62 THE FUNGI PREVAIL AT NIGHT 



and drought. Looking over the distinct and simple daily 

 narrative of Dr. S. P. Griffitts, I find no mention of rain 

 from the 20th July to the 4th September; and other 

 writers describe this season as peculiarly hot and dry. 

 Notwithstanding this, Condie and Folwell inform us, that 

 " the different kinds of mushrooms were found in great 

 abundance during their season." Webster also states, 

 that in this year there were fogs which had a singular 

 odor, and " even the pavements were covered with a 

 mouldy dew." Through Dr. Rush, we also learn that the 

 great heat of the season brought peaches to perfection 

 nearly three weeks before the usual time; whilst apples, 

 after being gathered, rotted much sooner than is com- 

 monly observed. 



In 1799, at New York, similar phenomena were ob- 

 served; and Webster noticed the extraordinary death of 

 multitudes of flies, which became white exteriorly. This 

 disease seems analogous to that of the muscardine of the 

 silkworm. 



In pestilential Africa, when the rains and the sickness 

 commence together, the fungiferous powers are fearfully 

 developed. According to Park and Lind, the first rains 

 stain the clothes, and make even woolens and leather 

 mouldy and rotten in a day or two. 



. In St. Lucia, the most unhealthy station of the West 

 Indies, " during the driest period of the year, a pair of 

 boots are covered with vegetation, within twenty-four 

 hours after being cleaned." (Evans.) In confined places, 

 in unhealthy stations, the air is of a mouldy odor, " earthy 

 and mouldy." (Robt/ Armstrong.) 



During the epidemics of yellow fever at Natchez in both 

 1823 and 1825, Cartwright noticed an extraordinary tend- 

 ency to the production of mould, so that the shoemakers 



