Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1807 edition. Excerpt: ...part of the subject, I refer my reader to a letter to Sir John Macartney. In almost all bogs of any considerable depth, it is found that a quantity of water lies in a body between the turbary and the gravel, which Iteps the turbary in a buoyant state, and contributes to the growth of the fungus substance; a turf-cutter veil knows it, and with fear and caution approaches the bottom of the turf-hole, which frequently bursts up through a close covering of two or three feet, and would overwhelm him in a moment, but that he leaves benches uncut to secure his retreat. We have an instance in the county of Tipperary, within a few years, of a bog so overcharged with underwater, that it broke from its ancieyt situation, and travelled travelled in a compact body over several miles of country, bearing down houses, trees, and every thing that opposed its progress, until it reached the river Suir, twenty miles from its original situation; of the bog turf has been made. Had the under-water of this bog been tapped, and carried off from any one point, this event could not have happened. All persons, who wish to undertake the drawings of bogs, would do well to view the great works effected by Mr. Birch of Roscrea; he took a large tract of bog, in the centre of which stood an immense lake; he made a surrounding drain to the gravel to obtain a fall, and a drain direct from the fall into the lake, which he laid so completely dry, as to have it in a little time fit for tillage. The only thing, in which Mr. Birch was deficient, was in not using Elkington's auger: that would have saved him in his circular drain much of the expence of sinking, as, if an upper drain be formed of moderate breadth and depth, and in the course of it the auger be frequently applied to...
