S O I L AND C L I M A T E. 



Relative to tbe climate of Ireland, a fhort refidence cannot 

 enable a man to fpeak much from his own experience j the ob- 

 fervations I have made rnyfelf, confirm the idea of its being 

 vaftly wetter than England ; from the 2oth of June, to the 

 fcoth of October, I kept a regifter, and there were in 122 days, 

 75 of rain, and very many of them inqefTant and heavy. I 

 have examined fimilar regifters I kept in England, and can find 

 no year thai even approaches to fuch a moifture as this. But 

 there is the regifter of an accurate diary publifhed, which 

 compares London and Corke. The refult is, that the quanti- 

 ty at the latter place, was double to that of London. See 

 Smith's Hiji. ofCorke. 



From the information I received, I have reafon to believe, 

 that the rainy feafon fets in uiually about the firft of July, and 

 coniinues very wet till September or Oflober, when there is 

 ufually a dry fine feafon of a month or fix weeks. I refided in 

 the county of Corke, &c. from October till March, and found 

 ihe winter much more foft and mild, than ever I experienced 

 one in England. I was alfo a whole fummer there (1778), and 

 it is fair to mention, that it was as fine a one, as ever I knew 

 in England, though by no means fo hot. I think hardly fo 

 wet, as very many I have known in England. The tops 

 of the Galty Mountains, exhibited the only fnow we faw 

 and as to frofts, they were fo (light and rare, that I believe 

 myrtles, and yet tenderer plants, would have furvived with- 

 out any covering. But when I fay that the winter was not re- 

 markable for being wet, I do not mean that we had a dry at* 

 mofphere. The inches of rain which fell, in the winter \ fpeak 

 of, would not mark the moifture of the climate. As many in- 

 ches will fall in a fingle tropical (bower, as in a whole year in. 

 England. See Mitchell Prefent State ef Great Britain, and North 

 America. But if the clouds prefently difperfe, and a bright 

 fun fliines, the air may foon be dry. The worft circumftance 

 of the climate of Ireland, is the conftant moifture without 

 rain. Wet a piece of leather, and lay it in a room, where 

 there is neither fun nor fire, and it will not in fummer even, be 

 dry in a month*. I have known gentlemen in Ireland deny 

 their climate being moifter than England ; but if they have 

 eyes let them open them, and fee the verdure that cloathes their 

 rocks, and compare it with ours in England where rocky foils 

 are of a ruflet brown however fweet the food for Jlieep. 



Does 



* / have had this happen myfelfvjith a pair ofivet glove*. 



'The myriads of flies alfo which buz. about one's ears, and are 

 ready to go in Jhoals into one's mouth at every vj^rd and thofe 

 almojl imperceptible flies, called midges, which perfefily devour o.ne 

 in a ivood, or near a river, prove the fame thing. 



