was as soft as a cabbage-stalk. All the oak was as sound as that which is every day dug out of the neighbouring bogs.

On a subsequent visit, Captain Mudge discovered two thick oak planks, with a mortice in each, which he thinks were for the uprights of a doorway leading to the passage; and from the number of ends of large oak logs seen in the sides of the section of the drain, he is of opinion that they belong to some other building, and that the one uncovered was only for a sleeping-place. When we consider that stumps of trees were standing, and their roots exposed on the same level of the bog on which the foundation of the house rests, similar in all respects to the timbers thereof, and that the bog has been probed to the depth of fifteen feet, we are carried back to a period of time to which the memory of man-we may perhaps say the history of man— does not extend; and the conjecture of Captain Mudge is not improbable, " that some sudden and overwhelming calamity had buried all in one ruin.” May not that calamity have been occasioned by the flowing of some neighbouring bog over that on which the house was built?

The annexed rough sketch will convey a general idea of this ancient structure.

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Why not cultivate your bogs?" was a question put to a small farmer: "you know that by paring and burning; by a little limestone gravel; by marl, sea-sand, or sea-weed, you get an excellent crop of Fotatoes the first year, and barley or oats the following years." Very true, your honour; and if we could get a bit of a lease for fourteen or twenty years, it might do; but to have it taken from us when brought into heart, or to keep it only by paying rent for it, would not do at all. And what would become of poor ould Ireland, if no turf was left to boil the praties?" I have heard a similar question put in England-" What shall we do for fuel when all the coal shall be exhausted?" There are people who look forward five or six hundred years to this event. This idea having thus been broached, I immediately set about a rough calculation with regard to the duration of peat-bogs-but without the least pretension to anything like accuracy-the result of which is as follows:-I supposed them to consist of two millions of acres; that, on an average, they were two yards deep; that there were one million and a half of families, and that each family, on an average, consumed twenty-seven cubic feet of turf annually; the bogs, upon this moderate estimate, would not be exhausted-even supposing them not to grow-in seven hundred years *.

*Mr. Griffith, an able geologist, who is preparing for publication a Geological Map of Ireland, has stated, from his own observation during twenty years, an example of a bog having

It was natural enough to ask what would become of Ireland if there were no bogs. Coal, if plentiful, would never answer for the cottages and cabins. The Scotch highlanders when, for their sod-huts, the Marquess of Stafford gave them stone buildings with chimneys, said they were cold, and without smoke to warm them; so say the Irish, who would not be happy if deprived of the smell and the smoke of turf;-nay, I am credibly informed, it is no uncommon thing for them to stop up the hole in the thatch, to keep the smoke in and make the cabin warm. There is little danger of their being deprived of this luxury. Until Ireland shall be in a more tranquil and settled state, and capital flow into that country, the bogs and the heath-lands. will remain as they are.

grown at the rate of two inches every year. This, however, must be considered as a very unusual and extraordinary instance. The bog below that on which the house above-mentioned stood, must necessarily have existed prior to the stumps and roots of the trees upon it.

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LETTER XV.

LIMERICK TO KILLARNEY.

Castle Island-Bianconi's Cars - Killarney and its CrowdsView from Ross Castle-The "Kenmare Arms "-Tour round the Lakes-Dunlow Gap-The Purple Mountain — View of M'Gillicuddy's Reeks, &c. from the summit of-The Three Lakes-Muckross Abbey and Domain-Burying-ground of Muckross and Legends-Dimensions of the Lakes—compared with those of Lough Erne-Baneful effects of Politics-An absent Waiter-Eagles and Dumb boy.

Killarney, 25th September, 1835. On the morning of the 23rd, when I left Limerick by the mail for Killarney, two other mails were preparing to start about the same hour-all wellappointed coaches, apparently little if at all inferior to our own. The first part of our road, as far as Rathkeal, was carried over the same kind of good soil for grain and pasture as on the other side of Limerick. At this small town we observed a detachment of the constabulary force escorting four ruffianly-looking men, handcuffed, the first criminal captives I had seen in Ireland. The same kind of pasture and grain country continued until we passed the village of Newcastle, soon after which it gradually rose into a range of hills, chiefly