Dr. Forry on the Climate of the United States, $- e . 227 



tention to climatology, ransacking all the libraries to which we 

 hare had access for works treating on this subject ; and we early 

 became satisfied that the universal opinion that modern win- 

 ters have experienced a material increase of temperature, has 

 no foundation in reality. As we have no exact instrumental 

 observations of temperature that go back much farther than a 

 century, our information in regard to more remote periods being 

 derived from loose notices scattered through the old chronicles 

 relative to the state of the harvest, the quantity of the vintage, 

 or the endurance of frost and snow in the winter, great allow- 

 ance 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 

 1/24 that Fahrenheit succeeded in improving it sufficiently to 

 warrant a comparison of observations. It is not surprising that 

 one should hear continual complaints of the altered condition of 

 «ne masons, especially from elderly persons, in whom the bodily 

 rame has become more susceptible to the impressions of cold ; 

 wt similar lamentations, like the prevalent notion that men in 



were taller in the earlier ages of the world, have been 

 repeated by the poets and the vulgar from time immemorial, 

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

 ess in many instances stand isolated, not unlike the cir- 

 cumstance recorded in relation to the Baltic, which in 1688 was 

 ^firmly frozen that Charles XI of Sweden crossed it with his 

 arm y, or the similar fact that in the winter of 1779-SO, horse 

 artillery were transported over the ice in the harbor of New 

 '• VVe have elsewhere clearly established from historical 

 ence, but which is here precluded from want of space, that 

 e most remarkable extremes of heat and cold have been fre- 

 ] ly recurring ever since the time of the Romans referred to 

 e > tne opinion of Gibbon to the contrary notwithstanding, 

 though in possession of the facts requisite to establish the 

 c h 110n ^ lat t ' le curnate °f Europe has undergone no material 

 sid ^ SltlCe l ' le era °^ J n ^ us Caesar, yet it was not without con- 

 of !? hesitancy that we announced this conclusion in the face 



general 



doubil 



of all the 



world. Wh 



. y a remarkable coincident confirmation of this deduction 



Webster 



