The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-07-18
CHANGES IN CLIMATE.

Do climates change? This is a question
susceptible of different answers, according to
circumstances, which are not well defined,
if, indeed, they are deinable. If we take
our own annual meteorological reports, we
shall discover very little change in the
mean temperature of the seasons as far back
as we can go, say two hundred years But
this hardly holds good of older countries,
where reliable records are accessible which
date back two thousand years or more. Ac-
cording to these authorities, the seasons, in
most countries, have undergone, at some in
definite period, very marked climatic changes
which have seriously affected the natural
productions of the soil as well as the produc-
tive industries dependent upon them; whilst
in some few regions no perceptible changes
can be traced between the past and present.
From the Bible, for instance, it is learned
that dates and raisins were successfully
grown in Palestine in the time of Moses, or
nearly three thousand years ago; and from
this biblical fact, the approximate mean
temperature of that country may be deduced.
All authorities agree that the date will not
mature anywhere where mean tempera-
ture falls below 70 degrees, Fair. At Catania
in Sicily, it cannot be grown, and the mean
temperature of Catania is 64.4 degrees, Fair.
From this it is ascertained that the mean
temperature of Palestine, about the period
of the arrival of the Hebrews from Egypt,
under Moses, could not have been less than
70 degrees, Fahr On the other hand the vine
cannot be cultivated in countries where the
mean temperature exceeds TIC degrees. In
Persia, where it is IS degrees, the grape is
cultivated on small scale, but the vines are
protected from the suns rays We are thus
enabled to fix the mean temperature of Pales-
tine between 70 and Tic degrees in biblical
times. 1t now averages a little over 70 de-
grees, SO that the climate of that region has
undergone no material change for more than
three thousand years. Judged by the same
standard, France must have changed her eli
mate materially in less than half that time.
In the Viverais, for instance, the vine used to
thrive to a height of 1000 feet, whereas it
can no longer be grown there The same is
partially true of the Suresne, Beauvais and
Etampes, in France, whose vines were in such
great favor in Rome as far back as the
reigns of Julian and Philip Augustus, but
which have now lost all their former excel
lence. 1t applies also to many parts of Eng
land, where the vine now needs shelter from
the cold Winds in consequence of the reno
val of the forest, which were the conspicuous
feature of England five hundred or thou
sand years ago.
The vicissitudes of climate, whatever they
may be, are dependent upon a variety of
causes, prominent among which are the vol
canic disturbance of the earth's crust the re-
suits of which are very conspicuous in all
parts of the world, both on sea and land.
The exact periods at which these changes
took place are, of course not known, but there
are ample and unmistakable evidences that in
France, Switzerland, England, Syria and
North America, there were once immense gla-
ciers where valleys now exist, Qike that of
the Rhone, for instance,) and that these
changes are still going on although imper-
ceptibly to ourselves, and will continue to
the end of time.-Ice Trade Journal