365 
spread and malignant were the peculiar atmospheric influences 
which characterized that period. The accounts of this epide- 
mic in England state that, early in September, the potatoes 
were ‘blackened and spoiled; they smell at a distance the 
same as after a frosty night late in October’-—symptoms which 
indicated a similarity between the epidemic of that period and 
the one with which we have lately become so familiar. 
‘©1817. This was called the year of the malty flour. The 
potato crop wasvery deficient; hence, continued scarcity during 
the ensuing winter. 
‘¢ A great quantity of snow fell in the end of 1820, and 
extensive inundations followed, which produced remarkable 
telluric phenomena early in the following year; for instance, 
the ‘moving bog.’ 
«¢ May and June, 1821, were dry, cold, and frosty; but 
the autumn was one of unusual moisture: the rain accumu- 
lated upon the surface of the ground, the rivers and lakes 
swelled, and the floods spread far and wide over the face of the 
land, the rain continuing to pour in torrents during Novem- 
ber, December, and part of the following January. The 
potato crop soured and rotted in the ground; and although a 
sufficiency was obtained in the dry and upland districts to 
support human life for some months, it was expended early in 
the ensuing spring. Fortunately, these effects were not gene- 
ral throughout the kingdom, but occupied a district which 
might be defined by a line drawn from the Bay of Donegal, 
upon the north side, at the junction of the counties of Sligo 
and Leitrim, to Youghal Harbour, where the counties of Cork 
and Waterford border on the south, thus including the whole 
western seaboard of Sligo, Mayo, Galway, Clare, Limerick, 
Kerry, and Cork; all exposed to the full force of the Atlantic, 
the influence of which, though mild, is moist. 
‘«¢ In 1825 the seasons were mild, yet we read of a partial 
failure of the potato crop, as may be instanced by the rise in 
the price of potatoes. 
