Life of Count Rumford. 467 



in solution a portion of salt, is striking. But when we trace the 

 effects which are produced in the world by that arrangement, we 

 shall be lost in wonder and admiration." 



The Count then begs the indulgence and candor of 

 his readers as he pursues the investigation of this sub- 

 ject, and risks the danger " to which a mortal exposes 

 himself who has the temerity to undertake to explain 

 the designs of Infinite Wisdom." He says, that in 

 contemplating the simplicity of the means employed by 

 the Creator to produce the changes of the seasons, with 

 all the blessings accruing from them, and the effects 

 produced by the various modifications of the active 

 powers which we perceive, "we shall be disposed to 

 admire, adore, and love that great First Cause which 

 brought all things into existence." Besides that me- 

 chanical contrivance, the inclination of the axis of the 

 earth to the plane of the ecliptic, the simple but 

 stupendous means which causes the changes of the 

 seasons, other agencies are engaged in producing the 

 gradual changes of temperature necessary to the growth 

 and perfection of most vegetables. These agencies are 

 required to moderate and equalize the heat of the sun 

 in the extremes of the seasons. Among these agencies 

 the principal is water, acted upon by the remarkable 

 law which causes its condensation by cold. 



" Had not Providence interfered in a manner which may well 

 be considered as miraculous, all the fresh water within the polar 

 circle must inevitably have been frozen to a very great depth in 

 one winter, and every plant and tree destroyed ; and it is more 

 than probable that the regions of eternal frost would have spread 

 on every side from the poles, and, advancing towards the equa- 

 tor, would have extended its dreary and solitary reign over a 

 great part of what are now the most fertile and most inhabited 



