60 



The Plant World. 



herbs as bunch-berry, bristly sarsaparilla sundew (Drosera 

 rotundi folia) and various associated species. 



We may classify bogs into several categories: flat bogs, 

 raised bogs and hanging bogs. The flat bog is the usual type 

 of sphagnum bog found in North America. A flat bog usually 

 results when a lake or pond is converted into a bog by the en- 

 croachment of vegetation. Those that have been described 

 as occurring on the Pocono Plateau are of the flat type. Ganong* 

 has shown, however, that in New Brunswick there are raised 

 bogs similar to those found in Ireland and other parts of Europe. 

 The raised bogs are formed, as all students of them agree, by 

 the pure sphagnum moss growing upward and carrying the 

 water by capillarity with it, so that in some cases standing 

 pools of water are seen on its surface. Sphagnum is able by 

 capillarity to raise water twelve to thirteen feet above the 

 water level of the basin in which the bog is forming. The 

 weight added to one of these bogs during a rain must be very 

 great. The bursting of bogs is the result of the accumulation 

 of more water than the structure is able to hold, and it gives 

 way suddenly. The great bog-burst of County Kerry, Ireland, 

 occurred on the night of December 27-28, 1896. The scene of 

 this catastrophe is three and a half miles from Rathmore rail- 

 way station, six miles from Headford, fourteen miles from 

 Killarney and about a half mile from the small village of Gneev- 

 gullia. The bog is about 600 acres in extent, 750 feet above the 

 level of the sea and was convex in the center before it burst. 

 It drained off in three directions — toward the Blackwater, the 

 Quarry Lodge and the valley of the Owenacree. The total 

 amount of peaty matter discharged was about 5,900,000 cubic 

 feet, sufficient to cover a large extent of country. The turf 

 cutting had to be made in two directions — toward the Black- 

 water and toward the Quarry Lodge — and owing to the injudi- 

 cious way in which the turf had been cut and owing to a heavy 

 rain storm on the night of December 27-28, the bog burst, 

 carrying away the house of Cornelius Donnelly, steward of the 

 quarry, who, with his family, was drowned. 



The hanging bogs are found on high mountain slopes, where 

 the angle of inclination is not too steep to permit peat mosses 



* Ganong, W. F. Upon Raised Peat Bogs in the Province of New Brunswick, 

 actions of the Royal Society of Canada. Second Series, Section 4, page 131. 



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