near the lake, is Canine, a little town in which Lucien Bonaparte dwelt for a considerable time, in a palace belonging to him. Ascending a steep hill, we saw Montefiascone before us,-an old melancholy-looking town, as all those were which we had hitherto seen in the Papal territories,-vineyards upon the hill sides, on left and right of the road,-town fortified. Bought here a flask of a pale-red wine, which we drank at supper at Viterbo, and found extremely good. The colour like water dashed with Port wine, -the taste sweet, with a peculiar flavour, which reminded me much of that of Cyprus wine. Montefiascone is celebrated for its wines. A certain German prelate, travelling this way, indulged so freely in these wines, that he died drunk, and was interred in the church of St Flavian in the town, where the epitaph on his tomb re cords at once. his sensuality and the excellence of the Montefiascone wines. Prospect from Montefiascone (coming down the hill towards Viterbo) very extensive and beautiful, although not remarkably rich or fertile. Monte Viterbo, anciently Mons Ciminus, rising magnificently before us in the back-ground. About three or four miles from Viterbo passed a small lake of hot water, the strong sulphureous stench of which assailed us some time before we reached it. This lake is close upon the road, on the right hand. Our Lyons merchant made terrible wry faces at the smell,-stopped his nose, and begged that the windows might be put up, since the odour was "tres malsain." "Pas de tout," said I; but his prejudice was at least as strong as the sinell of the lake; and he was not enough of a philosopher to know that the smell would not kill every one of us, as he believed. Reach ed Viterbo about seven; large, old, gloomy Albergo, with dirty ill-kept rooms, stinking insufferably. The vast extent and loftiness of fire-place in this room, strongly resembles that in the great hall at Craigmillar Castle,-good supper, and excellent wine, -"Orvietto bianco." The small flask sells at fifteen bajocchi, or a paul and a half, (nearly 9d. Sterling,) and contains about two English pints. Our Lucio fish was cooked for supper, and was very good. March 4th.-Left Viterbo at seven, after taking a cup of miserable coffee, for which we were modestly and moderately charged two pauls a-head, the regular and common price in Italy for a cup of coffee being about one-sixth part of two pauls! Then came the cook with a demand of three pauls for boiling our Lucio !-it had been merely boiled in water, -nothing more. After bestowing a round of hearty curses upon the extortion of this rascally house, we were obliged to disburse. The police office, or the magistrates of Viterbo, were our only resource, and most certainly we should have gained nothing by an appeal to either the one or the other. Such ap peals had been tried before by other travellers on the continent, and the redress given was a shrug of the shoulders, and a refusal to interfere with these matters. Three pauls at Viterbo is equal to 4s. 6d. Sterling in London, so I leave you to judge of mine cook's moderation. Here, I must observe, that we had been imprudent in not asking before-hand what our coffee would cost us. In every inn in Italy, it is absolutely necessary to inquire previously the cost of anything you may order, whether it may be a cup of coffee, a bit of bread, or even a glass of milk. The Italian innkeepers have no mercy upon travellers, especially upon English travellers, if you do not fix the price before using the article, whatever it is, brazenfaced imposition is the certain consequence.. But, although the Italians are addicted to cheating, still we must not be so unjust as to say that it is peculiar to them. Imposition is to be met with in France and England, and in every country, although, perhape, not so generally or so openly practised as in Italy. After a long ascent to the summit of Monte Viterbo, in a cheerless rainy morning, we began to descend, and saw below us, to the right, the lake Vico, (anciently Lacus Ciminus,) about three miles in circumference-the mountain tops covered with mist, and a dim watery prospect of the level country round the lake, and the line of hills beyond it. Near Ronciglione passed a paper manufactory in a valley to the left; stopped a few minutes at Ronciglione, an old gloomy ugly town. Here Mr had some eggs prepared in an albergo, near the lower end of the town. The people demanded from him five bajocchi for tain each egg, but as he had taken the precaution to inform himself previously of the true price of the eggs, he offered them only one bajocchi a piece. This was, of course, refused, and a wrangling bout commenced, and Capand Mr threatened the birboni of the house with the Pope's vengeance for attempting to impose upon Englishmen, to whom his Holiness shews a most favourable disposition. The fellows laughed, and treated the affair with the most unblushing effrontery imaginable. An Italian is never disconcerted when caught in an attempt to cheat. Passed Monterosi, (anciently Mons Erosus,) on the top of a hill, a small old miserabie town. At