SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKES, 



dured. When a stream or spring; runs through a flat, it fills \vitk 

 weeds in summer, and trees fall across and darn it up; then in 

 winter the water stagnates more and more every year, till the whole* 

 flat is covered ; then there grows up a coarse kind of grass peculiar 

 to these boes; this grass grows in tufts, and their roots consolidate 

 together, and yearly grow hiuher, even to the height of a man ; the 

 grass rots inr winter, and fall on ihe tufts, and the seed with it, which 

 springs up next year, and so still makes an addition; sometimes tlie 

 tops of flags and grass are interwoven on the surface of the water, 

 and tli> gradually becomes thicker, till it lie like a cover on the 

 water; ihrn herbs take root in it, and by a plexus of the roots 

 it becomes very strong, so as to bear a man. Some of these bogs 

 \\i\l rise before and behind, and sink where a man stands to a con- 

 siderable depth ; underneath is clear water : even these in time will 

 become red bogs ; but may easily be turned into meadow by clear- 

 ing a trench to let the water run off. 



The inconveniences of these bogs are very great ; a considerable 

 part of the kingdom being rendered useless by them ; they keep 

 people at a distance from each other, and consequent ly interrupt 

 them in their affairs. Generally, the land which should be our 

 meadows, and the finest piarns are covered with bogs; this is ob- 

 served over all Connaught, but more especially in Longford and 

 also in Westmeath, and in the north of Ireland. These bogs greatly 

 obstruct the passing from place to place; and on this account the 

 roads are very crooked, or they are made at vast expense through bogs. 

 The bogs are a great destruction to cattle, the chief commodity of Ire- 

 land ; for in the spring, when they are weak and hungry, the edges 

 of the bogs have commonly grass, and the cattle venturing in to get 

 it, fall into pits or sloughs, and are either drowned or hurt in the 

 pulling out; the number of cattle lost this way is incredible. The 

 bogs are a shelter and refuge to outlaws and thieves. 



The fogs and vapours that arise from them are commonly putrid 

 and stinking, and unwholesome : for the rain that falls on them will 

 not sink, there being hardly any substance of its softness more im- 

 penetrable to rain than turf, and therefore rain- water stands on 

 them, and in their pits, where it corrupts, and is exhaled all by the 

 sun, very little of it running away, which must of necessity infect 

 the air. The bogs also corrupt the water, both as to its colour and 

 taste ; for tke colour of the water that stands in the pits, or lies QR 



