Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Sect. 5. Climate. In this district, the climate is perhaps more favourable than in most of the other counties in Ulster. First, from the nature of its soil, which, in general, is not retentive, but tilly and warm; secondly, because the north-east winds, which blow in spring, have no mountains to interrupt their passage, until they arrive at the further verge of the county, where, for the first time, the clouds are impeded by the Fews mountains, whose falls are rather to the western side of the mountain; thirdly, the gentle undulation of the surface with regular falls to the valleys, where there are numerous rapid streams to carry off all superficial water; fourthly, the substratum being gravel or limestone, in many places; and fifthly, because there is little or no marsh in the county. To these causes may also be taken into account, the great temperature obtained by partial and judicious shelter, and, perhaps, no where in Ireland, is this improvement more eminently conspicuous, than in the greater part of Armagh county, where, for a very extended district, few even of the peasants' houses, but have the shelter of an orchard, to protect them from the cold blasts of winter, and their little farms are admirablyadmirably 'fenced with great care and neatness. The lofty mountains in the county of Down, from Mourne to Slieve-Croob, which extend in a southeastern direction from Carlingford Bay, so as to completely shelter Armagh, from north to south, arrest the heavy clouds, and violent gales, which are impregnated with moisture from the channel, and the whole southern extremity is shut out by that range, from Slieb-Guillen to the Fews. The south-east winds are always most violent and lasting, and accompanied with torrents of rain, nor can fair weather be expected from this quar...