during the day, but erected altars, offered incense, and performed other pagan rites to the deities of the country; and we have the express authority of the Scriptures to prove that as early as the days of Samuel, it was customary to sleep on the tops of the houses, as it is at this day. See Deut. xxii. 8—Josh. ii. 6—Judges xvi. 27-Jer. xix. 13—Zeph. i. 5—Dan. iv. 29—1 Sam. ix. 25, 26.

In winter, it was not unusual to kindle fires in Judea. Thus we find Jehoiakim sat by a fire in the ninth month, Chisleu, which answers to a part of our November and December....Jer. xxxvi. 22-and Dr. Russel informs us that at Aleppo, they begin to kindle fires about the end of November....Nat. Hist. of Aleppo, p. 14. Parkhurst, 330, unders.

Dr. Williams proceeds to prove that the winters in Italy have, in about eighteen centuries, become warmer by seventeen degrees on Farenheit's scale. His proofs are, that Virgil in many places of his Georgics, has given directions for securing cattle and sheep from the effects of snow and cold-that Virgil, Pliny, Juvenal and Ælian speak of ice, snow, and the freezing of rivers, as events common and annual. But he observes, that in 1782 and 3, the mean temperature at Rome in January was 46°, and the mean of the greatest cold 42°, which is 17 degrees less cold than what is necessary for the freezing of rivers.

The Abbè du Bos, Hume, and others alledge, in proof of the same doctrine, the following facts: In the year of Rome 480, the winter was so severe as to kill the treesthe Tiber was frozen, and the ground was covered with snow for forty days. Juvenal describes a superstitious woman as breaking the ice of the Tiber to perform her ablutions.

"Hybernam fracta glacie descendet in amnem,

Ter matutino Tiberi mergetur."....Sat. vi. 521.

Horace also, says the Abbè, speaks of the streets of Rome as full of ice and snow. These authors, it is alledged, speak of these as common events. But, says the Abbè, "at present the Tiber no more freezes at Rome, than the Nile at Cairo."*

* I cite this from Hume. Ess. xi.

C

Dr. Holyoke mentions the description of the severe winter A. U. C. 536, in the second Punic war, when the siege of a town in Spain, near the present Barcelona, was obstructed by snow which lay for thirty days to the depth of four feet....See Memoirs of Am. Academy, vol. ii. 70. From these representations, it is concluded that Italy has now a much more temperate climate than at and be-fore the Christian era. Let us examine this point.

Dr. Holyoke gives us the mean of the greatest cold at Rome, deduced from several years' observations, within the last half century; which is 33° 46, a little above freezing point. The greatest cold is stated at 31°. If we admit this statement to be correct, then Dr. Williams has stated the extreme of cold in Rome almost nine degrees too high; of course we must deduct nine degrees from his seventeen degrees of alteration, in eighteen centuries, which is a very material difference.

This we must do, and more. For Brydone in the winter of 1769-70, found the greatest cold at Rome in January to be 27°, a degree capable of covering large rivers with a thin coat of ice. That winter was perhaps colder than usual; but by no means of the severest kind.— At Naples, says Brydone, we had rainy weather; at Rome, it was clear and frosty. That winter then would at Rome produce all the phenomena of ice, frost, and snow, to answer the description of the Latin writers of the Augustan age.

If the mean temperature of the winter's cold at Rome is now about 33°, it is not more than eight degrees milder weather than in New England'; for Dr. Holyoke found, by seven years' observations, that the mean winter temperature at Salem, in Massachusetts, is 25° 74.

I know not the position of the thermometer by which the observations at Rome were made. But I would remark that, if those observations were made in the city, they do not represent the general temperature of Italy. I found by numerous observations in New-York, that ice as thick as glass in our windows, was uniformly made at a mile's distance from the city, when an accurate thermometer in the coldest positions in the city stood at 40°. Such is the difference between the real tempe

rature of an open country, and the artificial one of a city. The same difference will not run through the observations of the whole year, but it will amount to two or three degrees. I am inclined to believe this to be the source of great errors, in comparing meteorological observations in different countries.