Monterosi, the Perugia road meets that which conducts to Rome. Descending towards Baccano, pass along for several miles on the ancient Cassian way, we soon entered upon the melancholy and desolate Campagna, where every thing bespeaks a tract of country unfit for habitation, all the way from Viterbo poor, and miserably cultivated; hills and fields overspread with white stones and rocks, which, when broken, present a black compact texture, indicating their volcanic origin. At different places near the road between Ponte Centino and Baccano, we observed excavations in the rock, besides those which I formerly mentioned; rain continued until we reached Baccano, about five. The Albergo here is a lonely old house, situated in a hollow, in a most unhealthy region. In our long supper room found a table, about twenty feet in length, laid with as many covers as would have sufficed a little regiment; the walls of this large room painted with landscapes in fresco; some people of taste had amused themselves by scrawling their nameless names upon the painting, above the fireplace;-bad supper and wine; slept in a room called Vienna, and having the name of that city painted above the door. A certain traveller says, that the ball of the cross of St Peter's Church, and part of the city of Rome, may be seen from this place, but I looked for these objects in vain. The view towards Rome is immediately intercepted by the hills on the south east of Baccano. 5th.-Left Baccano at 6 A. M. and from the heights a few miles beyond Baccano descried the summit of St Peter's towering afar between us and the brightening horizon, the view bounded by the distant hills. As we drew nearer to Rome, the country which had hitherto presented nothing but the cheerless aspect of barren and uncultivated fields, with hardly a human habitation among them, began to appear less desolate. From time to time we caught a glimpse of the lofty dome of St Peter's in the distance, and at last began to distinguish the white houses of the city mingling here and there with the dark green expanded tops of scattered trees. In the immediate vicinity of Rome the country was very pleasing; woody hills and country houses, and ruins, formed a picture agreeably diversified, while in the centre of the prospect rose the modern city, white, and smiling in cheerfulness, surrounded by the venerable relics of the times of old. Between La Strota and Ponte Molle stands the tomb of Nero, upon a bank by the side of the road. I scrambled up the bank to take a hasty look of this curious monument, inclosing the dust of one of the most execrable monsters that ever disgraced the human species; the inscription is almost obliterated. I had not time to decypher it, but contented myself with looking at the ruinous tabric, and reflecting for a moment on the dark deeds and frightful character of the man to whom it was erected. As we approached Rome from Baccano, we saw on the way side five or six long upright poles, at the tops of which were suspended the legs and arms of assassins; the curved fingers seemed still to grasp the murderous knife. These horrible objects, shrunk and blackened by the sun, disturb that train of poetical and pleasing thoughts which must pass through almost every mind on approaching Rome,the greatest theatre on which human power and magnificence were ever displayed. We passed over the Tiber by the Ponte Molle, (Pons Emilius,) where the Pagan Maxentius was drowned, in his flight from the miraculously converted Constantine, by the breaking down of the ancient bridge. The Tiber justifies its ancient appellation of" Flavus;" it is a troubled stream of no great breadth at this bridge, and coloured by the yellowish clay, or earth, of its channel. Entered the city by the Porta del Popolo. ON CLIMATE. (Continued from Vol. II. p. S03.) THOUGH Some philosophers have thought they could perceive on the surface of our globe the influence of a great fire in its centre, the phenomena of climate are sufficiently well explained, by regarding the sun as the primary source of all the heat we enjoy; always varying, however, with the position of the great luminary from which it is derived, the heat received on any part of the earth never remains an instant the same. It declines insensibly from noon to midnight, and rises again in the same manner, until the noon of the succeeding day. This total daily heat again declines insensibly from the middle of summer to the middle of winter, and from thence rises until the midsummer of the succeeding year. In the language of geometry, the point which, by its distances from a given line, would represent these variations of heat, must, like the earth itself, revolve round a centre every day, this centre all the time revolving round another, and completing its circuit once a year. But as these variations are periodical, and return nearly in the same order at the end of the year, every place thus acquires, on the whole, a degree of heat which seems to be almost invariable, and which is termed its mean temperature,-an important element in the theory of climate. As it is the most