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CHAPTER VII. 



THE BOG. 



In human works, though laboured on with pain, 

 A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain ; 

 In God's, one single can its end produce, 

 Yet serve to second, too, some other use. 



POPE. 



You are not yet, I suppose, so deeply in love 

 with Botany as to be disposed for a ramble through 

 a bog. As you may, however, during some of 

 your excursions over heath or mountain, happen to 

 encounter one, it will not be amiss if you come 

 prepared to gather from it all the information that 

 it will afford. I took you with me to Scotland, 

 when we resolved to examine the botanical trea- 

 sures of a mountain ; and perhaps we should be 

 able to find better specimens of a bog in Ireland 

 than elsewhere. But there is no necessity that we 

 should cross the channel ; for we may find in Eng- 

 land numerous places in which the phenomenon I 

 am about to describe exists on a sufficiently large 

 scale to afford us a very good example. 



We will suppose, then, that we are traversing 

 what is called a subalpine district ; that is to say, a 

 range of uncultivated hills, not so high as to de- 

 serve the denomination of mountains, but still so 

 far partaking of their characteristic, features and 



