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part of Spain was little inhabited for the same cause[1]. In short, all the ancients who mention the climate of Gaul, Germany, Pannonia and Thrace, speak of it as insupportable[2], and agree that the ground was covered with snow the greatest part of the year, being incapable of producing olives, grapes, and most other fruits. It is easy to conceive that the forests being cleared away, the face of the country better cultivated, and the marshy places drained, the moist exhalations which generate cold, must be considerably lessened, and that the rays of the sun must have a freer access to warm the earth. The same thing has happened in North America since the Europeans have carried
- ↑ Vid. Strab. lib. iii. ———[Polybius speaks of Arcadia itself as situate under a cold and humid climate. Lib. iv. c. 21. First Edit.]
- ↑ Quid istis locis asperius? Cicer. Sithonia nix. Germania informis terris. Aspera cœlo. Germania frugiferarum arborum impatiens. Tacitus passim. Gallicâ hyeme frigidior. Petronius. Scythico quid frigore pejus. Ovid. &c. First Edit.
c. xii. The Gaulish and German horfes were very small and ill-made, as are these of the coldest parts of Scandinavia, which M. Buffon attributes to the severe cold of those countries. V. Hift. Nat. tom. iv. du Cheval. Equi non formâ conspicui. Tac. Germ. Jumenta Germanis parva et deformia. Cæsar. de bell. Gallic. lib. xiv.
