Various

“ When we consider the great magnitude of the earth, and observe the rapidity with which the increase of temperature occurs, it will strike every person that we in reality inhabit a mere pellicle or skin, which has formed by cooling upon the surface, whilst all the internal mass of our globe may still be in the same state of igneous fusion and tumultuous action of elements, from which its present mineral constitution on the surface has resulted. ”

“ THE CASTLE AND LAKE OF INCHIQUIN, COUNTY OF CLARE.
Connemara itself, now so celebrated for its lakes and mountains, was not less unknown a few years since than the greater portion of the county of Clare. Without roads, or houses of entertainment for travellers, its magnificent coast and other scenery were necessarily unvisited by the pleasure tourists, and but little appreciated even by their inhabitants themselves. ”

“ George and Mickey were intimate friends, independently of their joint antipathy against the gauger, and, truth to tell, much of the mortification and many of the defeats which Pentland experienced at George’s hands, were, sub rosa, to be attributed to Mickey. George was a distiller from none of the motives which generally actuate others of that class. He was in truth an analytic philosopher—a natural chemist never out of some new experiment—and we have reason to think might have been the Kane or Faraday or Dalton of his day, had he only received a scientific education. ”

“ By this means we can form, though obscurely, to our minds, an idea of the great magnitude of the earth itself. This magnitude renders also very inconsiderable those inequalities on the surface of the earth which constitute our highest ridges of mountains. A true model of Mont Blanc, the highest of European mountains, if constructed on the eighteen inch globe before referred to, would be unfelt by a finger drawn along its surface, and it would be only some of the highest peaks of the Andes and Himalayah that could be distinctly felt. ”

“ We were surprised very much some time ago at considering how much of the surface of the globe is covered by the waters of the lakes and oceans, and took the opportunity then of adverting to the importance of water in the general economy of nature. When, however, we pass to the consideration of the magnitude of the earth itself, the relative proportion of water appears to be much less considerable. ”

“ The earth is, however, not allowed to cool to that degree. It receives from the sun by radiation a quantity of heat which counteracts its tendency to cool, and hence the mean temperature of the surface of the earth has remained the same from the earliest historical epochs. In fact, at the surface we can find no trace of that original and internal great heat, the temperature of the surface of the earth being regulated altogether by the effect of the sun’s rays; but if we dig down to a moderate depth, about 45 feet, the influence of the sun becomes insensible. ”

“ But Clare can no longer be said to be an unvisited district: the recent formation of roads has opened to observation many features of interest previously inaccessible to the traveller, and its singular coast scenery—the most sublimely magnificent in the British islands, if not in Europe—has at least been made known to the public by topographical and scientific explorers—it has become an attractive locality to artists and pleasure tourists, and will doubtless be visited by increasing numbers of such persons in each successive year. ”

“ Now it so happened that about the period we write of, there lived in our parish two individuals so antithetical to each other in their pursuits of life, that we question whether throughout all the instinctive antipathies of nature we could find any two animals more destructive of each other than the two we mean—to wit, Bob Pentland the gauger, and little George Steen the illicit distiller. ”

“ The intensely heated and liquid earth, revolving in the cold and empty spaces of the planetary system, gradually must have lost its excess of heat. Cooling most rapidly at the surface, it there solidified, and generated the first rocks. The loss of heat still going on, the solidification proceeded to a greater and greater depth, and should ultimately have reduced the earth to the same temperature as the empty space among the stars. The temperature of space has been calculated to be almost the same as that in the winter at Melville Island, in northernmost America, that is, 56 deg. ”

“ If we dig down still farther, the earth, though having lost the heating power of the sun, becomes sensibly warmer. The greater the depth to which we descend, the higher is the temperature found to be. Thus, where deep sinkings have been made for mines or wells, the air or water at the bottom is found to be much higher in temperature than at the invariable layer which gives the mean temperature of the place. ”

“ Clamps of turf were at every side of them, and the boy was instructed, if the gauger, whom he well knew, ever appeared, to heap on fresh fuel, so as to increase the smoke in such a manner as to induce him to suppose that all he saw of it proceeded merely from the fire before him. In fact, the smoke from the cave below was so completely identified with and lost in that which was emitted from the fire above, that no human being could penetrate the mystery, if not made previously acquainted with it. ”

“ But though the erection of this castle is properly to be ascribed to the O’Briens, it is a great error in the writers of Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary to state that it has been from time immemorial the property of the O’Brien family. The locality, as its name indicates, and as history and tradition assure us, was the ancient residence of the O’Quins, a family of equal antiquity with the O’Briens, and of the same stock—namely, the Dal Cas or descendants of Cormac Cas, the son of Ollioll Oluim, who was monarch of Ireland in the beginning of the third century. ”

“ John Hunter was as remarkable for his industry as for his talents, of which his museum alone forms a most extraordinary proof; and if we look around and contemplate the history of those men whose talents and acquirements we must esteem, we find that their superiority of knowledge has been the result of great labour and diligence. ”

