3 io B A L L Y M A T. 



Dined at Boyle, and took the road to Bally- 

 moat; crofted an immenfe mountainy bog, where 

 I flopped, and made enquiries; found that it 

 •was ten miles long, and three and a half over, 

 containing thirty-five fquare miles ; that lime- 

 ftone quarries were around, and in it, andlime- 

 flone gravel in many places to be found, and 

 ufed in the lands that join it : in addition to this 

 I may add, that there is a great road crofling it. 

 35 miles are 22,400 acres. "What an immenfe 

 field of improvement ! nothing would be eafier 

 than to drain it, vaft tracts of land have fuch a 

 fall, that not a drop of water could remain. 

 Thefe hilly bogs are extremely different from 

 any I have feen in England. In the moors in 

 the north, the hills' and mountains are all co- 

 vered with heath, like the Irifh bogs, but they 

 are of various foils, gravel, fhingle, moor, &c. 

 and boggy only in fpots, but the Irifh bog hills 

 are all pure bog to a great depth, without the 

 leafl variation of foil; and a bog being of a hilly 

 form, is a proof that it is a growing vegetable 

 mafs, and not owing merely to ftagnant water. 

 Sir Laurence Dundafs is the principal proprietor 

 of this. 



Reached Ballymoat in the evening, the refi- 

 dence of the Hon. Mr. Fitzmaurice, where I 

 expected great pleafure in viewing a manufac- 

 tory, of which 1 heard much fince I came to 

 Ireland. He was fo kind as to give me the 

 following account of it, in the moll: liberal 

 manner : 



Twenty 



