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black ones are always found in the water, or on the shores of the 
lough : sometimes in the mouths, or on the shores of rivulets, that 
empty themselves into it. Those which have wood continuous with 
them, have not yet been found above twenty yards distance from the 
waters of the lake ; which is about the distance to which the waters 
reach in winter, and at other times when its waters are extraordinarily 
swelled. This gentleman observes, that the whetstones or hones, 
vulgarly so called, which are often sold for Lough Neagh stones, are 
not so ; but are of a soft gritty kind, and are found near Drogheda. 
There seems, however, little reason to believe, that the waters of 
Lough Neagh possess, at present, any petrifying power ; since the 
supporters of this opinion have not been able to adduce a single well 
supported fact in proof of it. 
Mr Carew observes, that “ the Cornish tynners hold a strong 
imagination, that in the withdrawing of Noah’s flood to the sea, the 
same took his course from east to west, violently breaking up, and 
forcibly carrying with it the earth, trees, and rocks, which lay any 
thing loosely, neare the upper face of the ground. To confimie the 
likelihood of which supposed truth, they doe many times digge up 
whole and huge timber trees, which they conceive at that deluge to 
have been overturned and overwhelmed : but whether then or sithence, 
probable it is, that some such cause produced this effect*.” 
He also observes, that “ the ancient name of St. Michael’s 
Moimt, was Qara Clowse in Cowse, in English, the hoare rocke in the 
wood ; which now is, at every flood, encompassed by the sea, and 
yet at some low ebbes, roots of mighty trees are discryed in the 
sands about itf.” 
Camden not only notices tho^e roots of mighty trees being seen 
in the sands, but remarks, that similar roots have been seen about 
* The Survey of Cornwall, written by Richard Carew, Esq. 1602, p. 7. 
f Ibidem, p. 3. 
