226 DISSERTATION on the 



papered in the feams) to counteract the equally difFufed heat 

 produced by well contrived (loves, which are built generally of 

 white tiles, and admit of much latitude of elegant form. 



The above defcription of our mode of living in winter, ac- 

 counts for a circumftance that has been regarded as affectation, 

 both in the natives of Ruffia, and in foreigners who have re- 

 fided long here, viz. their complaining of cold during winter 

 in the temperate climates ; for, on taking into confideration 

 their mode of living at home, there is nothing more natural 

 than their fuffering cold in countries where neither the houfes 

 nor drefs are calculated to keep it from conftantly acting on the 

 body, during a certain period of the year. This is a fituation 

 quite new to a Ruffian, and which produces fenfations more 

 difagreeable than can eafily be imagined, till cuflom makes it 

 familiar, and that they have learned to feek heat in exercife, 

 inflead of ovens and furs ; a leffon by no means unprofitable 

 to people of fafhion from the northern countries of Europe. 



SPRING. 



As to fpring, I mufl again repeat my remark in the intro- 

 duction, that we can hardly fay that it exifts here ; the feafons 

 of winter and fummer running into one another, almoft without 

 any fenfible intermediate one : For by the time that the immenfe 

 mafs of fnow and ice, which covered the face of land and 

 water, is melted, the fun has acquired fo much influence, as to 

 dart on us at once a fummer heat. It is probable that the 

 quantity of water produced by this operation, when joined to 

 the effect of our heavy night dews in the hot weather, may 

 render a wet intermediate feafon unneceflary, whilft the fhort 

 period allowed to hurry vegetation through all its ftages, will 

 fearcely admit of it. Is it not pomble, likewife, that the fud- 

 den commencement of fummer on the finifhing of the thawing 

 procefs, may be accounted for, in fome meafure, by Dr Black's 



Theory 





