The Irish standard., 1897-01-16

Hand, slips silently with a regard only for
the wary fly. The natter jack toad
blinks his eyes of jet. Below the bank
the bog lies up the mountain side, broom
and furzc disappearing. but purple heath
er running along the peaks and ridges
and marshes bits bristling with reed
mace and bog cotton Peat lately cut
stands in chocolate-colored stacks.
Heathery tussocks accent the expanse of
brown spagnunl and cIunps OF red sun
! dews.
Carnivorous plafits of innocent guise
spring from the water, from a rosette OF
| green leaves delicate violet bell hangs
pendulous from long stem, its beautl-
Lfal corolla closing on every wandering
insect. The ground quakes, it's. fairest
clun1p OF bloom threatening to open and
engulf the wayfarer. who quickly springs
to the next Peewits, snipe and red
! shank rise from the heather The spag-
mum is quite dry, though a footstep
sends it under water. Midway in the
bog there is still tiny lake where teal
nest, but the spagnum is sending out its
arms toward the center. the peaty shore
pressed into water proof felt. The white
petalled crowioot springs unsullied from
water black as jet,
Above the first mark OF the sky line in
an u1lbrokcn phalar1x and below the bog,
where part OF it has been drained, trees
have been planted in the soil that warps
into great ridges and has been burrowed
bv rabbits. The foot sinks in pine nee
dies and dry moss soft and springy as
carpet and shectcd i'll springtime with
blue bug1es and snowy potentils. 10
Emily Lawless, author of "Grania.' it is
all this To the ordinary tourist the bog
is as dieary and wet as it is to the poor
peat cutter, who, with his slane, stands
knee deep in the bog and slices out the
fuel This is spread and turned and
'Fcured' and carried from the field. Then,
if sheltered from the weather. it cheers
the cotter's hearth all winter with its
ruddy 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 COM
press the peat into smaller compass to
make the cost OF handling less. A few
years ago parliamentary commission
made some tests with peat by which they
proved its superiority to coal i'll smelling
iron and running engines, because OF the
absence OF sulphur. The supply is prac-
tically inexilaustible, with 100000 acres
and an average depth Of eight feet. When
Englands coal mines are exhausted Irish
peat may run the factories. At present
the fuel is used only by the peasants III
the neighborhood of the bogs as the
most primitive methods are employed in
cutting it. Able engineers have declared
that all boys can be drained, covered
with clay and lime to- dissolve and make
stable the woollille spagnusll and cult
waited above, while at the same time max
bic peat in lower strata. 1t is now i'm
possible to cut deep because OF the wa
ter. -
No great attempt has ever been made
to drain bog, the tremendous expense
discouraging the government and the lit
tie knowledge and vast speculation re-
garding the subterranean waters dis
couraging the engineers. By the peas
ants-- the feat is believed to be impossi-
bic. The surfaces that rise and fall sea-
son after season are mysterious and ter
riiying as volcanoes. Pits appear, floods
gusll FORTH and in such a season as this
a wide area apparently moves over into
another parish, conveyed by the ever po-
tent fairies, who have their home i'll the
nEy depths of the water world below
There is something uncanny. too, in
the bodies entombed below, not given
over to corruption after the order Of ma
ture. but preserved as witnesses to leg
end, tradition and history. Have not the
boys already given up treasure that con-
firms the splendid fragment OF an epic of
THE Cattle Spoil OF Cooley" glori6ed
St. Columbkill and brought Giraldus
Cambrensis to confusion? There is more
fine gold in ancient ornament in the inu-
scum at Dublin than in all the other an
tiouarian 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 Hun
bred Battles. 49,. .-s