[ 38 ] 



Hence it appears, that interefting natural events, the con- 

 fequence of florms, have occurred on our coafts in the latter part 

 of the prefent century, which were not forefeen, nor even fufped- 

 ed, at its commencement. 



Of the Tides. 



It cannot be wondered at if thefe tempefls fhould have had 

 confiderable effed on the tides of the ocean. The waters of that 

 element, as long as they are unimpeded by extraneous caufes, obey 

 the influence of the heavenly luminaries, and ebb and flow with ' 

 degrees of quantity, and regularity of periods, which come within 

 the reach of human calculation. But when they are agitated by 



ftorms, 



from Dunfanaghy to Rutland, along the weftern coafl of Donegal, I had great 

 difficulty to difcover a houfe, fituated between the river Guidore and the Rofles 

 iflands, whither I had been dire£lcd to enquire for a guide; and, after much featch, 

 at length perceived its roof, juft emerging from the fands. The owner told me that 

 his houfe was not long built, and had, at firft, a confiderable tra£l of pafture ground 

 between it and the fea ihore, but that, of late, he was every year obliged, with 

 great labour, to dig it out of the encroaching fands, and purpofed, fhortly, to remove 

 it to the oppofite fhore of a lake called Mullochdearg, which lay behind the houfe, in 

 defpair of being able to maintain his prefent fituation. 



A difputed boundary in Fanet, on the northern coaft of the fame country, between 

 the tenants of one of my own glebes and the neighbouring peafants, is afcertained 

 by a heap of iron ftoriie in the midfl of loofe and fhifting fands. Thirty or forty years 

 ago there flood here the forge of the village ; but no remains of it, or its fmith, are 

 now difcoverable, except the cinders of the forge, and the rank weeds that fpring from 

 a rich ftratum of earth, once the foil of his garden, and ftill vifible in a hillock of 

 fand. 



