k;
those of Mourne in Down; Crow Patrick, and Nephin in Mayo, these are the
principal in Ireland, and they are of a character, in height and
sublimity, which should render them the objects of every traveller's
attention.

Relative to the climate of Ireland, a short residence cannot enable a man
to speak much from his own experience; the observations I have made
myself confirm the idea of its being vastly wetter than England; from the
20th of June to the 20th of October I kept a register, and there were, in
one hundred and twenty-two days, seventy-five of rain, and very many of
them incessant and heavy. I have examined similar registers I kept in
England, and can find no year that even approaches to such a moisture as
this. But there is a register of an accurate diary published which
compares London and Cork. The result is, that the quantity at the latter
place was double to that at London. See Smith's "History of Cork."

From the information I received, I have reason to believe that the rainy
season sets in usually about the first of July and continues very wet
till September or October, when there is usually a dry fine season of a
month or six weeks. I resided in the county of Cork, etc., from October
till March, and found the winter much more soft and mild than ever I
experienced one in England. I was also a whole summer there (1778), and
it is fair to mention that it was as fine a one as ever I knew in
England, though by no means so hot. I think hardly so wet as very many I
have known in England. The tops of the Galty mountains exhibited the
only snow we saw; and as to frosts, they were so slight and rare that I
believe myrtles, and yet tenderer plants, would have survived without any
covering. But when I say that the winter was not remarkable for being
wet, I do not mean that we had a dry atmosphere. The inches of rain
which fell in the winter I speak of would not mark the moisture of the
climate. As many inches will fall in a single tropical shower as in a
whole year in England. See Mitchel's "Present State of Great Britain and
North America." But if the clouds presently disperse, and a bright sun
shines, the air may soon be dry. The worst circumstance of the climate
of Ireland is the constant moisture without rain. Wet a piece of
leather, and lay it in a room where there is neither sun nor fire, and it
will not in summer even be dry in a month. I have known gentlemen in
Ireland deny their climate