DrForry on the Climate of the United States. 219 



finds an excuse in the fact that he lived before the epoch of 

 Baron Humboldt ; but it is truly surprising that Malte Brun 

 should, many years after, make the same comparison. Gibbon's 

 reputation is that of a historian ; but it is easy to shew, as we 

 have done elsewhere, that he falls short even in this cha- 

 racter, as regards the assertion, when speaking of transport- 

 ing heavy waggons over the frozen rivers of ancient Ger- 

 many, that " modern ages have not presented an instance of a 

 like phenomenon.'''' 



As the full discussion of this question alone would take up 

 the space allotted to this article, the most general view of it 

 must here suffice. For several years past, we have devoted 

 much attention to climatology, ransacking all the libraries 

 to which we have had access for works treating on this sub- 

 ject ; and we early became satisfied that the universal opi- 

 nion, that modern winters have experienced a material in- 

 crease of temperature, has no foundation in reality. As we 

 have no exact instrumental observations of temperature that 

 go back much fai'ther than a century, our information in re- 

 gard to more remote periods being dei'ived from loose notices, 

 scattered through the old chronicles, relative to the state of 

 the harvest, the quantity of the vintage, or the endurance of 

 the frost and snow in the winter, great allowance must be 

 made for the spirit of exaggeration which tinges all rude 

 historical monuments. It must be borne in mind that the 

 thermometer is a comparatively modern instrument, invented 

 in 1590, but still left so imperfect, that it was not till the 

 year 1724 that Fahrenheit succeeded in improving it suffi- 

 ciently to waiTant a comparison of observations. It is not 

 surprising that one should hear continual complaints of the 

 altered condition of the seasons, especially from elderly per- 

 sons, in whom the bodily frame has become more susceptible 

 to the impressions of cold ; but similar lamentations, like the 

 prevalent notion that men in general were taller in the ear- 

 lier ages of the world, have been repeated by the poets and 

 the vulgar from time immemorial. 



The facts stated by the Roman poets, if not exaggerated, 

 doubtless, in many instances, stand isolated, not unlike the 

 circumstance recorded in relation to the Baltic, which, in 



