CANAL. 97 



In my opinion, the period of the greatest un- 

 healthiness of a country, is the intermediate state 

 between a state of nature and a state of cultivation. 

 The felling of trees produces vegetable decompo- 

 sition, and opens the earth and the water to the 

 action of solar heat. Evaporation and exhala- 

 tion are augmented, and poisons which were be- 

 fore inert and inactive, are excited into deleterious 

 activity. The Python of the ancient mythology 

 was intended to represent the terrible miasmata of 

 this or an analogous state Ovid thus spenks of 

 the events which immediately followed the deluge^ 



"Ergo ubi dtluvio tellus lutulenta recenti 

 Solibus .Ttherois altoque recanduit aestu, 

 Bdidit en urn eras species : partimque figuras 

 Uetnlit antiquas : partim nova monstra creavit. 

 II!a quidem nollef, sed te quoqne, maxime Pvthon, 

 Turn genuit ; populisque novis, incognito serpens, 

 Terror eras : tantum spatii de monte tenebas. 



The influence of cultivation was personified itt 

 \ polio, who slew the serpent. 



Although the clearing of a country does not 

 create new beings, yet it multiplies their number, 

 and augments their power of good and evil. The 

 food which is furnished to the voracity of insects, 

 and the heat which is administered to their pro- 

 pagation and growth, arc increased by settlement. 

 Man — the useful creatures by which he is surroun- 



