6ft Curative Influence of the 



other more important features. Of the position of the town of 

 Hastings, we have the following passage — 



*' Of all the benefits, however, which the Hastings' coast offers to 

 the invalid, there is none more obvious than the choice of situation 

 it affords, adapting it either for summer or winter residence ; many 

 of its habitations being placed at an elevation of two or three hun- 

 dred feet above the level of the sea ; consequently, as the tempera- 

 ture of all places is so materially diminished in proportion to their 

 elevation, that in this country, one of 270 feet is allowed to be equal 

 in the difference of its temperature to an entire degree of latitude : 

 and as these more elevated parts of the town of Hastings are more- 

 over visited, during the summer months, by the then prevailing 

 breezes, descending from the surrounding altitudes, these higher 

 parts of the town necessarily receive from them a very diminished 

 temperature, at those periods when coolness is most grateful. 

 While on the other hand, the numerous habitations which are 

 placed on the immediate beach, below the cHffs, being most effec- 

 tually sheltered, at all seasons, from the more piercing winds, are 

 no less suitably adapted for a winter residence. From hence it 

 follows, that a proper degree of caution should be exercised on the 

 part of invalids, lest by an injudicious choice, between situations so 

 remote from each other in character, a summer or winter residence 

 here, may lose some of its more important advantages. 



'* The most pernicious of all our winds, are the easterly and 

 the north easterly ; the latter of which, in this valuable climate, is 

 the only one which can be considered periodical, as it visits us with 

 great regularity, during a greater or less portion of the months of 

 April and May, which, from this cause, are usually trying months 

 to delicate constitutions. 



" As, unfortunately, in no country in Europe are the pernicious 

 effects of these winds more frequently experienced than in our own, 

 it becomes of the utmost importance to observe, that such is the pe- 

 culiar position of Hastings, that a considerable portion of it is most 

 securely sheltered, by its natural bulwarks, from the searching and 

 penetrating agency of these hostile winds. The more genial winds, 

 on the contrary, which can alone visit these sheltered situations, 

 are those which blow from the south, west, and south-west. Dur- 

 ing the winter season they often prevail many days or even weeks 

 together, sometimes very powerfully, and usually waft to our shores 

 a very sensible increase of temperature. 



** It will also, I think, be generally admitted, that few coasts are 

 recommended by so much natural beauty as that of Hastings, as in 

 this respect it possesses an acknowledged superiority over any other 

 within a much greater distance from the metropolis, and is indeed 

 almost the only situation in its vicinity, frequented by invalids, that 

 combines great beauty of inland scenery, with that peculiar to an 

 ejitensive and highly varied line of coast; which circumstance, in 

 connexion with its extensive distribution of those sgurces of interest. 



