76 



There is a stratum of this several miles, which lies many 

 feet under the surface. 



The best peal has very little (if any) earth in it, but 

 is a composition of wood, branches, twigs, leaves, and 

 roots of trees, with grass, straw, plants and weeds. 

 The colour is of a blackish brown : and if it be chewed 

 between the teetfi it is soft, and has no gritty matter in 

 it. It is indeed of a different consistence in different 

 places, some being softer and some harder, which may 

 arise perhaps from the different sorts of trees it is com- 

 posed of. Great numbers of trees are visible in the 

 true peat, lying irregular one upon another, and some- 

 times even cart-loads of them have been taken out : but 

 the nearer these trees lie to the surface, the less sound 

 is the wood ; and sometimes the small twigs which lie 

 at the bottom, are so firm as not to be easily cut 

 through : these trees are generally oaks, alders, willows, 

 and firs, besides some others not easily known. The 

 small roots are generally' perished, but yet have suffi- 

 cient signs to shew that the trees were torn up by the 

 roots, and were not cut down, there being no sign of 

 the axe or saw, which, had they been felled, would have 

 been plainly visible. A great many horns, heads, and 

 bones of several kinds of deer, horns of the antelope, 

 heads and tusks of boars, and heads of beavers, are also 

 foun J in it, and some human bones. 



Before we dismiss this subject, it may not be improper 

 to subjoin as trange an account as any age can parallel. 

 June 7, 1697, near Charleville, in 1 1 eland, a great 

 rumbling was heard in tire earth. Soon after, in the 

 bog of Kapanihane, stretching north and south, some 

 meadow and pasture land, that lay on the side ot the 

 bog, sepaiated by a large ditch, and other land on the 

 further side adjoining to it, began to move ; and a little 

 hill in the middle of the bog suuk down. 



This was at seven in the evening, the ground fluctuating 

 in its motion like the waves of the sea. The pasture 

 land then rose up, over-ran the ground beneath, and 

 moved upon its surface, roiling on with great violence, 



2 



