TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 91 



and particularly to the mouths of the vallies, where the torrents 

 descending from naked and steep sides of the mountains, had 

 accumulated, and were forcing a passage into the sea. This was 

 evidently the case at all the four places above-mentioned. 



At each of those places during those severe floods, the rains 

 that fell upon the upper surface of the ravines, which extend half 

 a mile and upward across, and penetrate from two to four miles 

 inland (and to which many small branches communicate) must 

 have been immense ; and the force of the accumulated waters 

 when confined in narrow channels in the low grounds, must have 

 been irresistible. It is to these circumstances that may be justly 

 ascribed the devastations that have taken place : but such evils 

 can never occur upon lands laying upon a gentle declivity, and 

 so situated, as to receive only those rains that fall perpendicularly 

 upon them. Even three or four inches of rain, falling in one day 

 upon fields of this description, (and particularly if they are 

 ploughed) so far from doing injury, would undoubtedly be of the 

 greatest advantage — because the loose soil by readily absorbing 

 every drop of rain, would long retain the moisture — and conse- 

 quently promote vegetation. 



There are betwixt two and three thousand acres of the above 

 description on this island ; which I have no hesitation in declar- 

 ing might be broken up with the greatest safety — and made to 

 yield excellent crops of potatoes, mangel wurzel and corn — from 

 which the supplies of vegetable and animal food, would become 

 abundant — and the inhabitants might very soon be relieved from 

 their present dependence on foreign imports. 



