MONTEATH'S FORESTER'S GUIDE. 14? 



of derangement. We attribute this effect on vege- 

 tables principally to the coldness and saline matter. 

 The depressing effect on the spirits or vital energy 

 of man, occasioned by the eastern breeze, does not 

 appear to be dependent on the same cause. The 

 great rivers, the Rhine, the Weser, the Elbe, inde- 

 pendent of the English rivers, throw a great quan- 

 tity of decaying vegetable matter into the lower 

 part of the German sea, which, being there only a 

 shallow muddy gulf, may thence have its waters so 

 far contaminated as to throw off pernicious exhala- 

 tions. Or, what is much more probable, the eastern 

 breeze, sweeping along the swamps (at this time in 

 high evaporation, of malaria) which extend from 

 Holland upward, and along the whole southern 

 shore of the Baltic, and thence eastward nobody 

 knows how far, must bear these exhalations, uncor- 

 rected, over the narrow sea which intervenes be- 

 tween these flats and our shores. It is even likely 

 that a slight diffusion of saline matter from this 

 gulf, instead of correcting, may have the opposite 

 effect, as a small quantity of salt tends to promote 

 putrefaction. It is evident that this miasma-atmo- 

 sphere, borne across the German sea, is not perni- 

 cious to vegetables ; as, when the breeze is not too 

 cold, or too violent, they progress rapidly in growth, 



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