The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-01-25

with reed mace ard bog cotton. Peat lately
cut stands in chocolate-colored stacks. Heath
cry tussocks accent the expanse of brown
spagnum and clumps of red sun dews.
Carnivorous plants of innocent guise spring
from the water, from rosette of green leaves
delicate violet bell hangs pandulous from a
long stem, its beautiful coTrolla closing up
every wandering insect. The ground quakes,
Its falrest clump of bloom threatening to open
AND ENGULF THE WAYFARER,
who quickly springs to the next. Peewits,
snipe and redshank rise from the heather.
The spagnum is quite dry, though footstep
sends it under water. Midway in the Dog
there is still a tiny lake where teal nest but
the sragnum is sending out its arms toward
the center, the peaty shore pressed INTO water
proof felt. The white-peta.ed croWIoot springs
unsullied from water black as jet.
Above the first mark the sky line in an
unbFoken phalanx and below the beg, where
a part of it has been drained, trees have been
planted in the SOL that Warps into great ridges
and has been burrowed by rabbits The foot
sinks in pine needles ana dry moss, sou ana
springy as a carpet, and SheeLed in springtlme
with blue bugies and snowy potentils. 10
Emily Lawless, author Of "Grania, 1T is all
this. To the ordinary tourist the bog is as
dreary and wet it is to the poor peat cutter,
who with his sIane stands knee deep in the
bog and slices out the fuel This is spread
and turned and "cured," and carried from the
field. Then, if sheltered from the weather,
it cheers the cotter's hearth all winter with
its rudy glow. But wet, it smokes him out,
taints the potatoes, gives the children red
eyes and disgusts the pig.
Rude portable presses are now used IN the
field to extract the water and compress the
peat into smaller compass to make the cost
of handling less. A few years ago pariia-
mentary commission made some tests with
peat by which it was proved
ITS SUPERIORITY TO COAL.
In smelling iron and running engines, be-
cause of the absence Of sulphur. The supply
is practically inexhaustable, with 3,0O0,OG0
acres, and an average depth of eight feet
When England's coal mines are exhausted
Irish peat may run the factories. At pres
ent the fuel is used only by the peasants in
the neighborhood of the boys. as the most
primitive methods are employed in cutting It,
Able engineers have declared the boys can be
drained, covered with clay and lime to dis
solve and make staple the whole sphagnum and
cultivate above, while at the same time max
ing 1t easier to take out the more valuable
peat In the river strata. 1t is now tmposs1-
BILE to cut deep because Of the water.
No great attempt has ever been made to
drain bog, the tremendous expense discour-
aging the government and the little knowledge
and vast speculation regarding
THE SUBTERRANEAN WATERS
discouraging the engineers BY the peasan-
try the feat is believed to be impossible. The
surfaces that rise and fall season after sea-
son are mysterious and terrifying as vol
caones. Pits appear, foods gush forth, and in
such season as this wide area apparently
moves over into another parish, conveyed by
the ever potent fairies who have their home
in the inky depths Of the water world below.
There is something uncanny, too, in the
bodies entOmed below, not giving over to
corruption after the order of nature, but pre-
served as witnesses to legend, tradition and
history. Have not the boys already given up
treasures that confirm the splendid fragment
of an epic Of 1.-The Cattle Spoil of Cooley
glorifed St. Columbkill and brought Giraldus
Cambrensis to confusion? There Is more
fine gold in ancient ornament in the museum
at Dublin than in all the other ANTIQUARIAN
collections in Europe, and the boys have
kept their share Of it bright and unsullied as
when the red gold crown pressed the brow
of Con of the Hundred Battles.