the extreme cold of the winter in that capital. If our author will consult the third volume of Staunton's Embassy, pages 8. 118. 157. 159. together with the account of Barrow, who thinks those mountains the highest perhaps in the world, and proves that the peaks only of the Cordilleras can dispute preeminence with them, and also carry along with him the fact, that immediately at the foot of this boundless storehouse of eternal frost, lies the plain of Pekin or Pe-che-le, stretching more than two hundred miles southward and eastward, without the least elevation, he will place less reliance on his analogy. Over this whole level the wind from the north and the west might be expected to diffuse a high degree of winter's cold; though we strongly suspect, that it reaches but a short distance beyond the capital, and not half so far as it would, were the country covered with forest. But surely, if the wind, as our author supposes, blow from the westward, the summer of Pekin could not be so hot as it is known to be. We have no mountains, whose extent and elevation can so affect our atmosphere. The White Hills in New-Hampshire are indeed very lofty, but not sufficiently so to preserve ice through the year, and their base is comparatively narrow. Even to the arctick circle, we believe no such mountains can be seen. "To this theory," says he, "May be opposed the fact which is commonly taken for granted, that the climate of Europe has become more temporate as the forests. have been cleared, from which it is inferred that the same cause will produce the same effect in this country." Although he thinks it not improbable that the climate of Europe has become more temperate, he cannot agree that the change has been as great as is represented by Hume, Gibbon, the Abbé du Bos and most other writers on the subject. "If trees or plants," says he, "incapable of withstanding hard frosts, are indigenous in a country, we may be sure that its climate is not a severe one." He instances in the olive, which was to be sure known in Greece before the ages of regular history, and perhaps in Sicily, Calabria, and the southern parts of Spain, but we think it not indigenous in the north of Italy or Spain, certainly not in France, though now cultivated there with success. Passages from the Poets and Historians, usually cited to prove that the cold of Italy was in former times greater than at present, are by him "considered as poetical exaggerations," in opposition to which, he quotes Virgil, who, "in his beautiful description of Italy, says: Hic ver assiduum, atque alienis mensibus aestas. Bis gravidae pecudes; bis pomis utilis arbos." This language, contrary to nature and to present experience, shews indeed a poetical exaggeration on one side. In singing the praises of his country, its climate and soil, we can pardon the poet for bringing fiction to his aid, but he would never, without real necessity, admit in the same description, a caution like this: Nec tibi tam prudens quisquam persuadeat auctor, Rura gelu tum claudit hiems, nec semine jacto The author's opinion of our climate in former times and at present will be understood from the following remarks. "But it has been stated as an unquestionable fact, by several respectable writers, that the climate of the United States has already undergone a change, and is much more temperate than formerly; and as no other reason has occurred than the clearing of our forests, it is very naturally ascribed to that cause. The shorter duration of the snows, and the setting in of the winter at a later period, are urged as indubitable proofs that our climate has become more mild. "That snows do not lie so long on the ground as formerly, is, I believe, true; but this, instead of demonstrating that the winters are milder, only proves that they are more variable. The forests being cleared, the country is exposed to the winds from the land as well as the sea; the latter, if of any duration, commonly bring on a thaw, and it remains to be ascertained whether the former are not accompanied with a proportionate increase of cold. "The more tardy approach of winter, which seems equally well ascertained, would add so much to the length of our summers, were not the springs more backward than formerly; but it is generally agreed that in proportion as the autumns have grown warmer, the springs have become cool. This, I apprehend, instead of demonstrating that the general temperature of our climate has become more mild, rather leads to a contrary conclusion." We agree with the author that our winter begins at a later period than formerly; but we cannot believe, though it be generally agreed, that it continues later. This must be intended by the remarks, that our "springs have become cool," or it has no bearing on the question. Vegetation is at least as early as ever, we think more so; it continues later in the autumn; of course we reckon an improvement in that respect. Our spring usually opens about the fifteenth or twentieth of February, and vegetation then awakes from its repose, subject indeed to injury from occasional frosts for six or eight weeks after. The writer inquires "If the westerly winds are most prevalent in this country; and if, blowing over a heated surface in summer, and a frozen one in winter, they add to the inclemency of both seasons; will not the country, becoming more exposed to their influence as the forests are cleared, be subject to greater extremities of heat and cold?” Not to greater extremes of heat, it may be answered, because the cool wind from the sea will pour in, and extend further from the shore as the forests are felled. Mr. Jefferson assures us this is the result in Virginia, and our own experience confirms it in New England. Greater extremes of cold we do not dread, because the wind in winter will not, more than half as long as it used to, blow over a frozen surface. The writer has just admitted that the "snows do not lie so