148 THE BOG. 



thrown by a tempest, or, by what appears with 

 far greater probability to have been the case, by 

 one who, next to Time, is the greatest of all de- 

 stroyers man, and that they were suffered to re- 

 main where they fell, the scattered trunks would 

 materially affect the drainage of the country ; that 

 is to say, they would, in the rainy season, prevent 

 the water from escaping to the valleys, and retain 

 it here and there in shallow pools. The ground 

 would soon become unfit for the reproduction of 

 trees, but eminently adapted for the growth of 

 mosses of various kinds, and more especially those 

 which delight in moist situations. These would 

 germinate, and, very soon overtopping the trunks 

 of the fallen trees, would thus originate a process 

 similar to that described above. In time, bog 

 plants of various kinds would appear, which, by 

 continually elongating themselves, and having their 

 undecayed stems and roots interlaced with each 

 other beneath the surface, would produce an annu- 

 ally increasing stratum of peat ; a substance which, 

 in districts where it abounds, is scarcely less valu- 

 able as fuel than wood, or even coal. In those 

 parts of Ireland, especially, where bogs of very 

 great extent occasionally occur, the country people 

 not only supply themselves with firing from these 

 inexhaustible, because always increasing, stores, 

 but obtain an abundant supply of sound and well- 

 seasoned timber, well-adapted to all the uses to 

 which timber is ordinarily applied. It not un- 

 frequently happens that the bones and antlers of 

 an extinct species of elk are found deeply buried 

 beneath the surface, rendered by the tanning pro- 

 perties of the water by which they are surrounded 

 more durable than even iron itself, for they are 



