twenty maritime leagues. The breadth of this district may be estimated at fifteen leagues, more or less.
13. The phenomenon which results from the want of rain in low Peru, is an atmosphere perpetually loaded with fogs, which melt away into dews, without ever producing the meteors of thunder and lightning, such as are observed in the countries subject to rains, &c.
14. I do not know whether there are any rainbows in the districts referred to. Never having been in that part of the country, I am equally at a loss to reply to several other points in the question. The rest is answered antecedently.
15. I am unacquainted with any phenomena peculiar to Peru, those excepted which have already been recapitulated.
***The answers to the preceding queries may tend to throw further light on a point which has engaged the attention of the philosophic world. The gentleman by whom the queries were proposed, has perhaps justly ascribed the peculiar phenomena of the Peruvian climate to the effect of the Andes mountains on the electricity of the atmosphere. In 1795, he publicly expressed the opinion, that the same effects may be produced artificially on other countries, by the erection of metallic conductors of a sufficient height. The solution of this problem must depend on experiments, the magnitude of which, as well as the expences attendant on them, must be reserved for a future and more philosophic age. In the interim, it is pleasing to contemplate, that, by availing ourselves of the means which Nature has pointed out to us, we might, on this suggestion, be able to convert the variable and fickle atmosphere of Great Britain, into a climate as serene, steady, and beautiful, as that of low Peru.
