96 Richard Adie on the Influence of Hilly 
than once in three to five years. In the spring, after a season 
that has had a saline gale, I have heard it remarked by a 
traveller who had gone over. the extreme range of British 
railway-ground, that Lancashire appeared more blighted than 
the moors, or any other place he had passed over; it is 
due to the lands of this county being exposed to be swept by 
strong westerly gales from the Irish Sea, carrying with 
them particles of sea-water. Arboreal vegetation, from its 
elevation, is more liable to be injured by sea salt than the 
~ cereals, or other plants which form the object of the farmer’s 
eare. The latter, for a long period of their growth, only rise 
a few inches above the surface of the soil, while, during the 
time of their most active development for flowering and seed- 
ing, saline storms are rare; hence it is that ground where 
trees thrive badly is found covered with fertile corn-fields. - 
The influence of hills in checking winds within a certain 
sphere of their action, is shewn in the quotation given above 
from the Iliad, translated by Pope; for if wind rushes with 
much violence down a gap among hills, the fact of its doing 
go, which is so well known, and is here established on the 
authority of one of the oldest of authors, shews that there 
must have been resistance offered to it by the form of the 
ground. On the Cheshire side of the Mersey there was an 
inlet called Wallasley Pool, where the tide ebbed and flowed 
through a hollow very slightly depressed below the neigh- 
bouring country; the upper part of the pool passed through 
a flat marsh only elevated a few feet above the highest tides. 
On the southern border of this marsh there is a hill 200 feet 
high ; but, with this exception, the ground around the pool is 
low ; yet the winds issuing from the gap were often a cause 
of anxiety.to the boatmen of the Mersey ; and I have been 
told of serious boat accidents off the mouth of Wallasley 
Pool. This character is likely to be altered now, for the tide 
has ceased to ebb there. It has been converted into a great 
shipfloat, filled with water, and studded over with the masts 
of shipping ; but when the surface was open, the influence on 
the atmosphere of a slight depression was often observable. 
The action of trees and ridges of ground in retarding the 
motion of the air is very different; wind in passing through _ 