long" as formerly, and when they are carried off by a thaw, as happens in the open lands half a dozen times in our variable winter, the surface of the earth feels the warmth, and for some days no cold will be communicated to the air by a frozen surface. Our winter was formerly steady, and the country was covered with snow from ten to eighteen weeks; now it is variable, and our snow lasts but half the time, how then can the extreme of cold be greater, which our author imagines to arise from the wind moving over a surface of frost. When we speak of the amelioration of winter, we apply the fact but to a small part of the United States, the cultivated tracts and their neighbourhood. A great portion of our country is yet a wilderness. No one can suppose that cutting down the trees exposed us to the tremendous blast of wind which burst upon us from the north, between the eighteenth and nineteenth of January last, and continued with unequalled fury for several days. That gale extended from the frozen plains of Canada to the southern hills of Virginia, over a tract of forest, hardly interrupted by a road. Such a volume of air would not have been impeded, had the few cultivated spots in its course through the interiour enjoyed all the protection of their primeval wood. When he considers the circumstance usually relied on to prove the amelioration of our climate, that the surface of the earth, "becomes warmer as the forests are cleared, and culivation extended," and "that the increased warmth of the earth produces a correspondent effect" on the atmosphere, and the experiments of Dr. Williams of Vermont, he adds, "The fact, it is presumed, cannot be questioned, and it might have been taken for granted without the experiment, as it only proves that bodies exposed to the summer's sun acquire a greater degree of heat than those that are in the shade; but the substance or body that affords the shade itself receives the heat, which, were it not interposed, would be communicated to the earth, and the quantum of heat remain the same, with this single difference, that it is communicated to one body instead of another." This sentence is the only one in the work, that is either unintelligible, or grosly unphilosophical. The writer admits that the air in summer is cooler in the woods than in the open fields, and yet, if we do not misunderstand him, attempts to prove the contrary. If the "quantum of heat" received by the trees be the same that "would be communicated," they would, after a very little accumulation, communicate it to the air, and it would be as hot in the shade as in the sun. But the "substance or body that affords the shade" does not imbibe the same quantity of heat, as would the earth, if the opacity did not intervene. The leaves of trees are constantly in motion, they throw off a great degree of moisture, their colour absorbs few of the sun's rays, and our forest, being almost wholly composed of evergreens, must acquire less warmth than would a forest of deciduous trees. These considerations were not in the author's mind, when this paragraph was penned, and perhaps he is ignorant, that one of our philosophers with much plausibility has attributed the intensity of our cold to the nature of our woods. But any man may feel that a ploughed field is warmer than a pasture, and observe that snow lies much longer on grass than on the dark loam of the soil. Vegetable productions, he thinks, are a good standard by which to ascertain the temperature of a country. In some measure, it is correct; but the cotton plant, which he takes for his instance, and of which he says that it is raised farther north on the Atlantick than on the Mississippi, would therefore shew that the climate on the shore, though exposed to the perpetual westerly wind, is less rigorous than in the interiour. It will at least prove that his parallel between our cold and that of China is incorrect. That invaluable tree, it was formerly thought, could not flourish beyond the tropicks ; now the best in the United States, is found in the thirty-third degree of latitude, and perhaps some is raised a little further north in Carolina. But in China, where the forests have been extirpated, it attains perfection in thirty-seven and a half, about the latitude of Richmond, and even higher. See 3 Staunton's Emb. 201. If our author will permit the planters to falsify his theory, we may hope in a few years to see cotton trees bid defiance to the frosts of 40°. The conclusion of this pamphlet contains observations on the culture of the grape, of which we are unable to say more than that the author's judgment on the subject is sober, and that we fear the miscarriage of experiments will allow it to continue sober. ARTICLE 2. The American New Dispensatory; containing, General Principles of Pharmaceutick Chemistry, Pharmaceutick operations, &c. &c. with an Appendix. By James Thacher, A. A. et M. M. S. Boston ; printed and published by T. B. Wait & Co. 1810, 1 vol. 8vo. pp. 530. MATERIA Medica and Pharmacy, like the sciences on which they are founded, are progressive. The researches made by philosophers into the collateral branches of medicine, particularly those of botany and chemisty, have rendered successive changes in nomenclature, not only expedient, but absolutely necessary; and the discoveries, which have flowed from these investigations, have detected so many errours in the language, and added such a multitude of new articles to the materia medica, that one pharmacopoeia rises only to be succeeded by another. A Dispensatory is a necessary accompaniment of a Pharmacopoeia; its object is to describe the physical, chemical and medicinal properties of the substances employed by the physician, to explain the nature of the reciprocal changes which result from their combinations, and to afford a view of the instruments by which these changes are effected. The United States have produced but two works of this kind; and |