accurate measure of the heat of any climate, the mean temperature serves to mark, with great precision, the various gradations throughout the globe. "From a comparison of meteorological observations," says Mr Leslie, "made at distant points on the surface of our globe, the celebrated astronomer, Professor Mayer of Göttingen, was enabled to discover an empirical law which connects most harmoniously the various results. Round the pole, the mean temperature may be assumed at the precise limit of freezing, since the fields of ice accumulated in that forlorn region seem at this present pericd neither to increase nor diminish. But under the equator the medium heat on the level of the sea is found to be 84 of Fahrenheit, or 29 centesimal degrees, the division of the thermometric scale which is the best suited to philosophical purposes. At the middle point, or the latitude of 45°, the temperature is likewise the exact mean, VOL. III. "It hence appears, that, near the extremities of the quadrant, or towards the pole and the equator, there is scarcely any sen. sible variation of the mean temperature, and that the whole change within the arctic circle, or between the tropics, amounts only to 8 degrees on Fahrenheit's scale. Very little increase of heat is, therefore, observed in advancing through the torrid zone to the equator; and the intensity of the cold would not be sensibly augmented in pene trating from the arctic circle to the pole. The existence of an open sea towards the extreme north is hence not improbable. “On the other hand, the character of the climate changes rapidly in the temperate zone. Hence likewise the variety of vege table productions with which those happier regions abound. Such a country as France, for example, stretching from about the 40th to the 50th degree of latitude, and through a difference of five centesimal degrees of mean temperature, yields not only plentiful crops of wheat, barley, and oats, but raises olives, fig-trees, and vines." The above striking variations are so obviously connected with the positions of the sun, that they have universally been ascribed to his unequal action on the different zones of the terrestrial spheroid, each of which, from the poles towards the equator, is exposed, upon the whole, to the more and more direct, and, therefore, more and more intense action of his rays. Hence the great heat under the equator, where the sun's rays, for a great part of every day in the year, fall almost vertically upon the surface, the great cold at the poles in the middle of the trigid zones, where the sun's rays are never very far from falling quite horizontally upon the surface; and the happy medium of the temperate zones, where the rays preserve equally the medium between the vertical and horizontal directions. The increased length of the summer days in the higher latitudes, serves, in some degree, to balance the obliquity of the sun's rays, insomuch, that the heat received at either pole during the twenty-four hours of the midsummer's day, exceeds, by one-fourth part, what is received at the equator. By a rigorous calculation, however, of the combined effect of these opposite causes throughout the year, Professor Leslie has formed the preceding table. But the mean temperature of places, as we rise above the level of the sea, diminishes even much more remarkably than when we recede from the equator; though there can be no doubt, at the same time, that high lands, under similar circumstances, receive more heat from the sun than the plains below. Here, therefore, a new principle combines its influence to modify the law of climate; and we must consider the agency of the atmosphere. In rising directly into any part of the open atmosphere, the same decrease of heat is felt as in the ascent to the top of a high mountain. Quite independent, therefore, of the influence of the adjacent land, while it extends throughout the whole mass of air, distinguishing each of its successive strata from the surface by a peculiar degree of heat, this singular property must rather be viewed as an essential law in the constitution of the great element which surrounds the globe; and this is the cause of the intense cold that prevails on the top of high mountains. Though at these elevations the traveller is often, astonished with the force and brilliancy of the sun's rays, the whole of the heat quickly disappears amid the superior cold of the surrounding atmosphere, and every successive stratum of the mountain is thus cooled down to the mean temperature, of the corresponding stratum of air with which it is in contact. Hence we find, in some of the great mountains near the equator, all the climates on the earth's surface concentrated within a few day's journey. This remarkable cold of the higher atmosphere is not so easily explained. It had been long known that the rays of the sun pass almost entirely through transparent bodies, and that, therefore, without stopping in the atmosphere, they must spend nearly the whole of their heating power on the surface of the ground. It was not unnatural, therefore, in the infancy of