THE DECLINE AND FALL

346

chap, mote darkness of the north, the ancients imper-

^ _fectly descried a frozen ocean that lay beyond

the Baltic sea, and beyond the peninsula, orislands* of Scandinavia .

Climate. Some ingenious writers’ 1 have suspected thatEurope was much colder formerly than it is atpresent; and the most ancient descriptions of theclimate of Germany tend exceedingly to confirmtheir theory. The general complaints of intensefrost, and eternal winter, are perhaps little to beregarded, since we have no method of reducingto the accurate standard of the thermometer, thefeelings, or the expressions of an orator, born inthe happier regions of Greece or Asia. But Ishall select two remarkable circumstances of aless equivocal nature. 1. The great riverswhich covered the Roman provinces, the Rhine and the Danube , were frequently frozen over,and capable of supporting the most enormousweights. The barbarians, who often chose thatsevere season for their inroads, transported,without apprehension or danger, their numerous

* The modern philosophers of Sweden seem agreed that the watersof the Baltic gradually sink in a regular proportion, which theyhave ventured to estimate at half an inch every year. Twenty cen-turies ago, the flat country of Scandinavia must have been coveredby the sea; while the high lands rose above the waters, as so manyislands of various forms and dimensions. Such, indeed, is the notiongiven us by Mela, Pliny, and Tacitus , of the vast countries roundthe Baltic. See in the Bibliotheque Raisonf'c, tom. xl and xlv, alarge abstract of Dalin’s History of Sweden, composed in the Swedishlanguage.

b In particular, Mr. Hume, the Abb£ da Bos, and M. Pdloutier,Hist, des Ceites, tom, i.