If the ordinary winter temperature at Rome is near the freezing point, we are at no loss to account for the snow and ice of Italy in ancient times. In all countries, and in every latitude, hills and mountains are cooler than plains. This difference is according to the difference of altitude; but between Rome, in a plain, near the sea, and the Appenines, it cannot be less than from six to ten degrees. Thus while at Rome and in Campania generally, the weather is mild, and exhibits little or no ice, the whole ridge of mountains between Tuscany and Naples, that region of Italy which furnished the pasturage, and for which the directions in Virgil's Georgics were intended, is covered with snow, and experiences severe frosts. This was not only the fact in Virgil's time, but is so at this day. Mr. Arthur Young, a distinguished agriculturist, travelled in Italy in November and December 1789. In passing the Appenines, between Florence and Bologna, the first days of December, he found the hills almost covered with snow; and the roads, on some declivities, a sheet of ice. On the 26th of November, the weather was so severe as to freeze Cyprus wine, and milk burst the vessels that contained it. Lombardy, he found the peasantry at night, sitting in a passage between their cattle, in the stables, to keep themselves warm; a practice resembling that in Palestine, already mentioned.*

In

It is well known also that the higher regions of mount Etna in Sicily, a far milder climate than that of Italy, are perpetually covered with snow.

That the descriptions of ice and snow, in the Augustan age, allude principally to the hilly country, is very obvious from the writings of Virgil, Horace, and Pliny..

*Young's Tour, Vol. i. p. 516. Dub. 1793.

Virgil, in his first Georgic, speaks of the Zephyrs dissolving the earth, and bringing moisture from the whitened hills.

Horace, in his ninth Ode, mentions deep snow on mount Soracte, in Etruria, about twenty-six miles north of. Rome.

Pliny, in the nineteenth book of his Natural History, is more explicit on this subject. Speaking of the luxu ry of his days, he says, "Hi nives, illi glaciem potant; pœnasque montium in voluptatem gulæ vertunt.".... "Some drink snow, others ice; and the evil or scourge of the mountains is converted into a gratification of the palate." This passage leaves no room to question, that the ice and snow used in Rome were ordinarily brought from the mountains; where they were considered as a calamity; and the expression "pœnasque montium,' clearly indicate that they were almost peculiar to the mountains.

Virgil directs the husbandman to plow in the first months in the year, and to pray for moist summers, and serene winters; for, says the author, the winter's dust increases the crop. This passage is no inconsiderable proof that the earth in some parts of Italy was not usually covered with snow in winter.

The winters described by Livy, when the Tiber was covered with solid ice; when the snow lay in the streets of Rome for forty days; and in Spain, was four feet deep for thirty days; when men, cattle and trees perished, were singularly severe, like our modern winters of 1642, 1709, 1741, 1780, which happen but two or three times in a century. Any man will be convinced of this, who attends to the description of them in the original authors. I find they happen in modern days, as frequently as at any former period. Scarcely three or four such winters are described in the whole history of Rome, down to the age of Julius Cesar; though many others happened, as may be collected from circumstances.

The severe winter of the year of Rome 354, is expressly declared by Livy to be a remarkable event. "Insignis annus hieme gelida ac nivosa fuit; adeo ut viæ clausæ, Tiberis innavigabilis fuerit"....Lib. 5. 13. He

calls it also "tristem hiemem;" and it was followed by terrible pestilence. Nothing can be more clear, than that such a winter was an extraordinary occurrence. Without considering it in this light, the word “ insignis" has no meaning; and instead of proving the usual temperature of winter at Rome to have been severe, it is the strongest evidence to prove that the winters were generally mild, and the Tiber navigable in the winter months. Had this been a common winter, or any thing like it, it would not have been singled out by the historian as a subject of remark. This explanation is applicable to all the instances of cold winters, described by historians. Even the passage in Juvenal, if it proves any thing, confirms the opinion that the frost, in his days, was not ordinarily very severe. The circumstance of a woman's breaking the ice in the morning to bathe in the Tiber, indicates that the ice was usually thin and easily broken; and by no means admits the supposition of ice a foot thick, like that which covers our rivers. It supposes a thickness of ice which is often seen on the Tiber at this day, frozen in the night, and dissolved the next day.

All the Roman writers speak of severe winters by way of distinction. Virgil says, "sin duram metues hiemem"-if you apprehend a hard winter. And Horace attempts to dissuade Augustus from his design of resigning the empire, by describing the severe cold, snow and hail of the winter, which he represents as prodigies, and evidences of the resentment of the gods. The winter to which he refers was probably of unusual severity. I apprehend the great source of error on this subject has been, that the moderns have taken for representations of ordinary winters, those which were intended for a few rare occurrences. Certain it is that the common winters of Italy were not severe, but mild. This I will demonstrate by a series of evidence, drawn from the phenomena of the natural world, which cannot deceive us in regard to climate.

Pliny, in his Natural History, lib. 2. 47. has given us an account of the winds in Italy. Among other things he informs us directly that the "spring opens the naviga