508 PHILOSOPHY OF STORMS. 



nish you some further particulars; I presume he will write 

 to you. The place where these fires occurred, was near 

 the mouth of St. John's river, on the Atlantic coast, in lat 

 30, north. Yours, truly, 



THOMAS FLETCHER. 



When king Charles was at Belvoir, his chamberlain, Lord 

 Pembroke, wrote to the high sheriff of Staffordshire, the 

 king's commands, that no fern should be burnt at the time 

 he was about to visit them, as he understood it brought 

 down rain. [Gardiner's Music and Friends, vol. 1, page 408. 



Benjamin Matthias, Esq., to Mr. Espy. 



PHILADELPHIA, December 4th, 1838. 



210. DEAR SIR, I am ignorant whether or not the cir- 

 cumstance may have any bearing upon your system of the 

 11 Philosophy of Storms " but while in England, last winter, 

 I was struck with the peculiar and almost constant humid- 

 ity of the atmosphere, in and about the town of Manches- 

 ter. In the course of the winter, I visited this town on four 

 or five different occasions, and on each day it rained. Sev- 

 eral of the inhabitants assured me, that it rains in Man- 

 chester, more or less, every day in the year, and I arn in- 

 clined to believe that such is the fact, or at least, that rain 

 falls on six days out of seven. 



Manchester, as you know, is an extensive manufacturing 

 town. It lies on low ground, on a small river, and is sur- 

 rounded by hills. An immense quantity of bituminous 

 cqai is daily consumed in the manufactories, and the at- 

 moSphere over the town, is surcharged with a smoke sulli- 

 ciently dense, in general, to obscure the rays of the sun. 



JSztract from the "Spirit of the East," vol. 11, page 108. 



211. The tract of country between Jericho and the Jor- 

 dan, is covered with a grass, not above six or eight inches 





