324 Prof. Schow on the supposed changes in the 



mentions September as the month of the wine harvest for warm 

 situations, and October for temperate ones. According to a 

 mean number, the wine harvest now begins in Rome on the 2d 

 of October. 



The author thinks himself entitled to assume, that the cli- 

 mate in Greece and Italy, like that of Palestine and Egypt, has 

 undergone no important change since ancient times. But if, 

 on account of the later harvest, and the possible growth of the 

 beech trces in the Roman plains, we might be led to the opinion, 

 that formerly the climate had been a little colder than now, 

 the difference will hardly come up to one or two degrees, and 

 will not be greater than might be occasioned by the cultivation 

 of the north of Europe. 



From Greece and Italy the author passes to the countries on 

 the Black and Caspian Sea; (theEuxine Sea, and Palus Maeo- 

 tis of the ancients.) Here it has been pretended that the change 

 of climate has been most extraordinary. The Abbe Mann, who 

 collected the accounts of the ancient writers about it, says, that 

 they " all concur in asserting, that the climate there was such 

 as is now hardly found in Sweden and Norway, but must be 

 sought for in Lapland, Siberia, or in America, to the north of 

 Hudson'*s Bay."" At present there grow, according to the ac- 

 counts of travellers, olive-trees, fig-trees, bay-trees, and most 

 of those which are peculiar to the south of Europe. This 

 seenis to be a most extraordinary change ; but our aqthor has 

 done away with a great deal of these pretended changes, as he is 

 of opinion, that a severer criticism than that of Mann, the use 

 of accounts which he has not taken into consideration, and, 

 lastly, an inquiry into the climateric relations of the present 

 day, both in general, and such as they are modified by local influ- 

 ence, will annihilate the opinion of the learned Abbe and his fol- 

 lowers, and either prove that the climate has not changed at 

 all, or at least has changed only very little to the better. 



Herodotus mentions the European Scythia, the countries to 

 the north of the Euxine Sea, and the Palus Ma?otis, c-rnd says 

 that the winter lasts eight months, and the summer four, that 

 the sea freezes as well as the whole Cymbrian Bosphorus, over 

 which the Scythians led their armies and waggons. In sum- 

 mer, he continues, it rains constantly, and there are even 



