52 



are inadequate to these purposes — to elevations too great 

 for the production of the vegetables necessary to sustain 

 our new inhabitants. 



The limitation we are now under is merely, that we 

 advance upon ground not yet occupied by man ; but we 

 will surely choose the mildest of the description, that is, the 

 skirts of the mountains, and the most favourable vallies, 

 where we can find a depth of soil suitable to our objects, 

 and not encumbered with undiscl-argeable water, nor too 

 deeply loaded with spongy peat moss ; a description 

 abundantly scattered through all the mountains I have 

 traversed, and amply sufficient for an immense number of 

 inhabitants, though perhaps covering but a comparatively 

 small portion of the whole area of our alpine regions, 

 every where exhibiting immense tracts of shallow stony 

 surface, and a still greater portion elevated above the 

 zone where esculent vegetables can be cultivated. 



I may be told I am speculating on sending inhabitants 

 to people our mountains, at the very time we see the 

 Highlands of a neighbouring country depopulated; that 

 it is probable our efforts to establish colonies, will only be 

 the means of producing emigrations, similar to those we 

 have lately witnessed, and which have T)een so generally 

 deplored. 



Before we propose to stock uninhabited mountain tracts 

 with colonists, it is necessary to inquire, how other moun- 

 tain districts came to be forsaken by those who, born on 

 the spot, were probably descended from the aborigines of 

 the country, and yet, forgetting their attachment to the soil, 

 emigrated from the habitations of their ancestors. For si- 

 milar causes produce similar effects ; and less powerful ones 



