MODE OF DRYING MARSHES. 245 



Here then if a few weeks well exficcate the whule 

 ifland ; what prevents more months in America from 

 producing the lame effed, where there is a dry and a 

 hot wind, certainly the latter ? 



In Ireland the ague is never epidemic, nor endemic, 

 as far as I know, except the feafon fhould fometimes be 

 fuch as to induce it, and of this 1 remember but one in- 

 ftance. Yet the ague and the dyfentery have been both 

 epidemic in Ireland, as the ancient Britilh fettlers ic- 

 verely experienced ; and when they were fo, Ireland re- 

 fembled America, it was a wood. 



I fliall relate one truly remarkable inftance of the ef- 

 fe£ls of clearing the country of wood in promoting eva- 

 poration. Before the time of Cromwell, not yet two 

 centuries, there was a furnace for fmelting iron ore and 

 a foundery at the town of Montrath in the Queens 

 County ; the iron was fent down a l/je/i navigable river, 

 the iVb/-^, to the next feaport for exportation: at this 

 day that river has not water fufficient to float a canoe, 

 and is a mere rivulet for many miles below that town ; 

 nor is there at this inftant any perfon of the neighbour- 

 hood who remembers it otherwife. What has this ari- 

 fen from ? As much rain falls as ever, the climate is 

 flill as cool ; yet the winds in March remove all the au- 

 tumnal and hyemal collections of water, and thus rivers 

 formerly navigable are dwindled into brooks. AlTuredly 

 the fame eafterly winds prevailed before the feventeenth 

 century, but the country was then covered with wood ; 

 it is novvT clear and the harfli breeze fweeps the bare bo- 

 fom of the earth, and bears aw^ay the combining moif- 

 ture. Admitting this then to be the fact, it may be re- 

 plied to by obferving, that it is evidently inadmiffible in 

 America, a new country where the crude earth has not 

 yet yielded fo many crops of vegetables as to rot and 

 form peat or combulfible turf for fuel, therefore timber 

 I i is 



