1874.] Peat Bogs. 303 
present day in Russia. In the bog close to Castleconnell, 
Co. Limerick, a mether full of a substance like whey was 
found standing by an oak corker, and 5 feet above the oak 
corker was a layer of deal corkers, while a short distance 
above the horizon of the latter, extending from the edge of 
the bog next the old castle of the O’Connings to an esker 
called Goig, was a roadway of oak timber built similarly to 
an American corderoy, and over the roadway was from 10 to 
12 feet of solid peat; alongside the road are said to have 
been the remains of ancient bog-holes in which the peat was 
cut in a mode similar to that of the present day. From this 
bog we learn that the oak forests were inhabited, while sub- 
sequently oak timber was accessible in the neighbourhood, 
probably on Goig, after the destruction—at least in part—of 
the great pine forests, and that peat fuel was used at a very 
eatly age. The finds of stone and other weapons, also of 
butter or lard, are too numerous to mention, the latter oc- 
curring sometimes in lumps without the trace of any enve- 
lope,—sometimes in methers, barrels, cloths, and in conical 
vessels made of hoops and straight sticks, lined with cloth ; 
some of them evidently were purposely buried, while others 
seem to have been dropped, and subsequently covered by 
the growth of the peat. 
Hitherto we have been occupied with facts; now, how- 
ever, we will, in part, have to deal with conjectures. The 
intraglacial peats in the localities that have been enumerated 
seem to be very ancient ; those at Newtown, Queen’s Co., 
and near Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, undoubtedly are so, and 
after their accumulation must for years have been under an 
ice-sheet. The peaty stuff in the Boleyneendorrish Valley, 
Co. Galway, must also have been under ice, but probably at 
a much later age than the others, and possibly after the ice 
had left most of the low country, while the pieces of peat in 
the marine gravels west of Lough Corrib are—comparatively 
speaking—recent, as the gravels were formed subsequent to 
the Esker Sea period, and during the time when only the 
Jands under the present 150 feet contour-line were sub- 
merged. In acoom that hes on the north side of Mount 
Leinster, Co. Carlow, there is a peat under drift from a few 
inches to over 4 feet in depth: this peat, however, has not 
been previously mentioned, as the drift evidently is not a 
normal glacial drift, but has been arranged by meteoric 
action, and was probably washed down from a higher part of 
the coom. 
Since the oak forest age there must have been various 
changes in the climate of Ireland. Oaks, indeed, would 
