every suinmer, has, during the space of four hundred years, been absolutely inaccessible, nor until within a few months has any vessel been able to ap proach so near as even to discover the land. Yet no historical documents inform us that the climate of Great Britain underwent any alteration from this accumulation of ice on the Greenland coast; nor is it probable that the intense cold which it produced could in any degree reach so far as this country. And it is certain, that if the practice of making wine from English grapes ever prevailed, it had been laid aside long before that period. It is well known that immense masses of ice are very frequently driven by the north winds upon the shores of Iceland, and remaining many months, or even sometimes for years, undissolved, affect the climate of that coun try by chilling the atmosphere for many miles around. In the years 1755 and 1756, the accumulation of ice drifted on the coasts of that island caused so intense and unusual a cold as to kill many horses and sheep. The same circumstance, by putting an entire stop to vegetation, has also been several times productive of dreadful famines. But it does not appear that this Icelandic cold has ever had any perceptible influence on the atmosphere of England. In the system of nature, causes seem to act with a power proportioned to their distances; and a greater or less accumulation of ice in the northern regions can make but little alteration in the climate of this country; for although a brisk north wind may travel within the space of fifty hours from the arctic circle to London, and a very strong gale in half of that time, yet in its passage over many hundred miles of sea, and in mixing with or absorbing various currents of air, its nature will be greatly chan ged previous to its arrival. Every blast of wind, and every vapour that is exhaled from the earth or the sea, has some influence on the climate; but every natural agent has a certain sphere of action, and in proportion as it diverges from the focus of its power, its operation is weakened, and, mixing with that of other causes, becomes at length imperceptible. An accumulation of ice in any particular place must have a refrigerating effect on the circumambient atmosphere to a considerable extent; but we seem to carry theory too far, if we suppose that at the distance of some hundreds of miles its influence can produce any sensible alteration of climate: the cold of the Pyrenees is but little perceptible at Toulouse and Saragossa, the former at the distance of about 80 miles to the north, the latter within 90 to the south. In the greatest part of the province of Grenada, the heat seems to be as intense as it would be if the Sierra Nivada were removed; and the stupendous mountains to the north of India, those vast repositories of ice and snow, where perpetual winter reigns, transmits but little of their cooling influence to the sultry plains which border the Ganges. The increasing accumulation of ice and snow in the mountainous regions of Europe has been noticed by travellers; and considered as a fact connected with the change of climate. But this is very far from being a new phenomenon on the contrary it is a common process of nature, which VOL. II. Ee commenced when the first snow fell in those parts, and has ever since continued. That this is the case a very little reflection will afford us demonstrative proofs. Ice and snow are only congelations of water, and are not to be classed amongst the primitive works of creation. When the first snow fell on the summit of the Alps, the Andes, and other high mountains, the coldness of the atmosphere in those elevated situations prevented it from returning to water, its original element. The solar heat in every summer has undoubtedly melted a part, but not the whole of the snows which had fallen during the preceding winter; and from these partial thaws are formed those stupendous Alpine features, the Glaciers, so greatly admired and so often described by travellers. An immense quantity of snow is continually accumulating in the elevated valleys which are inclosed within the Alps, both from that which falls from the clouds during eight, nine, and sometimes ten months in the year, and also from the masses which so frequently roll down from the steep sides of the circumjacent mountains. Part of this snow, which is not dissolved during the summer, being mixed with rain and snow-water, is frozen in each succeeding winter, and forms that porous kind of ice of which the glaciers are composed, while the snow which covers the most elevated summits remains almost wholly undissolved, and is constantly accumulating. Some of the lower glaciers stretch several miles in length and breadth, and the thickness of the ice varies from ninety to a hundred and fifty, and in particular places to four or five hundred feet. These immense fields of ice, which rest on an inclined plain, bounded at the higher extremity by lofty and often inaccessible rocks, and at the lower extend into the cultivated valleys, being pushed forward by their own weight, constantly augmented by new accumulations, sometimes encroach on the peopled districts, to the no small alarm and annoyance of the inhabitants. Such is the description given by travellers who have explored the