10 



2f 



horses being found farther on, we lost no time in regaining our inn at 

 Nicolosi. Here although fatigue and hunger counselled us to stop, 

 yet we chose rather to bear them two or three hours longer, than to 

 try again the miserable pallets of the night before. We therefore 

 with as little delay as possible, resumed our route to Catania, and ar- 

 rived there at 9 o'clock. Our fatigue was almost insupportable, but 

 Abbate led us on at a merciless pace. For though not sharing the 

 toils, he felt his full quota of the glory of heading an expedition which 

 had overcome the rigors of a midwinter ascent 6k fino alia cima dell' 

 Etna." The streets resounded with the crack of his whip and the 

 tramping of our steeds over the pavements, and the fire from their hoofs 

 marked the progress of our little cavalcade to the Corona D'oro j 

 where we alighted at nine o'clock, with a sensation of pleasure sound- 

 ly paid for, by eighteen hours of toil. Though we had eaten nothing 

 during the day but a spare breakfast, yet repose was demanded more 

 imperiously than food ; a generous supper awaited our return, but 

 Swallowing only some warm broth, en passant, we left every thing to 

 , throw ourselves into that sweet oblivion, which could alone restore us. 



A 



Considerations upon the temperature of the terrestrial 

 Globe; by M. Parrot: — read the 5th of May, 1830, at the Acad- 

 emy of Sciences of St. Petersburg. — Memoirs of this Academy. 



Translated by Prof. J. Griscom, for this Journal. 



If it is useful to make discoveries in natural science, it is not less 

 so, to correct as many as possible of the errors which arise in this do- 

 main of human knowledge, and which are sustained by the authority 

 or the assent of respectable savans. The history of science displays 

 to us, upon numbers of its pages, important errors which having 

 been thus accredited, have produced new errors and retarded fresh 

 discoveries. The subject upon which I am about to treat, belongs 

 to this class of intellectual phenomena. Aside from the mass of phy- 

 sical and geognostic knowledge, which has been accumulating for 

 thirty years, we see the system of Leibnitz and of Buffon, upon the 

 temperature of our globe, the system of central fire, revived, to the 

 letter, from its ashes, gaining new partisans, and strengthening itself in 

 appearance by a display of profound calculation, which the more ea- 



