144 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1685. 



drowned or hurt in the pulling out ; the number of cattle lost this way is in- 

 credible- The bogs are a shelter and refuge to tories and thieves. 



The fogs and vapours that arise from them are commonly putrid and stinking, 

 and unwholesome : for the rain which falls on them will not sink, there being 

 hardly any substance of its softness more impenetrable 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 the colour of the water that stands in the pits, or lies on the surface of the 

 bog, is tinctured by the reddish black colour of the turf; and when a shower 

 comes that makes these pits overflow, the water that runs over tinctures all it 

 meets, and gives both its colour and stink to many of the rivers. 



The natives however had formerly some advantage from the woods and bogs ; 

 as by them they were preserved from the conquest of the English ; and probably 

 a little remembrance of this makes them still build near them : it was then an 

 advantage to them to have their country un passable, and the fewer strangers 

 came near them, they lived the easier ; for they had no inns, every house where 

 you came was your inn ; and you said no more, but put off your brogues and sat 

 down by the fire ; and still the natural Irish hate to mend highways, and will 

 often shut them up, and change them, being unwilling strangers should come 

 and burthen them. Though they are very inconvenient, yet they are of some 

 use ; for most persons have their fuel from them. Turf is accounted a tolerably 

 sweet fire; and having very impoliticly destroyed our wood, and not as yet found 

 stone coal, except in few places, we could hardly live without some bogs ; when 

 the turf is charred, it serves to work iron, and even to make it in a bloomery 

 or iron-work : turf charred I reckon the sweetest and wholesomest fire that can 

 be; fitter for a chamber, and for consumptive people, than either wood, stone- 

 coal or charcoal. 



Turf-bogs preserve things a long time : a corpse will lie entire in one for 

 several years ; also trees are found sound and entire in them, and even birch 

 and alder that are very subject to rot ; such trees burn very well, and serve for 

 torches in the night. 



All the inconveniencies of the bogs may be remedied, and may be made 

 useful by draining them ; and all or most of them have a sufficient fall for that 

 purpose. The great objection against them is the expence, and it is commonly 

 thought that it would cost much more than would purchase an equal piece of 

 good ground: for an acre of good land in most parts of Ireland is about 4s. per 

 annum, and the purchase 14 or 15 years, so that 3l. will purchase an acre of 



