'I 



D)\ Holyoke's Estimate of the Excess of Ileal and Cold. 71 



nantibus hycms tuta'batur. Triginta dies dhsidto fttify per guos 

 vara imguam iiix minus qiialuor pedes ali^ jamiit : adeoqua 

 phicos ac vineas Romanorum opcriierat^ ut ca sola ignilms all- 

 qxioties conjectis cib Jioste^ eiiam tutamenlim fucriir (Lib. xxi.) 



That snow should lie four feet deep on the ground for thir- 

 ty days together at Taragona or Barcelona (in the neigh- 

 bourhood of which this town lay) would at the present 

 day, be looked on as a most extraordinary phenomenon in- 

 deed. See also Virgil's 3d Georgic. 



And; as no change has taken place upon the surface of 

 the earth in that continent, that we are acquainted with, so 

 remarkable, and so likely to have any great influence upon 

 the atmosphere, as that of cutting down and- clearing the 

 earth's surface of those woods and thick forests, that ar 

 bounded every where; may we not probably conjecture 

 that this circumstance is somehow the cause, why it is 

 warmer at Palestine now, than in the days of king David; 

 and at Epme, than it was in the times of the common- 

 wealth, or of the Ca2sars?|| 



4 



Now, it appears highly probable, that the same cause, 

 whatever it was, which rendered Europe colder formerly, 

 than at present, makes America at this day colder, than Y^- 

 rope. America is at this day, in a situation similar to that, 



which Europe was in, with respect to its woods, thirty or 



perhaps 



II It appears by tli#anncxed table, that at Eome there docs not happen evcrj' year, 

 at this day, such a degree of cold, as to sink the thermometer down to the freezing point. 

 The difference then between its atmosphere in Juvenal's day, and the present, must be 

 very great. And, as to Jerusalem, as It lies about 10 degrees further south than Rome ; 

 I presume that nothing like a frost ever happens there, at this day. 



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