Inquiry into the nature and cause of miasmata, more particularly illustrated in the former and present state of the Campagna di Roma / P. Murphy.

  • Murphy, Patrick, 1782-1847.
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inquiry into the nature and cause of miasmata, more particularly illustrated in the former and present state of the Campagna di Roma / P. Murphy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    47/186 (page 25)
    either pole towards the equator; and from the equator to the poles, as the sun in his approach to either solstice would influence it. The conse- quence of this uniformity would be, that during one half of the year, one hemisphere would be deluged with rain and snow, and exposed to an intolerable cold; while the opposite hemisphere, parched with uninterrupted drought and heat, would have its rivers dried up, and its vegetation destroyed ; and thus depriving man and other ani- mals of their accustomed nutriment, would be changed into an uninhabited and cheerless soli- tude ; at the same time, that the other hemisphere was exposed to devastations equally destructive from an opposite cause ; and would itself, in turn, experience all the desolating effects of drought and heat, insomuch, that with such a disposition of things, the earth, instead of being a nursery of vegetation and life, gradually extending the domi- nion of both as it has done, would be totally de- populated in a single year. Hence, the necessity of a secondary class of counter-agents, to break the uniformity of the effects that would result from the former; and these, from being partial or confined in their effects to particular districts, I shall denominate localities. These localities that exercise so important an influence on the phenomena of the atmosphere, are of two kinds. One consists of the mountainous elevations of the globe, the other of the oceans,