30 SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKES, 



ter into fish-ponds 5 by planting a few trees about them, they may 

 be made both useful and ornamental. As to those places called 

 turloughs, quasi terreni lacus, or land-lakes; they answer the 

 name very well, being lakes one part of the year of considerable 

 depth, and level smooth fields the test. There are holes in these, 

 out of which the water rises in \v infer, and retires ajrdin in summer; 

 many hundred acres being di owned by them, and those the most 

 pleasant and profitable land in the country : the soil is commonly si 

 marie, which, by its stiffness, hinders the water from turning it into 

 a bog; and immediately when the water is gone, it hardens, and 

 becomes an even grassy field ; these, if they could be drained, would 

 be fit for any use; they would make meadow j or bear any grain, 

 but especially rape, which is very profitable. The lakes are chiefly 

 in Connaught ; and their cause is obvious enough, it being a stony 

 hilly country; these hills have cavities in them, through which the 

 water passes : it is common to have a rivulet sink on one side of a 

 hill, and rise a mile or half a mile from the place : the brooks are 

 generally dry in summer; the water sinking between the rocks, and 

 running underground ; insomuch as that in some places where they 

 are overflowed in winter, they are forced in summer to send their 

 cattle many miles for water. There is one place on a hill near 

 Tuam, between two of these turloughs, where there is a hill called 

 the Devil's Mill, at which a great noise is heard, like that of water 

 under a bridge : when there is a flood in winter, one of the tur- 

 longhs overflows, and vents itself into the hole, and the noise pro. 

 bably proceeds from a subterraneous stream ; which in summer has 

 room enough to vent all its watery but in winter, when rain falls, 

 the passages between the rocks cannot discharge it, and therefore it 

 regurgitates and covers the flats. 



These turloughs are hard to drain ; being often encompassed with 

 hills, and then it is not to be accomplished : often they have a vent, 

 by which they send out a considerable stream ; and then it is only 

 making that passage as low as the bottom of the flat, and that will 

 prevent the overflowing ; it sometimes happens that the flats are as 

 low as the neighbouring rivulets, and probably they are filled by 

 them ; and then it is not only necessary to make the passage from 

 the flat to the rivulet, but also to sink the rivulet, which is very 

 troublesome, the passage to be cut being commonly rocky. 



[Phil, Trans. Abr. 1685.J 



