and other' Countries in ancient times. 97 



and what is more precise, boasts of the excellence of its olives. 

 Now this tree is too delicate to endure such winters as those 

 described by Virgil ; it will not even bear those of northern 

 Italy, where, however, the freezing of the rivers is a rare oc- 

 currence. The conditions laid down by Humboldt for the 

 successful cultivation of the olive are a mean annual tempera- 

 ture from H'5 to 17 C., a mean temperature of the coldest 

 month not below 5 or 6 C., and of the whole summer from 

 22 to 23 C. 



II. Palestine, Egypt, the southern limit of the Vine. 



An ingenious argument has been founded upon the simul- 

 taneous cultivation of the date-tree and the vine in Palestine at 

 an ancient epoch. The date-tree, it is argued, requires a mean 

 temperature of at least 21 C. to ripen its fruit; and on the 

 other hand, the vine it is said cannot be cultivated for the 

 purpose of making wine at a higher mean temperature than 

 22 C. It is concluded that the mean temperature of an- 

 cient Judffia was between 21 and 22; and it is said that 

 this appears to be about its temperature at the present day. 

 One part of these propositions I think open to doubt. 

 Schouw, it is true, agrees with von Buch in placing the 

 southern limit of the vine (at the level of the sea) in the island 

 of Ferro,*which has probably from 21 to 22 mean tempera- 

 ture. He states that the vine succeeds only in the northern 

 portions of Barbary; that the cultivation of it in Egypt is in- 

 significant; that at Bushire, on the Persian Gulf, it can only 

 be cultivated in deep ditches to protect it from the sun. Now 

 the mean temperature of Bushire is stated by Humboldt at 

 25'5 ; this example, therefore, proves nothing. As to Bar- 

 bary and Egypt, Mahometan prejudices prevent the making 

 of wine in those countries at the present day; but we know 

 that in ancient Egypt the vine was cultivated on a great scale, 

 and many excellent wines produced. Nor was this by any 

 means confined to Lower Egypt; on the contrary, excellent 

 wine was made in the Thebaid, and particularly at Koptos, 

 in 26 north latitude*, and even in the Great Oasis, still 

 further south f. Theophrastus, as Arago has already ob- 

 served, speaks of the vine reaching as far as Elephantine J. 

 But I will be contented with the southernmost limit, where 



* Athenaetis, lib. i. 57 Be -Ttspl roy NfTxov a^reXo?, K^t'tarr, [tsv nvrvt oao; 



KOtl 6 VOTOC/AOS" KXl 7TOAX< TUV UVUV itl /5/OTy/Tff XXTci T TO, XUtXTX X.O.I 



u ...... notrix. T'/II> J5/i'es, x,xi y,'hi<s~ot. X.UTX T/JV Kcn^ra 



ovnvc iofl Ae/rroV, x.xl siiavoiboTo;, noil rx^iug TrexTiKog, u$ rci7; x 



f Strab. xviii. 1. i Hist. Plant, i. 3. 



Phil. Mag. S. 3. Vol. 17. No. 108. /Jug. 1840. H 



