Meteorological Constitution of the Earth, 325 



thunder-storms in that season ; horses may live there but not 

 asses and mules. It had been reported, that in the interior of 

 Scjthia the air was full of feathers, which Herodotus explains 

 by the falling of snow, and adds that such winters make the 

 northern countries uninhabitable. But Herodotus had not 

 been in these regions, and the inhabitants of the south are sel- 

 dom very correct in their descriptions of the climate of north- 

 ern countries. It is only to an inhabitant of the shores of the 

 Mediterranean that it could be a very remarkable matter, that 

 it rained around the Euxine Sea more in summer than in 

 winter, ^nd that thunder-storms occur in summer. The only 

 fact we learn from Herodotus is the freezing of the sound 

 which unites the Assyrian Sea and the Black Sea. Strabo men- 

 tions the same thing, and says that it is possible to drive over the 

 sound between Phenagoras and Ponticapaeum, where there is at 

 that time a general road, and, he adds, that it is reported that 

 Neoptolemus, the ambassador of Mithridates, fought a battle 

 with cavalry in winter, where in summer he had fought a sea 

 battle. But Pallas says that the Bosphorus, even in mode- 

 rately severe winters, is now covered with ice, as well as a 

 great part of the Assowian Sea, principally from drift-ice from 

 the river Don ; that in severe winters loaded waggons are car- 

 ried over it ; and that in spring the drift-ice remains generally 

 until the month of May. It is thus at present the same as in 

 former times. According to Strabo, the heat was very power- 

 ful, either, he says, because they are not accustomed to it, or 

 because there does not blow any wind. This also agrees very 

 well with the climateric relations of the present day, for it is 

 very surprising how great the difference of the seasons becomes 

 in the north of Europe at greater distances from the Atlantic 

 Ocean. Thus the difference between the mean temperature 

 of winter and summer is at Moscow 32° Cent., at Copenhagen 

 17°, at Edinburgh 11°, all three lying under the same lati- 

 tude. 



Herodotus speaks of people to the north of the Euxine Sea 

 who carried on agricultural operations, and Strabo mentions 

 that the vine in the winter time was dug into the earth, in order 

 to protect it against frost. Theophrastus gives an account 

 of fruitless trials to plant myrtle and bay ; but there grew. 



