Disruption of a Bog. 231 



rivulet with the Aire, by the black deposit which it has left on 

 its banks. The first bursting of the bog took place about six 

 o'clock in the evening of Thursday, the 2d instant; but another 

 very considerable discharge occurred on the following day, 

 about eight o'clock in the morning; and it is highly probable 

 that other extensive portions of the bog will from time to time 

 be hereafter discharged into the Aire in a similar manner. 



The water which drained from the moss on Tuesday, the 

 day on which we visited Crow-hill, was inconsiderable in quan- 

 tity, and very little discoloured ; on Wednesday the appear- 

 ance of the river at Leeds was much improved, and it was 

 hoped that the heavy rain which fell that day would have had 

 the effect of cleansing its channel ; but from the turbid appear- 

 ance of the water on Thursday morning, we think it highly 

 probable that there has been a further and very considerable 

 discharge from Crow-hill. The Rev. Mr. Bronte, to whose 

 kindness we were indebted for the first information upon the 

 subject, states it as his opinion, that this disruption of the bog- 

 was the effect of an earthquake, but none of the appearances 

 countenance this supposition. There has been no irruption of 

 water from the interior of the earth, and the strata of the rocks, 

 as far as they could be observed, did not appear to have been 

 disturbed, nor were any of the springs in the neighbourhood 

 in the least affected. We would further observe that the sink- 

 ing in of the surface of the earth was the effect, and not the 

 cause, of the disruption of the bog. No human being was upon 

 the spot to witness the commencement of this awful phaenome- 

 non, and of course we cannot arrive at any absolute degree of 

 certainty as to its cause : the most probable one is the bursting 

 of a water-spout. The suddenness and violence of the disrup- 

 tion strongly favour this supposition. It would evidently require 

 a power acting with a great degree of momentum to move and 

 break in pieces the immense and almost solid masses of peat 

 and turf which were forced down the hill, to say nothing of 

 the immense stones which were moved. The state of the at- 

 mosphere about the time when the disruption took place, also 

 renders this solution highly probable, the air being fully 

 charged with electric matter. "At the time of the irruption," 

 says Mr. Bronte, " the clouds were copper-coloured, gloomy, 

 and lowering ; the atmosphere was strongly electrified, and 

 unusually close." These appearances, as they indicated, were 

 followed by a severe thunder storm, during which it is more 

 than probable that some heavy loaded cloud poured its con- 

 tents upon the spot. We may add, as a further reason in sup- 

 port of this hypothesis, that more water seems to have been 

 sent down the glen limn could have been supplied by the con- 

 tents 



