386 Scientific Intelligence.- — Meteorology. 



secret of Scythian husbandry, may have produced in many parts 

 of this vast pasture a considerable deposite of saltpetre, it is not 

 easy to suppose with Gibbon, that a cause like this can produce 

 such bitterness of wind or such unvarying rigour of winter. It 

 may be observed, however, (and the observation, though it will 

 not solve the difficulty, may, perhaps, direct our attention into 

 the right train of inquiry), that it is only in comparison with 

 the more western parts of Europe, that the climate of Scythia is 

 a subject of surprise ; and that in each of the two great conti- 

 nents, we discover in our progress eastward, along the parallel 

 of latitude, a sensible and uniform increase of cold. Vienna is 

 colder than Paris ; Astrachan than Vienna ; the eastern dis- 

 tricts of Asia are incomparably colder than Astrachan ; and 

 Choka, an island of the Pacific, in the same latitude with As- 

 trachan or Paris, was found by the Russian circumnavigators in 

 1805, exposed to a winter even longer and more severe than is 

 commonly felt at Archangel. In America, the same marked 

 difference is observed between the climate of Nootka and Hud- 

 son's Bay ; and even in so small a scale of nature as that afford- 

 ed by our island, the frosts are generally less severe in Lanca- 

 shire than in the East Riding of Yorkshire. If, then, the 

 southern districts of European Russia are exposed to a winter 

 more severe than those of France or Germany, they may boast 

 in their turn of more genial climate than the banks of the Ural 

 and the Amur; while all are subject to a dispensation of nature 

 which extends too far, and too uniformly to be ascribed to any 

 local or temporary causes. — Life qf Bishop Hebe?; vol, i. p. 532. 

 2, On the Influence of Lightning-Conductors on Vegeta- 

 tion. — It having been stated that plants grow most luxuriantly 

 near a lightning-conductor, and are there maintained in a 

 healthier condition than elsewhere, and that the maintenance of 

 the electric current between the earth and the heavens is con- 

 nected with the growth of plants, we are induced to notice some 

 experiments made by us two years ago, upon this supposed in- 

 fluence of electricity. We formed three conductors of tall 

 poles, with pointed iron rods, projecting eight or nine feet above 

 the poles, and with very thick iron-wire attached to the lower 

 end of the rods leading down to the ground : the rods and 

 wire as free of rust as possible. — Ed'pcrimctit 1. We placed 