Alps; and it is equally applicable to other mountains of similar elevation. The Andes, although situated within the torrid zone, have their glaciers and other terrific features of the European Alps. In all these mountainous regions the extension of glaciers is no extraordinary phoenomenon ; and every one has heard of the avalanches or sudden descents of masses of snow from the mountains, which have sometimes done so much damage in the valleys of Switzerland. It is very possible that in the mountainous regions of Europe, the quantity of snow and ice may have lately increased with greater rapidity than usual; but if this be really the case, it affords no proof of any change in the climate of this quarter of the globe; for nature is various in her operations, and in the temperate zone the corresponding seasons scarcely ever exhibit a perfect similarity throughout any considerable succession of years. In examining the weight of any argument founded on the increase of snow and ice in the Alpine regions, we must consider that there was none upon those mountains when they were first formed; and if there had not been a constant accumulation ever since the first snows fell on their summits, they would not have exhibited at this day those stupendous effects of congelation. Some writers on physical as well as on metaphysical subjects have a strong predilection for system and theory. In the paper which I have here undertaken to examine, it is asserted that in the northern parts of our hemisphere the mean annual temperature is on the decline; and that the fact is demonstrable. It is however much to be doubted whether in this or any other country a sufficient number of thermometrical observations have been made to authorise such an assertion. It is also given as a conjecture, and indeed a plausible one, that the cold of the summer and autumn of 1816 was caused by the detached fields of ice, which had been driven from the arctic regions into the Atlantic, as far as to the forty-second degree of latitude. But after all this plausibility of reasoning, it does not appear that any of this ice ever approached sufficiently near to the coasts of Great Britain to affect the climate of this island. Had any great quantity of it been drifted on our shores, as has often been the case in Iceland, it would certainly have had a refrigerating effect on the atmosphere to the distance of several miles, and perhaps more or less throughout a great part of the country. It must however be granted that in the last fifteen or twenty years, the springs have been later and the summers more cold and humid than they were within the remembrance of the present generation. But the diminution of the mean annual temperature is still somewhat problematical ; for it is evident that while the summers have become cooler, the winters have become as much warmer. Every one, indeed, who has reached the meridian of life must have observed, that in this country neither the heats of summer nor the colds of winter have of late years been so intense nor of so long a continuance as they usually were in his earlier days. This is a circumstance to which it is difficult to assign the true cause. It is indeed easy to conceive that so large a quantity of ice might be drifted from the Arctic ocean into the more southern seas as might effect a very considerable refrigeration of our climate; although I do not think that this has yet been the case; but it is not so easy to believe that the same cause, by diminishing the warmth of the summer, should in a proportionate degree augment that of the winter. If we imagine this to be possible, we must adopt another hypothesis, and suppose that the melting of this ice, after it has arrived in warmer seas, emits an increased quantity of vapour, which by checking the force of the solar rays in summer, and blunting the frozen particles of the atmosphere in winter, may diminish the heat of the former, and the cold of the latter season. After examining the causes generally assigned to the production of an effect which has lately attracted the attention of naturalists, and is certainly interesting to all classes of people, I cannot but think that the deterioration of climate of which we complain, is only a temporary circum stance. It is certainly not to be denied, that within a few of the late years, there has been a visible alteration for the worse; but in perusing the records of history, we find that almost every country has, at different times, experienced unfavourable seasons. In the most fertile regions, the soil has in some years been unproductive, and in the most healthful climates the atmosphere has been rendered insalubrious hy an unusual degree of heat or of cold, of drought or of humidity, or perhaps by causes so recondite as to have eluded the observation and research of the naturalist. In the sixth and the fourteenth centuries, the whole of the then known world was visited by the pestilence in so terrible a manner, that at each of those periods considerably more than the half of mankind is supposed to have perished. Yet the atmosphere of this terraqueous globe, after becoming so charged with putrescency and contagion, as to threaten the extinction of the human species, at length recovered its former tone and salubrity. These