166 Baron L. Von Buch on the Temperature of Springs. 



The application may be repeated as often as is judged necessary. 

 A piece of linen is then applied over it, and above this, several 

 folds of linen soaked in oil or pitch, which are tied to the neck 

 of the bottle with pack-thread *. 



Some Remarks on the Temperature of Springs. By Baron 

 Leopold Von Buch. 



▼V E owe to Wahlenberg, says Von Buch, in an interesting 

 memoir on the temperature of springs, read to the Royal Aca- 

 demy of Sciences of Berlin, (published in Poggendorf's excel- 

 lent Journal,) the discovery of a beautiful arrangement [in the 

 economy of nature, viz. that the mean temperature of the soil 

 and subjacent rock rises higher and higher above that of the air, 

 the further we advance towards the north. By this means, po- 

 lar situations support a number of vegetables, which otherwise 

 would perish, nay, even life itself is thereby brought into places 

 which would be dead and arid, and from which every living 

 thing would flee. Who can conceive agriculture and cultiva- 

 tion, in a soil where temperature is 1° or 2° R. below the freez- 

 ing point ? But the temperature is actually not higher in places 

 in which there are towns, and where corn is raised with activity 

 and profit. It is the temperature of a great part of Siberia, and 

 of many inhabited valleys in Sweden. 



The observations of Wahlenberg, from which this remarkable 

 result proceeds. Von Buch communicated to the public in a 

 tabular form, in Gilbert's Annals, and compared with the tem- 

 perature of the atmosphere. From this table we extract the 

 four following results, which represent perfectly the nature of 

 the phenomenon. 



• The above details are extracted from an article on the preservation of 

 animals, in the last published volume of the Dictionnaire Classique rTHistmre 

 Naturelk. 



