in the Temp eraf tire of IPlnter. 63 



svFallows appeared in Thrace, immediately after the equi- 

 nox, the spring" must then have been three or four weeks 

 earUer than in New-England ; for they do not appear 

 here till late in April. The same fact is indicated by the 

 blossoming of plants. These representations of the po- 

 et appear to be important in settling this question. 



Several passages in the most respectable ancient au- 

 thors, leave us no room to question, that not only the 

 Cimmerian Bosphorus, the Don and Boristhenes, but 

 that the Danube and Rhine were, in vfinter, covered 

 with ice sufficient to bear the heaviest loads, and that ai'- 

 mies often crossed them on the ice. These facts are di- 

 riectly asserted in the following ^a.ss?ige.s.... Herodotus in 

 Melpomene, 28 — Xiphilhi's Epit, of Dion. Cassius, M, 

 Ant, — Herodian, lib. 6 — Pausanias, lib. 8, cap. xxviii. — 

 Jornandes De Rebus Geticis. 55 — Ammianus Marcelli- 

 nus, lib. o\. ca. x. 



Herodotus speaks of the Euxine Sea and the Cimme- 

 rian Bosphorus. Ovid asserts the like fact of the Dan- 

 ube, and probably intended that part of the river which 

 is near its mouth. Pausanias mentions the Hypanis, now 

 the Bog, the Boristhenes, now the Neiper, the Ister, or 

 Danube and the Rhine. The other authors speak of the 

 Danube and Rhine near their sources in the south of 

 Germany and Helvetia. These writers represent the 

 freezing of these rivers as common events — at least they 

 make no discrimination between winters ; and Herodi- 

 an, in the passage cited, says of the Rhine and Danube, 

 <po(rti ftEv ^i, rm -jtotximiv avTTi — Tliis is the nature of those rivers. 

 He speaks of these rivers as they were in the country, 

 which now comprehends the dominions of Austria, Ba- 

 varia and Swabia; for it was in those countries, where the 

 barbarians usually crossed the rivers to invade the Roman 

 empire. 



The ice however was not always sufficiently strong to 



sustain armies; for about the year before Christ 175, 



a body of Bastarnlans, returning from an in-uption into. 



I Dardania, attempted to cross the Danube on the ice and" 



were almost all drowned.... jS«y?:^r'^ Livtj, book 41. 



How frequently the Rhine and Danube, in the same 

 countries, are covered with ice of similar strength in 



