The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1897-01-16
An Interesting History Of Their
Formation and Their
Action.
Fairy Stories in Connection With
Their Removal From
Place to Fiace.
All Kinds of Relics and Treasures
Taken from Their Deep
RecesSeS.

The reports from Ireland to the effect
that bog is moving down the course Of
the Flesk river, engulhng cottages and
hamlets, threatening the town of Rath.
more, the ruins of the Holy Cross Abb
bey and many other interesting remains
in the vicinity of the Lakes of Killarney,
has brought to life the old superstition
concerning the nature Of bogs and their
mysterious power of destruction and
concealment. The sea gives up its dead
more readily. There are no tides in that
solidifying mass, whose permeating wa
tiers are blacker than the Styx, writes
Eleanor Atkinson in the Chicago Times
Herald.
But bog can no more move from its
eternal moorings than can Lake Mlchi-
gan. 1t can overflow, indeed, as can the
swamps of the Kankakec, and food wide
districts. The difference would be that
in the swamp the sodden vegetation
would remain anchored, while in the bog
the spongy surface peat becomes loos-
ened and goes down with the food that
moves silently and unseen beneath. What
wonder then, if the simple pcasantry,
watching the insiduous advance OF ap~
parent1y 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 scat
tered before doors far distant; some turf
cutters cottages tinbered with bog oak
and matched with the spagnu1n, will
have disappeared, and perhaps with them
some hapless families. But the stone
built towns will get an antiscptlc wash,
and the ruins sustain no more damage
than purifying inundation, such as they
have encountered many times since the
saints laid the foundations in the isle OF
sanctity and learning. There will not
even be slime upon the holy walls.
Swan,ps are primitive masses Of earth
or deposits of alluvia along river courses,
watersoaked and cl1oked with decaying.
vegetation that gives off a 1niasmatic gas.
Bit bogs are ancient lakes, often fed by
springs underneath, and feeding in their
turn swift rivers. The water is never
stagnant. The turf is an accumulation Of
vegetable matter on the surface, but often
twenty to forty feet in depth. This vege-
tation has undergone a peculiar change
under degree OF temperature that pre-
vets decomposition. AS might be well
understood, ordinary aquatic plants OF
much succulent LEAKAGE would decay. The
plant peculiar to the bog is kind OF
moss XII: ,wn as spagntm, something be-
tween the woody fiber of Spanish moss
and the porous compactness OF sponge.
Given shallow pool, mud contracting
around the roots of true water plants and
spagnum hourishes: parasite absorbing
the other plants, sending out new ones
of it's own, spreading above and solidity- IL
ing below, and gradually replacing the
water with compacted fiber. On top
each years growth is dry brown and
crumbling, but eight feet below it is Of
ten as hard, black and valuable for fuel
as coal. Underneath this strata is water
to an unknown depth, and there is water /
oozing up to the surface through the
porous mass, seemingly unsafe, but in !
reality treacherous only in the bog holes Ii
left by the peat-cutter, where nature has 4.
not had time to heal the wound with q q
new growth OF spagnum. 81
The water flows away in great rivers4s
from all sides, for the bogs are all cx-szs.
tensive and more elevated than the arabic Il
lands. If the outlets become obstructed
there is an overflow, causing floods when
the matted brown spagnum moves on the
surface. as the trades move the Saragossa
Sea with its islands of seaweeds. Only
this surface moss can float, as each suc-..as
cessive year deposits its strata and con-
stantly increases in density with pressure 4
from above and below. Anything falling
into bog hole becomes imbedded and as
m1,,nn1ifed. Much oi the surface must
at one time have been covered with for--sS#sS
est trees, as trunks Of numerous varieties III ||
are often dug up, so pcrfectsas g be t1sefSs MA;
full for the builder, but black As ebony
and much harder than the orig ginai Wood
Such IS the beautiful bog oak, appcassas
INC like charcoal, but capable Of being
carved into furniture and ornane nents: lss
the museum Of the Royal Irish AAeaden# 81 II
III Dublin there is the wood of oak, frSs
birch and yew, seera sssI lssl
,ta, ,1,al, body
tery