A JOURNAL OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, CHEMISTRY, AND THE ARTS. DECEMBER 1798. ARTICLE I Memoir on the Climate of Ireland. By the Rev. WILLIAM HAMILTON, of Favet, in the County of Donegal; late Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin; M.R.I.A. Correfponding Member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, &c.* IT T is generally fuppofed that the seasons in our island have fuffered a confiderable change, almost within the memory of the present generation. The winters of our climate are faid to have laid afide their ancient horrors, and frequently to have affumed the mildness and vegetative powers of fpring; while fummer is reprefented as lefs favourable than heretofore, less genial in promoting vegetation, and less vigorous in forwarding the fruits of the earth to maturity. It is indeed true, that in this inftance popular opinion does not stand fupported by the concurrent teftimony of meteorological obfervations: there is no clear evidence derivable from them, that the present seasons are materially different from former ones; and therefore philofophers and meteorologists naturally ascribe to the querulous difpofition of the farmer, the chill fenfations of old age, or the predilection which every one feels for the cheerful days of childhood, the adoption of an opinion that feems fo eafily to flow from thefe fources. But let it be remembered, that the inftruments of atmospherical observations do not extend to all the circumstances which influence the crops of the farmer, or the fenfations of the man. The thermometer may mark the general temperature of our climate as unchangeable; and the pluviometer may ascertain its usual moisture; whilst a clouded atmosphere or a tempestuous wind fhall mar the progreffive maturity of harvest, and fhatter the languid frame of declining age. VOL. II.-DEC. 1798. Irish Acad. VI. Heat 382 Obfervations to prove a Change of Climate in Ireland. Heat and cold and rains are, indeed, principals in the economy of feafons; but winds, clouds, vapours, and other circumstances rarely registered, often unperceived, are to be deemed at least ancillary in the extensive system; and may give plausibility to popular fenfations and opinions, even without the aid of meteorological testimony. It is the purpose of this paper to offer to the Academy fome obfervations relating to this interesting subject; and to mark a few prominent events in the phenomena of our climate, which may add credibility to general report. Of the Winds, and their Effects. THE winds which most usually prevail in our latitudes blow from the weftward, for reafons unneceffary to be detailed here. These winds are commonly mild in their temperature, and moist in their nature. They are from these properties extremely friendly to animal and vegetable life; and to them the great population of Ireland, and the uncommon fertility of its foil, may among natural causes be afcribed. But from whatever circumstances it has arisen, these winds have of late years fwept with uncommon violence over the furface of our island; fruftrating the usual effects of their genial properties by the overbearing fury of their course; and, like Saturn, fometimes devouring the offspring to which themselves had given birth. Why these wefterly winds have ceafed to bear the character of zephyrs may admit of much curious and interesting investigation: at present I shall be satisfied with endeavouring to establish the fact itself, by fuggefting to the Academy fome circumstances that seem to determine the matter with a very great degree of probability. The effects of these winds are marked in vifible characters over the whole furface of the kingdom; but they are peculiarly distinguishable in the northern province of Ulster; and chiefly in the extreme countries of that province, where a northerly latitude, joined to an expofed fituation on the coafts of the ocean, forms an apt ftation for observations, and exhibits as it were on a magnified fcale the degrees of the phenomena themselves. Three natural regifters of these effects have come within my obfervation; the trees of the country, the fands of the fea-coaft, and the tides of the ocean: of each of these I shall make mention in its order. Of the Trees. IT is a fact extremely well established, that the pine-tree, peculiarly that species vulgarly denominated the Scotch fir, formerly grew on many of the mountains of this kingdom, and on parts of the northern and western coafts, exceedingly bare and open to ftorms. Vaft roots and noble trunks of this fpecies of pine have been seen and examined by me with attention, in fituations where human induftry cannot now rear a twig of the hardieft tree. On the highest lands of the general furface of the kingdom, in the county of Westmeath, amid the mountains of the county of Antrim, and on the naked coafts of Enishowen and Roffes, in the county of Donegal, pine-trees have formerly arrived at an age of an hundred and twenty years, have grown to the fize of a yard in diameter, and surpassed fifty feet in height. There is great reafon to think that two centuries have hardly elapfed fince many of these trees grew in those fituations; and probable reafons might be adduced to limit the great pe Obfervations to prove a Change of Climate in Ireland. 383 riod of their deftruction to the age of James the first of England. In thofe reigns, rewards were held out for fettling the kingdom, and clearing its surface of forests, which under favour of inceffant wars and neglected tillage, during a period of eight centuries, had overfpread the face of the country*. The harsh and furrowed bark of this pine has occurred to me in fuch a perfect state of preservation as almost alone to determine its speciest. The cones have been found by me at a depth of many feet from the furface of the earth, in fuch condition as almost to give hope of raising plants from their feed t. Marks of the woodman's hatchet on their trunks; veftiges of fire applied for their destruction; and pieces of charcoal into which many of them have been burnt §; paleings and small enclosures found at the level where they have formerly grown ||. Leathern fhoes, wooden veffels filled with butter and other light fubftances found at confiderable depths in turf bogs**, and not likely to have defcended through the matted texture of that fubftance, give additional testimony to the opinion that the existence of these bogs, and of course that of the trees which they contain, is not of an extremely ancient date. It is needless to recall the attention of the Academy to the difficulty of raifing trees, at present, in many of those fituations where the ancient pine and oak of Ireland have within the period of human existence flourished with luxuriance. The labours of the farmer, the refources of wealth and information, the rewards of patriotic focieties, and even the liberal encouragement of the legislature itself, have in vain struggled against the western storms during the latter part of the prefent century; and the planters of our age, wearied with combating the tempeft, have generally found it neceffary to fly from all elevated and exposed fituations, and to abandon the pleasing idea of covering the nakedness of mountains, the sterility of rocks, and the bleak uniformity of bogs, with the luxuriant foliage of the oak and the pine. Of all the foreft trees which in later times have been cultivated for general ufe, there is none higher in the estimation of our farmers than the afh. It is a tree which buds late, but finally iffues forth ftrong and fucculent fhoots: fecure by its deciduous nature from wintry blasts, it is nevertheless extremely fenfible to the efforts of fummer storms; and becomes "In this reign ipe-ftaves was one of the ordinary exports of Ireland; fo that a mighty trade was driven with them, and thousands of trees were felled every year for this purpose. A multitude of iron-mills were erected; and it is incredible how much charcoal a single iron-mill will confume in one year. So that all the great woods which the maps fhew us, on the mountains between Dundalk and Newry, are quite vanished, except one tree close to the highway, at the very top of the mountain, which, as it may be seen a great way off, therefore ferveth travellers for a mark." "Yet there are ftill great woods remaining in Dunnagall, in Tyrone, in Antrim, &c." See Nat. Hift. of Ireland, by Boates, Molleneux, and others, written about the middle of the last century. +In Bracknabeevlin bog, county of Westmeath. In Lackbeg oog, near Rutland, county of Donegal. Found in a bog in the liberties of the city of Londonderry. In a bog near Surock, county of Westmeath; near Kilrufh, county of Clare; at Carnifk, near Ramelton, county of Donegal. ** Omitting other inftances, two wooden vessels containing butter were very lately found deep in a turf bog, in the Fews Mountains, near Ballymoire, the feat of Sir Walter Synnott. The veffels were extremely inartificial, being little better than the hollow trunks of fome large fpecies of willow: the butter was infipid, inodorous, colourless, fomewhat refembling unctuous white fteatites in its touch and appearance; but its inflammability remained.fo perfect, as to admit of its being made into candles, to which use much of it was applied. 3 D 2 a faithful |