142 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1685. 



Of the Bogs and Loughs in Ireland. By Mr. William King, F.D.S. 



N° 170, p. 948. 



As to the origin of bogs, it is to be observed, that there are few places in 

 our northern world, but have been noted for them, as well as Ireland; every 

 barbarous ill-inhabited country has them. I take the Iocs palustria, or paludes, 

 to be the very same we call bogs, the ancient Gauls, Germans, and Britons, 

 retiring, when beaten, to the paludes, is just what we have experienced in the 

 Irish, and we shall find those places in Italy that were barbarous, such as Li- 

 guria, were infested with them, so that the true cause of them seems to be 

 want of industry. To show this, we are to consider, that Ireland abounds in 

 springs ; that these springs are mostly dry in the summer, and the grass and 

 weeds grow thick about those places. In the winter they swell and run, and 

 soften and loosen all the earth about them. Now that swerd or surface of the 

 earth, which consists of the roots of grass, being lifted up and made fuzzy or 

 spongy by the water in the winter, is dried in the spring, and does not fall to- 

 gether, but wither in a tuft, and new grass springs through it, which the next 

 winter is again lifted up; and thus the spring is still more and more stopped, 

 and the swerd grows thicker and thicker, till at first it make what is called a 

 quaking bog, and as it rises and becomes drier, and the grass roots and other 

 vegetables become more putrid, together with the mud and slime of the water, 

 it acquires a blackness, and becomes what is called a turf bog. I believe when 

 the vegetables rot, the saline particles are generally washed away with the water, 

 in which they are dissolved ; but the oily or sulphureous remain and float on the 

 water; and this is that which gives turf its inflammability. To make this ap- 

 pear, it is to be observed, that in Ireland the highest mountains are covered 

 with bogs as well as the plains, because the mountains abound much in springs. 

 Now these being uninhabited, and no care being taken to clear the springs, 

 whole mountains are thus over-run with bogs. 



It is to be observed also, that Ireland abounds in moss more than probably 

 any other country, insomuch that it is very apt to spoil fruit-trees and quicksets. 

 This moss is of divers kinds, and that which grows in bogs is remarkable; for 

 the light spongy turf is nothing but a congeries of the threads of this moss, 

 before it be sufficiently rotten; and then the turf looks white, and is light. It 

 is seen in such quantities and is so tough, that the turf-spades cannot cut it. — 

 In the north of Ireland they call it old-wives tow, as it is not much unlike flax; 

 the turf-holes in time grow up with it again, as well as all the little gutters in 

 the bogs; and to it the red or turf bog is probably owing; and from it even 



