28 On the supposed Change 



ding wm?d'r....Chemer's Morocco, vol. ii. 275. Indeed 

 one single fact will demonstrate that the air at Constan- 

 tinople is usually in winter below freezing point ; which 

 is, that winter always puts an end to the ravages of the 

 plague — an event that rarely, if ever, takes place there 

 without frost. But Constantinople is subject also to se- 

 vere frosts, in hard winters, like all other northern coun- 

 tries; although the weather there, from the vicinity of 

 the city to large bodies of water, is much less severe than 

 in Hungary, Austria and Germany. 



Men are led into numberless errors by drawing gene- 

 ral conclusions from particidar facts. " Lady Monta- 

 gue sat with her window open in January 1718, and 

 therefore there is little or no winter in Constantinople;" 

 is very bad logic. The farmers on Connecticut river 

 plowed their lands, as I saw, in February 1779 ; and the 

 peaches blossomed in Pennsylvania. What then ? Are 

 the winters all mild in America ? Not at all ; in the very 

 next year, not only our rivers, but our bays, and the 

 ocean itself, on our coast, were fast bound with ice. 



In 1592 the drouth was so severe that the Thames 

 was fordable at London. In 1388, the Rhine was forda^ 

 ble at Cologne; and in 1473, the Danube was fordable 

 in Hungary. Suppose in some future age, these facts 

 should be allcdged, as evidence of a wonderful increase 

 of rains and moist weather, within the two last centuries j 

 would such conclusions be just ? Yet this is the reason- 

 ing which has principally supported the hypothesis of a 

 modern diminution of cold in winter. Authors have 

 mentioned and described the severe winters ; while or- 

 dinary seasons have passed unnoticed ; and this is the 

 source of a great error in philosophy. 



But scanty as our materials are for a history of the 

 seasons in antiquity, we have a direct authority that mild 

 winters occurred in the latitude of Constantinople, more 

 than 2000 years ago. 



Hippocrates, during the plague in x\thens, B. C. 430, 

 resided on the island of Thasus, which is in the iEgean 

 Sea, near the coast of Thrace, a cool country, and near 

 the latitude 41°. This author has left a minute descrip- 

 tion of the seasons for four years, with the current disea- 



