hundred and forty-five miles. This river is in most parts wide and deep, and has within it several fine and fruitful islands, with a fertile soil on both its banks: but it is not navigable above fifty miles for ships, on account of its cataract.

At Powerscourt we also meet with a noble cataract, where the water is said, but probably with much exaggeration, to fall three hundred feet perpendicular, which is a greater descent than that of any other cataract in any part of the world.

NORTH AMERICA in its lakes and cataracts surpasses all other parts of the world. That of Niagara we have already mentioned. The FALLS of ST. ANTHONY, on the river Mississippi, in lati tude 44° 30′ north, descend from a perpendicular height of thirty feet, and are upward of two hundred and fifty yards wide, whilst the shore on each side is a level flat, without any intervening rock or precipice.

There are no remarkable rivers that extend far i to the state of New Jersey; but that named Passaick, or Pasaic, which discharges itself into the sea to the northward of it, has a remarkable cataract, about twenty miles from its mouth, where it is about forty yards broad, and runs with a very swift current, till arriving at a deep chasin or cleft, which crosses the channel, it falls about seventy feet perpendicular in one entire sheet. One end of the cliff is closed up, and the water rushes out at the other with incredible rapidity, in an acute angle, to its former direction, and is received into a large bason. Thence it takes a winding course through the rocks, and spreads again into a very considerable channel. The cleft is from four to twelve feet broad. When Mr. Burnaby saw it, the spray formed two beautiful rainbows, a primary and secondary, `which greatly assisted in producing as fine a scene as imagination can conceive. This extraordinary phænomenon is supposed to have been produced by an earthquake. What greatly heightens this scene, is another fall, though of less magnificence, about thirty yards above.

VOL.III,

SECTION X.

Lakes, Lochs, and Loughs.

1. Introductory Remarks.

THESE terms are synonymous, or rather, perhaps, may be re. garded by the etymologist as universal; for the lough of Ireland is the loch of Scotland, and both are the lake of England; each term being derived from the Latin lacus, or the Greek λaxxos, of simi lar import, and varied in its orthography and pronunciation by a mere provincial distinction.

Lakes or loughs have a very close connexion with bogs, as these last have with moors or mosses: a hog or moss being little more than a lake loaded with vegetable matter, usually of aquatic origin*. This connexion is well pointed out by Mr. W. King in the following ar. ticle, chiefly devoted to the loughs of Ireland; and which we take from the Philosophical Transactions.

As to the origin of bogs, it is to be observed, that there are few places in our northern world but have been noted for them, as well as Ireland; every barbarous ill-inhabited country has them.-I take the loca palustria, or paludes, to be the very same we call bogs, the ancient Gauls, Germans, and Britons, retiring, when beaten, to the paludes, is just what we have experienced in the Irish, and we shall find those places in Italy that were barbarous, such as Liguria, were infested with them, so that the true cause of them seems to be the want of industry. To show this, we are to consider, that Ireland abounds in springs; that these springs are mostly dry in the suminer, aud the grass and weeds grow thick about those places. In the winter they swell and run, and soften and loosen all the earth about them. Now that swerd or surface of the earth, which consists of the roots of grass, being lifted up and made fuzzy or spongy by the water in the winter, is dried in the spring, and does not fall together, but wither in a tuft, and new grass spring through it, which the next winter is again lifted up; and thus the spring is still more and more stopped, and the swerd grows thicker and thicker, till at first it makes what is

For bogs, mosses, and the production of peat, see chap. xxvi, of the present part of our work.

called a quaking bog, and as it rises and becomes drier, and the grass roots and other vegetables become more putrid, together with the mud and slime of the water, it acquires a blackness, and becomes what is called a turf bog. I believe when the vegetables rot, the saline particles are generally carried away with the water, in which they are dissolved; but the oily or sulphureous remain and float on the water; and this is that which gives turf its inflammability. To make this appear, it is to be observed, that in Ireland the highest mountains are covered with bogs as well as the plains, because the mountains abound much in springs. Now these being uninhabited, and no care being taken to clear the springs, whole mountains are thus over-run with bogs.

It is to be observed also, that Ireland abounds in moss more than probably any other country, insomuch that it is very apt to spoil fruit-trees and quicksets. This moss is of divers kinds, and that which grows in bogs is remarkable; for the light spongy turf is nothing but a congeries of the threads of this moss, before it be sufficiently rotten; and then the turf looks white, and is light. It is seen in such quantities and is so tough, that the turf-spades cannot cut it.-In the north of Ireland they call it old-wives tow, as it is not much unlike flax; the turf-holes in time grow up with it again, as well as all the little gutters in the bogs; and to it the red or turfbog is probably owing; and from it even the hardened turf, when broken, is stringy, though there plainly appear in it parts of other vegetables; and it is probable that the seed of this bog moss, when it falls on dry and parched ground, produces heath.

It is further to be observed, that the bottom of bogs is generally a kind of white clay, or rather sandy marl; that a little water makes it exceedingly soft; and when dry, it is all dust; so that the roots of the grass do not stick fast in it; but a little wet loosens them, and the water easily gets in between the surface of the earth 'and them, and lifts up the surface, as a dropsy doth the skin. Again, bogs are generally higher than the land about them, and highest in the middle; the chief springs that cause them being commonly about the middle, from whence they dilate themselves by degrees; and besides if a deep trench be cut through a bog, you will find the original spring, and vast quantities of water will be discharged, and the bog subside.

It must be allowed that there are quaking bogs otherwise pro.

duced. When a stream or spring runs through a flat, it fills with weeds in summer, and trees fall across and dam it up; then in winter the water stagnates more and more every year, till the whole flat is covered; then there grows up a coarse kind of grass peculiar to these bogs; this grass grows in tufts, and their roots consolidate together, and yearly grow higher, even to the height of a man; the grass rots in winter, and fall on the tufts, and the seed with it, which springs up next year, and so still makes an addition; sometimes the tops of flags and grass are interwoven on the surface of the water, and this gradually becomes thicker, till it lie like a cover on the water; then herbs take root in it, and by a plexus of the roots it becomes very strong, so as to bear a man. Some of these bogs will rise before and behind, and sink where a man stands to a considerable depth; underneath is clear water: even these in time will become red bogs; but may easily be turned into meadow by clear. ing a trench to let the water run off.

The inconveniences of these bogs are very great; a considerable part of the kingdom being rendered useless by them; they keep people at a distance from each other, and consequently interrupt them in their affairs. Generally, the land which should be our meadows, and the finest plains are covered with bogs; this is observed over all Connaught, but more especially in Longford and also in Westmeath, and in the north of Ireland. These bogs greatly obstruct the passing from place to place; and on this account the roads are very crooked, or they are made at vast expense through bogs. The bogs are a great destruction to cattle, the chief commodity of Ireland; for in the spring, when they are weak and hungry, the edges of the bogs have commonly grass, and the cattle venturing in to get it, fall into pits or sloughs, and are either drowned or hurt in the pulling out; the number of eattle lost this way is incredible. The bogs are a shelter and refuge to outlaws and thieves.

The fogs and vapours that arise from them are commonly putrid and stinking, and unwholesome; for the rain that falls on them will not sink, there being hardly any substance of its softness more im penetrable to rain than turf, and therefore rain-water stands on them, and in their pits, where it corrupts, and is exhaled all by the sun, very little of it running away, which must of necessity infect the air. The bogs also corrupt the water, both as to its colour and taste; for the colour of the water that stands in the pits, or lies on