. . .They sent their roots into the moist bark and fed on the sap that should have nourished the trees.

"The great trees became weaker and weaker as the years passed away, until at last they sickened and died, and fell to the ground.

"Fir-trees began to grow in the places of the oaks. But they were treated in the same manner. Their life-giving sap was taken by a new growth of mosses. The fir-trees died, and added to the great masses of decaying wood which now covered the damp ground.

"Then plants grew up. But they met with the same fate as the trees.

"Thousands and thousands of years passed by. The beautiful forests that once covered the land were slowly changed into peat."

[7]

The peat-bogs are now so thick and heavy that the poor of Ireland can dig twenty-five feet into them and cut out squares of the solid peat.

After drying them in the air and sunshine, the people burn them in place of coal. This queer f. . . Read More