NATURAL HISTORY of JV kWAf. \\ 



SECT. IV. 



From the light, which is the firft object of perception in the The winter 

 air, I proceed to its heat and cold. The degrees of thefe> as weitmpl^s, 

 already obferved, are very various; and this not only from the Sdomfc^ 

 annual viciffitudes of the feafons, but in the very fame feafon, ° r laftmg ' 

 and on the fame day, the variablenefs is greater than ftrangers can 

 well conceive to be poffible. I mail the rather enlarge on this re- 

 markable phenomenon, as it is a manifeft argument of the power 

 and wifdom of the Creator, and his tender care of his creatures % 

 On the eaft-fide of Norway, or from the frontiers of Sweden to 

 Filefield, that is in moft of the provinces, the winter's cold gene- 

 rally fets in about the middle of Odober, lairing till the middle 

 of April, or, according to the computation of the peafants, from 

 Calixtus's day to that of Tiburtus, when the air is here as 

 cold as at the extremity of the temperate zone. The waters 

 are frozen to a thick ice, and the mountains and valleys covered 

 with fnow. I fhall hereafter produce fonie inftances of the ex- 

 treme intenfenefs of the cold. However, this is of fuch impor- 

 tance to the welfare of the country, that, in a mild winter, the 

 peafants, who live among the mountains, are confiderable fuffer- 

 ers; for, without this fevere froft and fnow, they can neither con- 

 vey the timber they have felled, to the river, nor carry their corn* 

 butter, firs, and other commodities, in their fledges, to market- 

 towns, and after the fale of them, carry back the neceffaries they 

 are there fupplied with. I muft here mention a wonderful in- 

 ftance of the divine oeconomy, which I mould hefitate to commit 

 to writing, did not thoufands of witneffes confirm it: when the 



* According to the common opinion, and even the pofition of Ptolemy's Geogr 

 cap. viii. countries equally diftant from, or equally near to, the line, mould have 

 equal cold and heat. But that this is not the cafe is proved by Profeffor Kaeftner in 

 his Explanation of Dr. Halley's method of calculating heat, Hamburg Magazine, torn, 

 in. p. 426 i but none of the inftances adduced by him are fo clear as what mioht 

 have been brought from the natural ftate of Norway, had he been acquainted with 

 it. The true caufe of the want of heat, in the northern countries, is the vicinity 

 of that part of the globe to the pole-,, the folar rays there falling more obliquely 

 and, confequently, not afting with fuch force as near the line, where they fall in 

 more perpendicular directions. The other caufe, moll current among the ignorant, 

 namely, the greater diftance of the fun, can occafion no great difference, if we con- 

 fiaer the van: diftance of the fun from the earth, confiding of fo many millions of 

 miles i for this being confidered two hundred miles, more or lefs, cannot be fuppofed 

 to afreft us, at leaft not in any degree; efpecially as we know, that the fun is fartheft 

 from the earth in the heighth of fummer, and neareft it about Chriflmas ; but it 

 then defcends fo very low, that, from the obliquity of its rays, it gives little or no 

 heat. 



J winter 



