HKB
by peat-diggers, in the place where it was always supposed the affair had happened. The skeleton of each was well preserved, and the different parts of the armor easily distinguished."[1019]
The same moss, on the 16th of December, 1772, having been filled like a great sponge with water during heavy rains, swelled to an unusual height above the surrounding country, and then burst. The turfy covering seemed for a time to act like the skin of a bladder retaining the fluid within, till it forced a passage for itself, when a stream of black half-consolidated mud began at first to creep over the plain, resembling, in the rate of its progress, an ordinary lava-current. No lives were lost, but the deluge totally overwhelmed some cottages, and covered 400 acres. The highest parts of the original moss subsided to the depth of about twenty-five feet; and the height of the moss, on the lowest parts of the country which it invaded, was at least fifteen feet.
Bursting of a peat-moss in Ireland.--A recent inundation in Sligo (January, 1831), affords another example of this phenomenon. After a sudden thaw of snow, the bog between Bloomfield and Geevah gave way; and a black deluge, carrying with it the contents of a hundred acres of bog, took the direction of a small stream and rolled on with the violence of a torrent, sweeping along heath, timber, mud, and stones, and overwhelming many meadows and arable land. On passing through some boggy land, the flood swept out a wide and deep ravine, and part of the road leading from Bloomfield to St. James's Well was completely carried away from below the foundation for the breadth of 200 yards.