The soil of Jamaica is, in many places, deep and fertile. On the north side, chiefly in the parish of Trelawney, there is a particular kind of soil of a red colour, the shades of it is varying from a deep chocolate to a rich scarlet. In some places it approaches a bright yellow ; but it is every where remarkable, when first turned up, for a glossy shin ing surface ; and for staining the finger like paint, when it is wetted. It seems to be a chalky marl, evidently con taining a large portion of calcareous matter, from the cir cumstance of its holding water, when formed into ponds, like the stiffest clay. What is called the brick mould in Jamaica, is a deep, warm, mellow, hazle mould, with an under stratum so retentive, as to retain a considerable de gree of moisture even in the driest season. This is the best soil in the West India islands for sugar canes, next to the ashy loam of St Christophers, and is followed by the deep black mould of Barbadoes. On the whole, how ever, the cultivated soil of Jamaica is not remarkably fer tile.
The island has upwards of one hundred rivers, rising in the mountains, and running with great rapidity to the sea on both sides. This rapidity, as well as the obstruc tions from rocks, renders them unnavigable except by canoes. The deepest is the Black River on the south coast, which flows gently thrimgh aconsiderable tract of level coun try, and is navigable by flat boats for thirty miles. There are some medicinal springs, warm. sulphureous, and chalybeate. The most remarkable of these is in the east ern parish of St Thomas, in the neighbourhood of which a village called Bath has been built. The heat of this spring raises the thermometer to 123 degrees. It is said that the Spanish settlers once wrought mines both of cop per and silver ; and one of lead was opened a short time since in the parish of St Andrew, but it was soon aban &med.
The climate of Jamaica, even on the coast, is temperate, the medium heat at Kingston, throughout the year, being 80, and the least 70. In ascending towards the mountains, the temperature quickly alters with the elevation ; eight miles from Kingston, the maximum is only 70 ; at the dis tance of fourteen miles from this town, where tie elevation is 4200 feet, the average range of the thermometer is from 55 to 65, and the minimum in winter 44. On the summit of Blue Mountain Peak, 7431 feet above the sea, the range in the summer is from 47 at sun-rise to 58 at noon ; and the minimum in winter is 42. The year may be divided into four seasons ; the first commencing with the vernal or moderate rains in April or May, which usu ally last six weeks ; the second season includes June, July, and August, and is hot and dry ; the third includes September, October, and November, or the hurricane and rainy months; and the fourth December, January, February, and March, which are the most serene and the coolest months.
Besides the staple exports of Jamaica, consisting of su gar, indigo, coffee, and cotton ; the cultivated vegetables are, maize, Guinea corn, and calavances for the food of the negroes, and almost all the kitchen vegetables of Europe, besides many indigenous ones, as the sweet potatoe, yam, eddar root, callaloo, a kind of spinach, and the commonest substitute for greens, cascara, okasy, Ste. Few of the northern European fruits thrive, but the indigenous ones are numerous and delicious; the principal are the plantain, cocoa-nut, guava, sour-sop, sweet-sop, papaw, custard ap ple, cashew apple, granidella, prickly pear, pine apple, &c. The orange, lime, lemon, mango, and grape, have been naturalized, as well as the cinnamon tree, of which there are now considerable plantations. The bread-fruit tree, with other useful plants, has been introduced by the ex ertions of Sir Joseph Banks. This island abounds in va rious grasses of an excellent quality. Of the native grass, good hay is made, but in no great quantity ; but there arc two exotic grasses that are extremely valuable, and yield an abundance of food for cattle ; the first is an aquatic plant called Scots grass, from a single acre of which five horses may be maintained for a whole year. The seed of the other kind, called Guinea grass, was introduced into the island, about seventy years ago, as food for some birds brought from the coast of Guinea. Cattle are remarkably fond of this grass, and thrive wonderfully upon it. The greater part of the gazing and breeding pens throughout the island are supported chiefly by means of this invaluable herbage. The principal forest trees have been already mentioned ; many of them rise to a prodigious height, as the papaw and the palnieto royal, the latter of which is fre quently found 140 feet high ; the trunks of the ceiba, or wild cotton-tree, and the fig-tree also, often measure 90 feet fiem the base to the limbs ; the former, when hollow ed out, has been known to form a boat capable of holding one hundred persons. Of softer kinds of wood for boards and shingles, there is a great variety of species ; and there are many well adapted for cabinet work, such as the bread nut, the wild lemon, &c. In mentioning the vegetable productions of this island, the wild pine ought not to be omitted ; it is a plant that commonly takes root in the great forks of the branches of the wild cotton-tree ; by the conformation of its leaves it catches and retains the rain-water, each leaf resembling a spout, and forming at its base a natural reservoir, which will hold about a quart of water.