“ There is however as yet in this county too great a deficiency in the number of respectable houses of entertainment suited to the habits of pleasure tourists; for though the wealthier and more educated classes in the British empire are becoming daily a more travelling and picturesque-hunting genus, they will not be content to live on fine scenery, but must have food for the body as well as for the mind ”

“ If a gauger actually came to the little chasm, and cast his scrutinizing eye over it, he would immediately perceive that the erection of a private still in such a place was a piece of folly not generally to be found in the plans of those who have recourse to such practices. ”

“ The incidents which we are about to detail occurred at that period of time when the collective wisdom of our legislators thought it advisable to impose a fine upon the whole townland in which the still head and worm might be found; thus opening a door for knavery and fraud, and, as it proved in most cases, rendering the innocent as liable to suffer for an offence they never contemplated as the guilty who planned and perpetrated it. ”

“ In the course of a short time, reprisals, law-suits, battles, murders, and massacres, multiplied to such an extent throughout the whole country, that the sapient senators who occasioned such commotion were compelled to repeal their own act as soon as they found how it worked. Necessity, together with being the mother of invention, is also the cause of many an accidental discovery. Pentland had been so frequently defeated by little George, that he vowed never to rest until he had secured him ”

“ Wherever there is a demand for a commodity it will not be long wanting; and the people of Clare are too sagacious not to perceive, however slowly, the practical wisdom of holding out every inducement of this kind to those who might be disposed to visit them and spend their money among them. The first step necessary, however, to produce such results in any little frequented district, is to make its objects of interest known to the public by the pencil and the pen—the rest will follow in due course ”

“ It may appear very strange that we can assert any thing positive about the depth of water in those seas, that are to the lines used for sounding quite unfathomable; but it is effected very simply. Every person has seen a wave advancing along the level surface of a canal, and by observing with a watch, it could easily be found to move more quickly at some times than at others. The deeper any part of the canal is, the more rapidly does the wave move along ”

“ A certain quantity of the water which is absorbed by the ground after rain must penetrate to a great depth, must descend, in fact, until at 11⁄2 miles it is boiled and driven up again to find some outlet as a spring. In rising up, however, it is for the most part cooled; but having charged itself with various saline and metallic bodies, under the most favourable circumstances of high temperature and pressure, it issues as a hot mineral spring or spa. ”

“ It is an ill-founded notion to say that merit in the long-run is neglected. It is sometimes joined to circumstances that may have a little influence in counteracting it, as an unfortunate manner and temper; but generally it meets with its due reward. The world are not fools—every person of merit has the best chance of success ”

“ It is, on the contrary, almost certain that at a period far exceeding in remoteness any time of which mere human indications can be found, the globe of the earth was one mass of liquid matter, heated to a degree exceeding our most intense fires, and wherein were melted all together the various elements which have since arranged themselves into their present forms. ”

“ Where man also employs his most gigantic energies and greatest efforts of skill to penetrate below the surface, forming mines by which the supplies of coal, of iron, of copper, and other minerals, have been obtained from the earliest times, the cavities that he makes can only be compared with the trace given by the point of a pin [Pg 128] that had lightly touched the globe, and which would require a favourable incidence of light to see. ”

“ Although there are many places in the great Atlantic and Pacific Oceans where the depth of water is very great, yet it has been deduced from principles that are not liable to much error, that the general or average depth does not exceed three miles. ”

“ Under the auspices of this company, a well has been sunk already to the depth of 1600 feet, and water obtained at 77 degrees; but to obtain natural hot water at a temperature of 100 degrees, which would be required for bathing purposes, an additional depth of probably as much more will be required. It is said the projectors are not now sanguine of its pecuniary success.
The Secret of Success in Life.—In no department of life do men rise to eminence who have not undergone a long and diligent preparation ”

“ Clare is indeed on many accounts deserving of greater attention [Pg 122] than it has hitherto received. It is a county rich in attractions for the geologist and naturalist, and interesting in the highest degree to the lovers of the picturesque. ”

“ For some years these conditions were strictly adhered to; they lived in happiness together, and [Pg 123] two children blessed their union. But it happened unfortunately at length that at the neighbouring races at Cood he fell in with the O’Briens, by whom he was hospitably treated; and being induced to indulge in too much wine, he forgot his engagements to his wife, and invited them to his residence on a certain day to repay their kindness to him. His wife heard of this invitation with sadness, but proceeded without remonstrance to prepare the feast for his guests. ”

“ Their removal is indeed differently accounted for in a popular legend still current in the barony, and which, according to our recollections of it, is to the following effect:
In the youth of the last O’Quin of Inchiquin, he saw from his residence a number of swans of singular beauty frequenting the west side of the lake, and wandering along its shore. ”

“ The Castle of Inchiquin is referred to in the Irish Annals as the residence of the chiefs of the O’Brien family, at the years 1542, 1559, and 1573; but the notices contain no interest to the general reader. ”