234 LEAVES PROM THE BOOK OP NATURE. 



in wild fury, through its long quiet. The putrefying waters 

 and the fermenting masses of decayed vegetation, beneath 

 the closely woven turf, develop gases which then raise the 

 plain into hills and change the whole aspect of the land- 

 scape. When this force is very great, or when rocks and 

 masses of earth impede its convulsive movement, the swol- 

 len bog suddenly opens with hoarse thunder, and a black 

 torrent of foul, hideous mire pours forth with overwhelm- 

 ing violence. Thus it happened in 1821, at Tullamore, 

 Ireland, when a huge bog, several acres in extent, broke 

 loose, and travelled for nine miles, over a broken country. 

 It laid waste everything it met with in its course. Houses 

 were levelled with the ground at its touch; trees torn up 

 by the roots ; the fields were covered and the valleys 

 filled with bog. Thousands of men were summoned to 

 arrest its destructive march ; dams were built, and walls 

 were erected, but all in vain. The torrent rested not in 

 its fatal course, until its fury was exhausted, and silence 

 once more brooded on the black moor. 



Far in the deepest deep of our mother earth lie still 

 older mummies of plants, that flourished and withered long 

 before the gates of heaven were opened and God's bow 

 was set in the cloud. They date back to the mysterious 

 days when the hardly formed globe, still incandescent, was 

 but loosely held together by a thin crust of primary rocks. 

 Below them the pent up fires of the vasty deep glowed 

 and raged in untamed fury ; above them hung a hot, stifling 

 air, and huge masses of heavily laden clouds. Rain, fierce, 

 incessant rain, poured down upon the chaotic scene; here 

 and there the slight cover burst, volcanoes rose, continents 



