X8 On the supposed Change 



and long before, a fine grazing and corn country.- Both 

 Ovid and Virgil, when they speak of the Scythian coun- 

 try, as being always clothed with snoWy must have in- 

 tended the mountains ; and we have the authority of 

 Lady Montague, who travelled through the country along 

 the Danube in 1717, that Mount Hsemus and Rodope 

 are, in modern times, always covered with 5«0Tt>.... Let- 

 ter XXV.* These mountains are a degree and a half 

 south of Tomos. Surely then we have no reason to 

 think the climate has suftered any considerable alte- 

 ration. 



Dr. Williams mentions the year 401, when the Eux- 

 ine was covered with ice for 20 days, as an evidence 

 that the climate was formerly colder than at present ; 

 and notices the remark of Dr. Smith, in Phil. Trans. 

 No. 152, that the Turks were greatly astonished at ths 

 appearance of ice at Constantinople in 1669 ; [Dr. Wil- 

 liams by mistake has 1667] and he then adds, " In all 

 the adjacent country, instead of frozen sea, frozen wine, 

 and perpetual snow, they have myw a fine moderate 

 warm climate." 



Here again Dr. Williams has run into the error before 

 mentioned, of taking the accounts of a few severe xvin- 

 ters as descriptions of the ordinary winters. The win- 

 ter of 401, in the reign of Honorius, was during the 

 approach of a comet, and was noted for its severity, as 

 an unusual occurrence. Any person may observe this, 

 who will consult the original histories. Three hundred 

 and sixty years later, viz. in 762 — 3, a still more severe 

 winter covered the Euxine with ice and snow of 30 cu- 

 bits thickness, which ice at the breaking up of winter,. 

 was impelled against the walls of Constantinople and 

 beat down considerable portions of it.| This does not 

 indicate any mitigation of the climate. A similar event 

 happened in the reign of Achmet L about the year 

 1613 or 14, which marked a severe winter and no miti- 

 gation of the climate. The winter of 1669, when the 

 Turks were astonished at ice in the Bosphorus, was al- 



* See Horace, Book ii. Ode. xxv. xxvi, Ovid. Metam. Lib. if- 

 ccsxii. 



t Paul. Diac. lib. 22. Baronius. vol, ix. 272. lioveden. 23L 



