256 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



of Summer. Nature has placed other glaciers be- 

 fides, at the entrance of this burning defart, fuch 

 as Mount Atlas. Mount Ida, in the llland of 

 Crete, with it's collateral mountains, covered at all 

 feafons with fnow, is fituated, according to the ob- 

 fervation of Tournefort, precifely oppofite to the 

 burning defart of Barca, which coafts along Egypt 

 from North to South. Thefe obfervations will 

 furnifh a farther opportunity of making fome re- 

 flexions on the chains of icy mountains, and of 

 the Zones of fand fcattered over the Globe. 



I ought to beg forgivenefs of the Reader, for 

 thefe digreffions, into which I have been infenfibly 

 drawn ; but I will render them as fhort as 1 pof- 

 fibly can, though, by abridging them, their clear- 

 nefs is confiderably diminifhed. 



The icy mountains appear to be principally de- 

 figned to convey cooinefs to the fhores of the Seas 

 fituated between the Tropics ; and the Zones of 

 fand, on the contrary, to accelerate, by their heat, 

 the fufion of the polar ices. We can indicate, 

 only in a curfory manner, thefe mod wonderful 

 harmonies ; but it is fufficient to perufe the jour- 

 nals of Navigators, and to fludy geographical 

 charts, to be convinced, that the principal part of 

 the Continent of Africa is fituated in fuch a man- 

 ner, that it is the wind of the North Pole which 



blows 



