OF SCOTLAND.

43

it is observed, in very striking terms, by the author ofthe Clydesdale Report, that the climate of that district isgreatly deteriorated, by the “ huge masses of peat earth with“ which it abounds.”—“ May we not suppose,” he adds,

“ that the cold moisture arising from them, in exhalations,

“ before they acquire the temperature of the common air,

“ may cool the earth, and benumb the vegetables over which“ it passeth ? It is certain, that the high lands where these“ bodies of peat earth abound, are less fertile than they have“ been in early times

The Author of this section has frequently remarked a me-teorological phenomenon, depending on moss soil, and whichis well known to affect the climate of the adjacent district.In the great moss which extends, with little interruption,from Gartmore, on the west, to the vicinity of Stirling , onthe east, through a space of about sixteen miles in length, bythree to four in breadth, the heat of the sun, in summer, oc-casions a very copious evaporation during the day: this, atnight, is condensed by the cold, and forms a thick body ofvapour of 20 or 30 feet in depth, exhibiting the appearanceof a vast lake, with islands and promontories, formed by theeminencies which occur in the moss, • or on its outskirts. Itfurnishes a picturesque appearance to the eye; but its effectsare injurious to vegetation, blighting every thing within itsreach, particularly the fruit trees in gardens and orchards,when it happens to settle on them, and is followed by a clearsun. The same phenomenon is observable at certain seasons,in districts similarly circumstanced, and produces the sameeffects.

A country covered with wood is moister, and has a great-er range of the thermometer between the extremes of heatand cold, than a country cleared of woods in the same lati-tude. Hence its summers, for a part of the day at least, are

Page C. All sorts of peat-moss occasion cold, try the process of evaporn-t,0n ’ and rain, when this vapour is sufficiently condensed.