Daily American telegraph., 1851-12-23

ASK where's the North? AT York tbs on the Tweed !;
In Scotland, at the Orcades and there,
At Greenland Zembla or the Lord knows where.
Pope
In this country. when people speak Of the
North, they refer to regions which correspond
in latitude to the south Of France, to Italy and
Spain--to what constitutes the "snnny south y
Of Europe The possessions of Great Britain
north of Canada are rarely thought Of, except
in connection with fur companies, or expedi-
tions in search of Sir John Franklin. No allu-
sion is ever made to their settlement and culti-
walton by civilized men--to the time when
populous States are to surround James's and
Hudson's Bay, or when splendid cities are to
fringe their shores and tributary streams. It
has been generally conceded that region situ-
ated in the latitude of Great Britain, Of North
ern France, Of Denmark, Prussia, Russia, and
Sweden, is to remain forever desolate waste
while teeming millions skirt it's southern bor-
ders
Is there any good reason for consigning this
immense region Of the earth to perpetual bar
renness and desolation? We shall be told
that its frigid climate must forever seal it up
against the inroads of ciyilization--that it is
ten degrees colder than the same latitudes of
Europe, &c. But, on the contrary, it may be
shown that the same intense cold prevailed
two thousand years ago in what are now the
most populous and fertile regions Of Europe
and it follows from hence, that climate is
gradually meliorated by the cultivation of the
SOIL the presence of numerous fires, and other
circumstances attending civilization Even the
abundance Of animal life which exists in dense
ly peopled countries is said to have an influ-
ence upon climate.
The following extract from Gibbons I" De-
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire will be
read with interest in this connection and we
think conclusively proves the melorating effect
of civilization upon climate:
Some ingenious writer's" says Gibbon
"have suspectedthat Europe was much colder
formerly than it is at present; and the most
ancient descriptions of the climate of Germa-
ny tend exceedingly to confirm their theory
The general complaints of intense frost and
eternal winter are perhaps to be little regard
ed, since we have no method of reducing to
the accurate standard of the thermometer the
feelings or the expressions of an orator born
in the happier regions of Greece or Asia. But
shall select two remarkable circumstances of
a less equivocal nature: 1. The great rivers
which watered the Roman provinces, the Rhine
and the Danube, were frequently frozen over,
and capable of supporting the most enormous
weights. The barbarians, who often chose
that severe season for their inroads transported,
without apprehension of danger, their numer-
GUS armies, their cavalry, and their heavy
wagons, over q vast and solid bridge of ice.
Modern ages have not presented an instance of
like phenomenon. 2. The reindeer, that
useful animal, from which the savage of the
North derives the best comforts of his dreary
life, is Of constitution that supports, and even
requires, the most intense cold He is found
on the rock of Spitzberg, within ten degrees
of the pole; he seems to delight in the SHOWS
of Lapland and Siberia; but at present he
cannot subsist, much less multiply in any
country to the south of the Baltic. In the
time of Caesar, the reindeer, as well as the elk
and the wild bull was native of the Hercyn-
ian forest, which then overshadowed great
part of Germany and Poland. The modern
improvements sufficiently explain the causes
of the dminution of the cold These immense
woods have been gradually cleared, which in
tercepted from the earth the rays of the sun.
The morasses have been drained, and in pro-
portion as the soil has been cultivated, the air
has become more temperate. Canada, at this
day. is an exact picture of ancient Germany.
Although situated in the same parallel with
the finest provinces of France and England,
the country experiences the most rigorous cold
The reindeer are very numerous, the ground is
IL L.
great river st. Lawrence is regularly frozen, in
a season when the waters of the Seine and
Thames are usually free from ice"
In another place. Gibbon says, speaking of
the cultivation of the vine
$50 intense was the cold to the north of the
Cevennes, mountains in the south of France,)
that in the time of Strabo it was thought i'm
possible to ripen the grapes in those parts of
Gaul This difficulty, however, was gradually
vanquished; and there is some reason to be-
lieve that the vineyards of Burgundy are as
old as the age of the Antonines."
In note, the same author remarks that
e the intense cold of Gallo winter was almost
proverbial among the ancients.n, The intelli-
gent reader need not be told that the most
celebrated wines of France, Burgundy and
Champagne, are now produced north of the
Cevennes mountains, and the latter on the
northern frontier The wines of Germany
not less celebrated than those of France, are
produced in the valleys of the Rhine and Dan
ube, in a latitude corresponding to the most
northern parts of Canada-regions which
eighteen centuries ago were regarded by the
r, ! 49, - 4 n n - a. n +.
in the same light in which we hold the country
between Canada and James's bay. As to coun-
tries still further north, which now comprise