1846.] Meteorology of Western Jlsia. 161 



dom from wind, which occurs during the winter season, serves 

 greatly to diminish the amount of sensible cold, and a person may 

 sometimes be in the open air when the mercury is very low, with- 

 out being at all sensible of the extreme cold indicated by the 

 thermometer. As it is natural to associate clouds and storms 

 with mountainous regions, the dry season of Erzeroom, though 

 not so long as that of Syria and the region of Mosul, is a feature 

 of its climate well worthy of mention, None of the gardens and 

 fields around the city, nor indeed anywhere upon the plain, are 

 expected to bring their productions to maturity without being- 

 watered by artificial means. This remark is supposed to be true 

 very generally of all Turkey in Asia not lying on the declivity 

 which looks toward the Black sea. It is true emphatically of the 

 mountainous region south of Erzeroom, as the writer had occa- 

 sion to observe when in the country of the Mountain Nestorians 

 in 1844. There none of the lands are considered tillable, except 

 those lying on the borders of streams, or where the waters of a 

 spring may be made to flow over them. The dryness of the soil 

 arises not only from the infrequency of rains, but also from the 

 great want of moisture in the atmosphere, there being no large 

 evaporating surfaces like those of our large rivers and inland 

 lakes. In consequence of this, the air needs only to be slightly 

 elevated in temperature, and it becomes greatly undercharged 

 with water. The nearness of the Black sea does little to supply 

 this want, since it is skirted along the whole southern shore with 

 mountains so high as to prevent, to a great degree, the passage 

 over them of the moisture raised from its surface. In traveling 

 over, and along the sides of these mountains, I have been struck 

 day after day, and week after week, with the difference observa- 

 ble in the meteorology of their two sides. Towards the north, 

 fogs and clouds, and towards the south a clear blue sky, were the 

 almost universal order of the day. Early in the morning indeed, 

 the view from the mountains towards the northern horizon is 

 sometimes singularly clear; but low beneath the feet of the ob- 

 server, a vast sea of clouds stretches before him, and he rarely 

 fets a glimpse of, what he so much wishes, the distant Euxine as 

 rst seen by the Ten Thousand in their signal retreat. In a short 

 time after the sun rises, the clouds begin to creep up the declivity- 

 facing the north, and soon afterwards, attaining the summit, they 

 pour over it towards the south, presenting a white sheet along the 

 mountain ridge, not unlike that of the brow of our own Niagara. 

 The destination of the vapory cataract of these high regions is, 

 however, very different from the one of water which it "so natu- 

 rally suggests. Hardly do the clouds pass these mountain sum- 

 mits before they begin to melt away and disappear in the arid at- 

 mosphere, which waits to receive them. Rarely, very rarely, 

 No. VII. 11 



