10 Temperature of the Terrestrial Globe. 
horses being found farther on, we lost no time in regaining our inn at 
Nicolosi. Here although fatigue and hunger counselled us to stop, 
yet we chose rather to bear them two or three hours longer, than to 
try again the miserable pallets of the night before. We therefore 
with as little delay as possible, resumed our route to Catania, and ar- 
rived there at 9 o’clock. Our fatigue was almost insupportable, but 
Abbate led us on at a merciléss pace. For though not sharing the 
toils, he felt his full quota of the glory of heading an expedition which 
had overcome the rigors of a midwinter ascent ‘fino alla cima dell’ 
Etna.” ‘The streets resounded with the crack of his whip and the 
tramping of our steeds over the pavements, and the fire from their hoofs 
marked the progress of our little cavalcade to the Corona D’oro; 
where we alighted at nine o’clock, with a sensation of pleasure sound- 
ly paid for, by eighteen hours of toil. ‘Though we had eaten nothing 
during the day but a spare breakfast, yet repose was demanded more 
imperiously than food; a generous supper awaited our return, but 
swallowing only some warm broth, en passant, we left every thing to 
throw ourselves into that sweet oblivion, which could alone restore us. 
Art. I1.—Considerations upon the temperature of the terrestroal 
Globe ; by M. Parrot :—read the 5th of May, 1830, at the Acad- 
emy of Sciences of St. Petersburg.— Memoirs of this Academy. 
Translated by Prof. J. Griscom, for this Journal. 
Ir it is useful to make discoveries in natural science, it is not less 
so, to correct as many as possible of the errors which arise in this do- 
main of human knowledge, and which are sustained by the authority 
or the assent of respectable savans. ‘The history of science displays 
to us, upon numbers of its pages, important errors which having 
been thus accredited, have produced new errors and retarded fresh 
discoveries. ‘The subject upon which I am about to treat, belongs 
to this class of intellectual phenomena. Aside from the mass of phy-, 
sical and geognostic knowledge, which has been accumulating for 
thirty years, we see the system of Leibnitz and of Buffon, upon the 
temperature of our globe, the system of central fire, revived, to the 
letter, from its ashes, gaining new partisans, and strengthening itself in 
appearance by a display of profound calculation, which the more ea- 
