[ 5§ 3 
Received January 18, 1 7 < 58 . 
"■ v 1 
IX. Anlnvefiigation of the Difference between 
the prefent Temperature of the Air in Italy 
and fome other Countries, and what it was 
Seventeen Centuries ago: In a Letter to 
William Watfon M. D. F. R. S. by the 
' Honourable Daines Barrington F. R. S . 
Dear Sir, 
Read March 3, "r - Troubled you lately to procure from 
| your Son Mr. Watfon, who is now in 
Italy, fome anfwers to certain queries with regard to 
the temperature of the feafons which commonly pre- 
vails there at prefent, and particularly whether the ri- 
vers of that country have been remembered to have 
had their furface frozen over. 
I have often put the fame queftion to many of thofe 
who have made the tour of Europe, and have always 
been anfwered in the negative: as moft Englifhmen 
however travel before they pay attention to fadts of 
this fort, I was defirous of procuring information 
from thofe whofe obfervations might be more de- 
pended upon. 
I have long entertained a notion that the feafons are 
become infinitely more mild in the Northern latitudes 
than they were 16 or 17 centuries ago ; and from this 
it hath happened that many pafiages in the clafiical 
writers delcriptive of the Severity of the climates, 
have ftruck me more than they would perhaps a com- 
mon reader. 
1 
It 
