The Indianapolis journal., 1897-01-04
IRELAND'S GREAT BOGS
GEOLOGY AND FOLKLORE OF SOME
or THESE PICTURESQUE SPOTS.
Formerly Used as DepositOries of Sa-
cred Relics and TreasureS-The
Causes of Their Motion.

| rorheri! tseu as DepOstorfes Oh So-
cred Relies and Trcasures-The
Causes of Their Motion.
| Eleanor Atkinson, in Chicago Times-Herald.
The reports from Ireland to the effect
that a bog is moving down the course of
! the Flesk river. engulfing cottages and
| hamlets. threatening the town of Rath-
more, the ruins of Holy Cross Abbey and
| many other interesting remains in the
| vicinity of the Lakes of Killarney, has
| brought to life the old superstition con-
| corning the nature of bogs and their mys-
| terious power of destruction and conceal
| ment. The sea gives up its dead more
readily. There tides in that solidify-
| ing mass, whose permeating waters are
| blacker than the Styx.
| But bog can no more move from its
| eternal moorings than can Lake Michigan.
| Ii can overflow. indeed. as can the Swamps
| of the Kankakee, and food wide districts.
| The difference would be that in the swamp
| the sodden vegetation would remain an
| cbored, while in the bog the spongy sur
| face peat becomes loosened and goes down
with the flood that moves silently and
| seen beneath. What wonder then if the
| y,
advance of apparently solid peat. should
| revive the legend of the days when fairies
put their shoulders under the bog and
| moved it to distant place. In reality the
| turf wool has no density, but is compacted
| by pressure from behind and it is drained
dry because of its porous. nonputrescent
| substance.
| When the flood subsidies the bog will be
| found in it's ancient anchorage A dry.
| brown. worthless peat will be scattered be-
| fore doors far distant: some turf-cutters'
| cottages timbered with bog oak and
/ thatched with the spagnum. will have dis
| appeared and perhaps with them some
| hapless families. But the stone-built towns
| will get antiSeptic wash. and the ruins
| sustain no more damage than a purifying
| inundation. such as they have encountere'f
! many times since saints laid the founda-
| tions i'm the isle of sanctity and learning.
| There will not even be slime upon the holy
walls.
| NATURE OF THE BOGS.
Swamps are primitive masses of earth
| deposits of alluvia along the river courses,
| water soaked and choked with decaying
| vegetation that gives off miasmatic gas.
! But bogs are ancient lakes, often fed by
| springs underneath and feeding in their
| turn swift rivers. The water is never stag
| nant. The turf is an accumulation of vege-
| table matter on the surface, but often
| twenty to forty feet in depth. This vege-
| tation has undergone peculiar change un-
| der degree of temperature that prevents
decomposition. AS might be well under
| stood, ordinary aquatic plants of much sue
| culent LEAKAGE would decay. The plant pc
culiar to the bog is a kind of moss known
| as spagnum, something between the woody
| fiber of Spanish moss and the porous COM
| pactness of sponge. Given a shallow pool.
mud contracting around the roots OF true
water plants and spagnum fiourishes;
parasite absorbing the other plants, send
| ing out new ones of its own, spreading
above and solidifying below, and gradually
| replacing the water with compacted fiber.
| On top each years growth Is dry, brown and
| crumbling, but eight feet below ii is often
| as hard, black and valuable for fuel
| coal. Underneath the strata is water to an
| unknown depth. and there is water oozinS
| up to the surface through the porous mass.
| seemingly unsafe, but in reality treacher-
| Gus only in the bog holes left by the peat
| cutter. where nature has not had time TO
| heal the wound with new growth OF spag-
| num-
| The water flows away in great rivers
| from all sides for the bogs are all extensive
! If the outlets become obstructed there is
| an overflow, causing floods when the
| matted brown spagnum moves on the sur
| face, as the trades move the Saragossa sea
| with its islands of seaweeds. Only this sur
| face moss can float, as each successive year
| deposits its strata and constantly increases
| in density with pressure from above and
| below. Anything falling into bog hole
| becomes imbedded and mummitied- Much
=
covered with forest trees. as trunks of
| numerous varieties are often dug up, so
| perfect as to be useful for the builder. but
| black as ebony and much harder than the
| original wood.
| LOCKED FAST IN THEIR EMBRACE.
| Such is the beautiful bog oak. appearing
| like charcoal. but capable of being carved
| into furniture and ornaments. In the muse
| um of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin
| there is the wood of oak. fir, birch and yew,
| skeletons of deer, a human body with
| brown hair a tub of butter bleached and
perforated like cheese but converted into
| Il chalklike substance. Old armor and or
| naments metal caskets spear handles and
| many other things of use in legendary days
| have been dug up, among them Illuminated
| manuscripts in hermetically-sealed caskets.
| How many secrets and treasures of Irish
history are locked fast in the black en-
| brace of the bogs will never be known. But
| certain it is that in the centuries when
| the island was overrun by the Dane and
| then by the Anglo-Norman bogs were often
| the depository of sacred and ancestral rel
| les
The aspect of a bog is totally unlike that
| of a swamp, which teens with luxuriant
| and noxious life. The bog is dry i'm APP
| pearance and covered with hummocks of
| Spagnum looking like dry seaweed. or at
| distance like a field of stubble in winter.
/ Before the day of railroad travel from
| Dublin TO Shannon Harbor and TO
Limerick used to be by way of the canal.
| of floods cabins were built, rearing their
| roofs only few feet above the bank from
which they could scarcely be distinguished.
| a pit dug where n cabin wanted
| bog oak timbers driven in at the corners.
| The earth was banked up and the roof
! thatcned with spagnum. which compacts
| and never decays. A hole was left for the
| escape of smoke. 1t was astonishing to
! see the swarm of rosy. lusty children that
came out of these huts. their healthful-
| ness explained by the antiseptic qualities
| of the bogs
| SCENE OF THE FLOOD.
Where the flood is reported is part
of this great bog of Allen that extends
with large areas of arabic land included
| from Kildare to East Meath, and from
| Dublin to Killarney and the Shannon. Some
mysterious subterranean connection is es-
| tablished by the rise of rivers flowing i'm
| three directions from the Hill of Allen to
| Kildare-the ancient home of Fin and the
| Fenians. that sunny, bright eminence
| sea- The Dodder and Lffey, the Black
| water. the Slany and the Boyue. all rise on
| that slope. and seventy-five miles west the
! pleasant waters of the River Lea and the
| small streams that tumble their lovely cas-
cadeS into the lakes of learning, and drop
to silence into Gougane Barra. are fed by
| that same mysterious reservoir that dips
| under Tipperary and Limerick and crops out
again in the region of the Flesk. a brown.
sulen expanse dropped in the fairyland of
| Kerry.
Great bog of Allen swallow down
That odous heap called Phiipstown;