434 



stones which were probably once affixed to bridles. They 

 are marked R, and are from my own collection. 



" Having now gone seriatim through the several bronze 

 antiques found at Dowris, as far as they have come under my 

 observation, I cannot avoid here expressing my total dissent 

 from the hypothesis that they formed the stock in trade of a tra- 

 velling Phoenician, or other itinerant foreign merchant, wander- 

 ing from house to house, and offering these commodities for 

 barter or for sale. If, for the sake of argument, we suppose 

 such a peripatetic dealer to have inadvertently got himself 

 entangled in a quagmire, how could such an accident have 

 compelled him there to abandon his wares altogether ? He, 

 at all events, could have removed piecemeal to a firmer foot- 

 ing such portable articles as those found at Dowris. But 

 another question here arises, namely, whether, in fact, any 

 bog whatever existed at Dowris in the remote time when the 

 relics were left there. It is probable, nay, almost certain 

 there was not any bog there then. 



" Dowris, as its name imports (Oubjiop, a dark, dense 

 wood), was originally a thick and extensive forest, and al- 

 though there is a bog there at present, it was not there many 

 centuries ago. In many parts of Ireland traces of former 

 cultivation, and even houses, have been discovered beneath 

 the bogs. In a paper presented by Mr. King to the Royal 

 Society, and published with Molyneux's Natural History of 

 Ireland, the writer says: ' There are many bogs of late stand- 

 ing in Ireland. When O'Donnell and Tyrone came to the 

 relief of Kingsale, they wasted the countrie, especially as they 

 came through Conought, which, by the means of the Earl of 

 Clanrickard, was generally loyal, and there is a great tract of 

 ground, now a bog, that was then plowed land, and there re- 

 mains the mansion house of my lord , in the midst of 



it.' The late Earl of Rosse (then Sir Laurence Parsons) 

 observes : ' It is now, indeed, universally admitted that where 

 those immense bogs extend at present there once were culti- 



