( 2 5 8 ) . 



deavours to clear up this point of natural philofd- 

 phy. He will not allow that the cold, the caufes 

 of which we are enquiring into, ought to be attri- 

 buted to any of thofe juft mentioned, but methinks 

 he goes too far for no reply can be made to expe- 

 rience, which convinces us of the decreafe of the 

 cold, according as the country is cleared, tho' 

 that may not happen in the proportion it ought, 

 were the thicknefs of the woods its principal 

 caufe. 



He himfelf confeffes that it is no rare thing to fee 

 a frofty night fucceed a very hot fummer day ; but 

 this way of reafoning appears to me to furnilh an ar- 

 gument againft himfelf ; for how can this phceno- 

 menon be explained otherwife than by faying that 

 the fun having opened the pores of the earth in the 

 day time, the humidity which was dill contained in 

 it, the nitrous particles which the fnow had left 

 behind it in quantities, and the heat which an air 

 equally fubtle with that in this country ftill preferves 

 after fun-fet, all together form thefe gentle frofls in 

 the fame manner as we make ice upon the fire. Be- 

 iides, the humidity of the earth has evidently a large 

 fhore in the excefTive colds of this climate ; but 

 whence could this humidity proceed in a country, the 

 foil of which has for the molt a great mixture of fand 

 in it, if it was not from the number and extent of 

 its lakes and rivers, the thicknefs of its forefts, its 

 mountains covered with fnow, which as it melts o- 

 verflows the plains, and the winds which carry the 

 exhalations every where along with them. 



But mould Father Bretani be miftaken, as I be- 

 lieve he is, when he excludes all thofe from being 

 the caufes of the excefiive cold in Canada, yet what 

 ii£ fubftitutes in their room feems, in my opinion, 



to 



