8 



would return it on the very next Monday. The Connaught 

 witch was willing to oblige. " But how, dear, will you take it 

 or send it back ? " she asked. " Oh, easy enough ; in my pocket- 

 handkerchief," was the answer. And, sure enough, this was 

 the way she managed ; and passing safely over Lough Ree and 

 several trifling obstacles, such as rivers and mountains, with a 

 slip of the corner of her handkerchief she let the lake out quietly 

 into the valley of the Owel, where it settled itself as if it had 

 been born and bred there, and there it may be seen to this 

 day ; for the Westmeath witch snapped her fingers at her 

 Connaught sister and flatly refused to bring the lake back. Of 

 course there was a terrible row, but the end of it was that the 

 lake was lost to Roscommon for ever, and the former owner 

 had to content herself with as ugly a hollow as anyone ever 

 saw, where once those sweet waters used to flow, all covered 

 with limestone flags as waste as a graveyard. But the lough 

 itself did not like to stay on the Leinster side of the Shannon, 

 and so it sent forth two streams — one from its northern, and 

 another from its southern end — both of which, bounding west- 

 wards — and they are called by the people the gold and silver 

 bands — stretched towards Connaught, forming the head waters 

 of the Inney and the Brusna. 



However, the Ordnance Survey and the Geological Survey, 

 having passed over the whole of the land, furnished some very 

 clear ideas as to how the lakes of Ireland have been formed. 

 Professor Hull, Director of the Geological Survey, in his work on 

 the physical geology of Ireland, says: — "All the lakes of Ireland 

 may with great probability be classified, as regards their mode of 

 formation, under the three following heads, viz. : — i, lakes of 

 mechanical origin ; 2, lakes of glacial origin ; 3, lakes of chemical 

 solution." Under the head of mechanical origin, Dr. Hull 

 includes lakes a which, while they may have been modified in 

 form by other agencies, are primarily due to the faults or dis- 

 locations of the strata," and in that division he places Lough 

 Neagh and Lough Allen, two remarkable examples of lakes 

 formed in that way. 



