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Oti the Coiifequcnces of this Equability of Temperature to animal 



and vegetable Life. 



From the tranfient perufal of this Memoir, a rapid and im- 

 patient mind would probably draw numberlefs falfe conclufions. 

 The fads here recorded feem to wear a gloomy afped ; to mark 

 a gradual deterioration of our feafons ; to indicate a climate, harfh, 

 ungenial, and of confequence ftcrile in its nature ; clouded, 

 humid, tempeftuous ; cheerlefs, and unfriendly to animal and 

 vegetable life. 



All thefe conclufions contradid experience, and may be over- 

 turned by a calm confideration of the phasnomena themfelves. 



Experience teaches us that dry feafons, and eaftcrly gales, 

 are, in our ifland, invariable fources of feeble vegetation, and 

 numerous difeafes*; and the hiftory of the world informs us that 

 winds, whether hot or cold, are in their nature deleterious to ani- 

 mal and vegetable life, in proportion as they become deprived of 

 humidity. The warm air of the African defert breathes defolation 

 over the parched land of Egypt and Syria, before it is yet felt as a 

 tempeft-j-. Even our own wefterly winds, the Atlantic meffengers 

 of health and fertility to our ifland, after traverfing the cold and 

 dry trad of the vaft Siberian continent, bear nothing but fte- 



rility, 



» Of this the Influenza, attendant on the eafterly winds of fpring, in the prefent 

 year (1795) affords a ftrong inftance. 



t See Vohiey's Account of Egypt and Syria. 



