h company, among whom Mr. Macpherson and his
sister distinguished themselves by their politeness and accomplishments.
By him we were invited to Ostig, a house not far from Armidel, where we
might easily hear of a boat, when the weather would suffer us to leave
the Island.

OSTIG IN SKY

At Ostig, of which Mr. Macpherson is minister, we were entertained for
some days, then removed to Armidel, where we finished our observations on
the island of Sky.

As this Island lies in the fifty-seventh degree, the air cannot be
supposed to have much warmth. The long continuance of the sun above the
horizon, does indeed sometimes produce great heat in northern latitudes;
but this can only happen in sheltered places, where the atmosphere is to
a certain degree stagnant, and the same mass of air continues to receive
for many hours the rays of the sun, and the vapours of the earth. Sky
lies open on the west and north to a vast extent of ocean, and is cooled
in the summer by perpetual ventilation, but by the same blasts is kept
warm in winter. Their weather is not pleasing. Half the year is deluged
with rain. From the autumnal to the vernal equinox, a dry day is hardly
known, except when the showers are suspended by a tempest. Under such
skies can be expected no great exuberance of vegetation. Their winter
overtakes their summer, and their harvest lies upon the ground drenched
with rain. The autumn struggles hard to produce some of our early
fruits. I gathered gooseberries in September; but they were small, and
the husk was thick.

Their winter is seldom such as puts a full stop to the growth of plants,
or reduces the cattle to live wholly on the surplusage of the summer. In
the year Seventy-one they had a severe season, remembered by the name of
the Black Spring, from which the island has not yet recovered. The snow
lay long upon the ground, a calamity hardly known before. Part of their
cattle died for want, part were unseasonably sold to buy sustenance for
the owners; and, what I have not read or heard of before, the kine that
survived were so emaciated and dispirited, that they did not require the
male at the usual time. Many of the roebucks perished.

The soil, as in other countries, has its diversities. In some parts
there is only a thin layer of earth spread upon a rock, which bears
nothing but short brown heath, and perhaps is not generally capable of
any better product. There are many bogs or mosses of