244 



cold, though the heat was above 21*5 degrees * 1 

 In reading the interesting narrative of Captain 

 Bligh, who, in consequence of a mutiny on 

 board the Bounty, was forced to make a voyage 

 of twelve hundred leagues in an open boat, we 

 see, that this navigator, in the tenth and twelfth 

 degrees of south latitude, suffered much more 

 from cold than from hunger ^. During our abode 

 at Guayaquil, in the month of January, 1803, we 

 observed, that the natives covered themselves, 

 and complained of the cold, when the ther- 

 mometer sunk to 23*8°, while the heat appear- 

 ed suffocating at 30*5°. Six or seven degrees 



* Figure de la Terre, p. liv. The height of this summit is 

 736 toises, according to Dupuget ; and 666 toises, according 

 to Mr. Le Blond. This elevation consequently is not con- 

 siderable enough, to cause a feeling of cold, as at Chimbo- 

 razo and Pichincha, by the smaller quantity of oxygen in- 

 haled by the lungs from a dilated air. If the barometer, (at 

 16'2o temperature) keeps at the top of the Montagne Pelee 

 at 24 inches 2 lines (Le Blend, Voy, aux Antilles et dans 

 V Amerique Meridionale, t. i, p. 87) , the absolute height of 

 this point is 660 toises, according to the rule of Mr. Laplace; 

 supposing at the level of the sea the height of the mercury 

 28 inches 1 line, and the thermometer at twenty-five degrees. 



f Bligh's Voyage to the South Sea, translated by Soul6s, 

 p. 265 and 316. The crew in the boat were often wet by 

 the waves ; but we know, that in this latitude, the tempe- 

 rature of the sea water cannot be below twenty-three degrees, 

 and that the cold produced by evaporation is inconsiderable 

 during the night, when the temperature of the air seldom 

 exceeds twenty-five degrees. 



