Ireland, at the present time, there is very 
little peat growing on the lowlands, yet off the coast, and in 
the estuaries, &c., submerged bogs are not uncommon. 
They have been proved to occur from high-water mark to a 
depth of 20 or 30 feet; those under the estuary muds of 
Wexford Harbour having been found to a depth of 20 feet 
below the surface of the mud, or about 23 or 24 feet below 
* Paper by T. OLpHAM, M.R.I.A., Journ. Geol. Soc. Dubl., vol. iii., p. 64. 
+t Mem. Geol. Survey, ex Sheets 115 and 116, p. 28. 
