204 SCIENCE IN SHORT CHAPTERS. 



effected on numerous properties in Ireland in bygone days, anfr 

 is daily being carried out by the patient husbandman who yea* 

 by year with his spade reclaims a little bit from the mountain^ 

 side. And you must allow me emphatically to say that what 

 has been done here economically and well would not have been 

 done except for the prudence, patience, and thoughtful mind 

 of my steward, Archibald MacAlister, a county Antrim man, 

 descended from one of the race of Highland Catholic Scotch 

 settlers who have peopled the North of Ireland and added so 

 much to its prosperity. 



" The Pass of Kylcmore, in which I live, is undoubtedly 

 favorably situated for reclamation, for there is but little very 

 deep bog, and there is abundance of limestone. In former 

 ages it must have been an estuary of the sea, with a river flow- 

 ing through it, now represented by a chain of lakes and the 

 small rapid river Dowris. The subsoil is sand, gravel, and 

 schist rock, with peat of various depths grown upon it. As 

 by the elevation of the land the sea long ages ago was driven 

 back, the mossy growth of peat commenced, followed by pine 

 and yew trees, of which the trunks and roots are abundantly 

 found ; but, except over a space of about 400 acres, every tree 

 that formerly clothed the hill-sides has been cut down or has 

 totally disappeared. The general result is that we have a pass 

 several miles long, bounded on the north and the south by a 

 chain of rugged mountains of some 1500 or 1800 feet in 

 height, while the east is blocked up by a picturesque chain run- 

 ning north and south, and separating the Joyce country from 

 Connemara proper, the west being open to the Atlantic. The 

 well-known Killery Bay, or Fiord^ would, I doubt not, present 

 an exact resemblance to Kylemore if the sea, which now flows 

 up to its head, were driven out. There are miles of similar 

 country in Ireland, waiting only for the industry of man, 

 where, as here, there exist extensive stretches of undulating 

 eskers, covered with heather growing on the light clay, with a 

 basis of gravel or sand. 



" A considerable difference exists between the reclamation 

 of the flat parts, where the bog is pretty deep, and the hill- 

 sides, where there is little or no bog. Yet it is to be remem- 

 bered that bog is nothing more than vegetable matter in a state 

 of partial decomposition, and holding water like a sponge. 

 The first thing is to remove the water by drains, some of which 

 that is, the big drain and the secondary drains must go 

 right down to the gravel below ; but the other drains called 