considerations, together with other instances of a similar, although more partial nature, seem to encourage a hope that the present deterioration of climate will not be lasting. In p. 334 of the Northern Star, I have adduced historical evidence of unquestionable authenticity, in order to show that an important amelioration of climate has taken place in Germany, France, and Britain, since the time of Augustus; and what is there asserted might be corroborated by a multitude of additional facts. This improve ment of the climate has undoubtedly been gradual; and although it may have sometimes been interrupted by various causes, it appears to have been progressive through successive ages. But that a deterioration has taken place several centuries ago, and continued to this day, seems to be a chimerical supposition." If, according to the hypothesis which seems at present to prevail, the state of the Arctic regions have any considerable influence on the climate of this country, there is every reason to expect that our summers will soon resume their former temperature, for if our accounts from the North be correct, a remarkable relaxation of the cold has within the last year taken place. From the concurrent testimony of the whalers, it appears, that a very large quantity of the Arctic ice is broken up, and about eighteen thousand square miles of it are said to have vanished. The eastern coast of Greenland, which has during the space of more than four hundred years been not only inaccessible, but also invisible, was seen last summer by one of the ships employed in the whale fishery; and according to intelligence received from Copenhagen, the ice, which for so long a time had blocked up its shores, had in the month of August last disappeared-a circumstance which encourages a hope that the fate of the ancient colony may now at last be ascertained. This extraordinary decrease of the ice seems to have sug gested the idea of an expedition of discovery to explore the unknown regions near the Pole, as all the whalers unanimously agree, that from time immemorial the northern seas have never been so open for naviga tion as they were during the last summer. A little time will discover what influence this relaxation of cold in the Arctic regions will have on the cli mate of Great Britain. In exhibiting this cursory view of a subject of so great importance and interest, and so calculated to excite a general curiosity, I have only stated facts of indubitable authenticity, with inferences which may either be true or erroneous; and I do not presume to draw from them decided conclusions. I must frankly acknowledge that I do not possess a stock of physical knowledge sufficient for exploring and developing the operations of nature in her secret laboratory, nor do I pretend to investigate her abstruse arcana. If any of my statements and opinions be erroneous, I shall be glad to see them combated and corrected and by bringing forward to distinct inspection and examination, a variety of facts and arguments rela. tive to so curious a subject, I may, perhaps, excite the attention of some of the numerous readers of the Northern Star, who may be better qualified for placing the matter in a luminous point of view. J. B. HOURS AFTER TEA. No. II. "Ask thyself, This pleasing error did it never lull Thy wishes? Has thy constant heart refused AKENSIDE. THE maxim that the majority of mankind are happiest in a state of full employment, has been so ably illustrated and so frequently enforced as to silence all doubt, but perhaps it is not so clearly understood that men of literary taste and reflective habits are implicated in the observation. The youth who is enthusiastically devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, regards a life of leisure and contemplation with longing eyes, and looks across the busy days of professional toil to the distant moment when he shall enjoy it, almost wishing the intermediate space annihilated. We do not feel surprised when a man of business with habits fixed, and associations not to be eradicated, fails to find happiness in leisure and retirement; but why should we doubt the felicity of his condition, who, with a cultivated intellect, and averse to the bustle of the world, attains the ease which he loved and the power of luxuriating in his favorite enjoyments? This fascinating illusion which genius often encourages amidst the active cares of business, fades, however, before the touch of experience. In the spring of life it was, I can well recollect, even at this distance of time, the darling of my own 'mind, although it soon lost much of its power from the circumstauces which form the following narrative :-After many years absence from my native country, I returned for a short time, which I meant to spend in visits to those friends whom former days had endeared to my recollection. Amongst the rest, there was one to whose character and talents I was peculiarly fond of reverting, and to whom I hastened to introduce myself. Dur ing the first years of my absence, we had occasionally interchanged letters, but the uncertainty of my address had finally stopped the correspondence, and for a considerable period I had only incidentally heard of him. My friend had received a liberal education, and early in life distinguished him |