science, to ascribe this decrease of heat to our increased distance from its source, which, though it appeared to be in the great luminary above, was thus really as to the atmosphere in the earth below. When we expose any part of a body to a permanent source of heat, as when we thrust the extremity of a bar of iron into a common fire, it never attains a uniform temperature throughout, while the fire heats the one end, the air cools the other, and though every portion of the mass at length acquires, by a mutual balance of these opposite forces, a permanent temperature, yet this decreases as the parts are farther from the heating or nearer the cooling cause. It was at one time believed, therefore, that a similar process preserved the uniform temperature of the globe, that some powerful cooling cause carried off the sun's heat from the earth as fast as it was received, and that the permanent, though decreasing progression in the atmosphere, was the result of a balance between this continual waste and continual supply. The gradual developement, however, of the laws which regulate the motions and distribution of heat among bodies, has at length diffused more correct notions on this most important branch of physical science, and presented a very different and a far more interesting arrangement. It now appears extremely probable, though perhaps not yet abso lutely demonstrable, that very little if any of the heat which the earth receives from the sun ever escapes from it again. But it is well known, that through fluid bodies, the passage of heat is much more rapid than through those that are solid; the extreme mobility of their parts giving full play to the great statical principle which causes the heavier of their particles to displace the lighter, a perpetual circulation is established, when the fluid is heated from below, between In a future Number, we may consider this subject with the attention which its importance demands; for though to some it may appear merely speculative, we believe there is no question in physics more interesting,--no problem whose solution will tend more especially to throw light on some of the obscurest mysteries of nature than this,-Is heat only light in a state of combination ?-That principle of warmth which, though unseen, yet animates all nature with its influence," is it but a portion of the subtle fluid of light, which, by its own repulsive energy, flies in cessantly from the centre to the remotest extremities of our system, and arriving within the sphere of its attraction, is thenceforward chained, as it were, for ever to the earth? which continually, therefore, though slowly, accumulating and developing as it grows in strength, a grand series of revolutions on the surface of this planet, to which it has been attached, becomes thus the prime agent of its astonishing but in scrutable destinies ? the lower and upper strata, the former as they are heated ascending, in consequence of the comparative levity which they thus acquire, and the lat ter descending to supply their place. Each of the particles, therefore, as they arrive in succession at the common source of their heat, carrying off an equal share to the remotest extremities of the mass, a pretty uniform temperature is thus spread throughout the whole; at least in regard to the atmosphere, considering how small a quantity of heat it is constantly receiving, compared with the mass into which this must expand, any inequality must entirely vanish. That perpetual motion which the application of heat excites among the particles of a fluid is very well exhibited, by applying warmth to the bottom of a glass of water, having a lit tle powder of charcoal or fine dust diffused through it, the particles of dust, though formerly at rest, will now begin to move some towards the top, and others towards the bottom; in a short time the ferment will spread through the whole mass, and if the heat be equally applied, nothing will be seen in any part of it but an infinite series of ascending and descending currents. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the heat communicated from the ground must produce in the atmosphere, whose parts so far exceed in mobility those of any liquid, the same system of reciprocating motions. But as the effect of this statical principle is to diffuse the heat equally throughout the whole mass of air, it leaves the cold of the higher regions wholly unexplained. The true cause, accordingly, remained quite unknown, even after the celebrated experiments of Dr Black, and the researches of succeeding chemists, had begun to throw some light on the subject of the various capacities of bodies for heat, and Professor Leslie is the first to have traced it with distinctness to the operation of this great law of nature. It is now well known, that, at the same temperature, and under the same different quantities of heat, and are mass, different bodies contain very very variously " affected by equal additions of that elementary fluid." The same quantity, for example, which, communicated to a pound of mercury, would raise its temperature 29°, will |