LOUGH DERG. 229 



out of ten, the legend is simply an attempt 

 made by an unlettered, but imaginative 

 people, to account for natural appearances 

 by supernatural agency ; therefore the na- 

 tural appearances must exist." 



" I understand you," said the Captain : 

 '' you mean, for instance, that when the 

 charitable monk is said to have crossed the 

 Erne on a supernatural pathway, there must 

 be a pathway of some sort to account for the 

 legend." 



a Exactly so," said the Parson. " We, 

 with our knowledge, can account for that 

 pathway, by the very natural solution, that 

 the debris washed down by the river in its 

 furious passage from Belleek to Clogh-or 

 must settle as soon as they have cleared the 

 gorge, and are carried into stiller water ; 

 and wherever they do settle there will be a 

 ford. But, in earlier times, men were igno- 

 rant of the doctrines of specific gravity, and 

 had recourse to the supernatural ; hence the 

 Ballagh na Monach. 



" Or again, the other day, when the wea- 

 ther fell so calm at Lough Melvin, the 

 Scholar, a stranger to the place, was struck 

 at once with the resemblance of that reef of 



