Kinahan — Deal Timber in the Lake Basins of Donegal. 635 



there is sloping bog, and in the cooms, deep flat bog, and nnder 

 the peat in the latter (from 10 to 25 feet deep) large roots in situ 

 and sticks of deal and oak ; one that was stepped being over 60 feet 

 long and at the broken-off top over six inches in diameter. The 

 floors of these flat bogs are saucer or dish- shaped basins, below the 

 present drainage outlets. In the hills westward of Lough Erne 

 there are also similar lakes to those in the low country, their basins 

 being saucer-shaped, and having timber roots in situ below summer 

 water-level. 



Mr. Plunkett points out that the pagan cemetery now covered 

 with peat, the trees on the hills of greater size than those which 

 now grow on the low country, and the peat under the Upper 

 Lough Erne flats, prove that the climate was, during the timber age, 

 much drier and warmer than at present. This was succeeded by a 

 wetter period, during which the woods on the flats became reedy 

 marshes, while in the cooms in the hills and on their slopes mosses 

 and such like grew ; these peaty accumulations not only stopping 

 the growth of the timber, but also destroying the woods and 

 changing them into bogs. This was succeeded by still more rainy 

 times, during which the flats of the tributary rivers of Upper 

 Lough Erne were flooded by sheets of turbid water, the sill from 

 which floods buried the " monagay turf," with its timbers, under 

 the present overstratum of silt. 



To account for the trees growing in the flats and hollows with- 

 out drainage outlets, he suggests that during the period when there 

 was little rain and great heat, all the rain that fell in the hollows 

 was required by the trees, but if perchance there was a surplus, it 

 was evaporated — this is known to take place in America at the 

 present day, as in the " cedar swamps" and other " swamps" diffe- 

 rent kinds of trees grow luxuriantly in places without drainage 

 outlets— also, when the rain became greater and the heat less, the 

 moisture became excessive, generating the marshes in the flat and 

 the peat in the hill, thus destroying the forests and burying the 

 pagan cemetery. 



