IRELAND, being only about 300 miles in length, and 200 in breadth, containing 30,370 sq. m.[1], does not require a long period to traverse its most important routes. Its CLIMATE is good, with a mean temperature from 48 to 52; its face mostly level, but with extensive ranges of mountainous tracts and rocky soil. It contains romantic LAKES, both fresh and salt, viz. _Neagh_, _Erne_, _Killarney_, _Swilly_, _Foyle_, _Corrib_, &c. &c.; also many majestic RIVERS, _Shannon_, _Liffy_, _Boyne_, _Blackwater_, _Suir_, _Barrow_, _Lagan_, &c. Its MOUNTAINOUS TRACTS are principally in Donnegal and Tyrone in the north, with part of Antrim; also the Mourne Mountains in Down; the mountains of Wicklow; in Kerry, and the s.w.; together with the extensive ranges to the west of the Shannon. The BOGS are extensive, occupying many of the mountains, indeed often undulating in hill and dale, particularly in Donnegal; whilst both they and the dry heaths are covered with wild myrtles, sedgy grass, rushes, _saggons_, or iris, orchis, wild rockets, &c. Of its FORESTS few remain, being now sunk under the turf-bogs or peat mosses; yet of minor BOTANY there is a great field for examination in the Ericæ, numerous alpine plants, and wild flowers on the heaths, bogs, and rocky fastnesses. Its MINERALOGY is very varied, from the gold mines of Wicklow, down to the silver mines of the same county, those of copper at Cronbane, with marble, coal, slate; whilst its MINERAL SPRINGS, vitriolic, alkaline, saline, sulphureous, &c. offer frequent opportunities of analysis to the man of science. [1] Dr. Beaufort. The importance of any plan which will tempt Englishmen of fortune, especially the members of the legislative body, to visit Ireland, cannot be more clearly expressed than in Mr. Wakefield's introduction to his work on that country, where he observes, that a knowledge of the natural situation, of the political institutions, and of the local advantages even of a foreign nation, form an object of considerable magnitude, and must to an inquiring and enlightened mind be a source of no small gratification; but to become acquainted with these relations, as they respect the great divisions of the empire of which we are ourselves subjects, is of much greater importance.