ing, covered white paper with dark drops, like sulphur or dirt, which
burnt like wet gunpowder, and the air had a very sulphureous smell.
He supposes this to have been emitted from some distant earthquake or
volcano. Philos. Trans. V. LIII. p. 63.

In many circumstances this wind seems much to resemble the dry fog which
covered most parts of Europe for many weeks in the summer of 1780, which
has been supposed to have had a volcanic origin, as it succeeded the
violent eruption of Mount Hecla, and its neighbourhood. From the
subsidence of a white powder, it seems probable that the Harmattan has
a similar origin, from the unexplored mountains of Africa. Nor is it
improbable, that the epidemic coughs, which occasionally traverse immense
tracts of country, may be the products of volcanic eruptions; nor
impossible, that at some future time contagious miasmata may be thus
emitted from subterraneous furnaces, in such abundance as to contaminate
the whole atmosphere, and depopulate the earth!]

325 When stretch'd in dust her gasping panthers lie,
And writh'd in foamy folds her serpents die;
Indignant Atlas mourns his leafless woods,
And Gambia trembles for his sinking floods;
Contagion stalks along the briny sand,
330 And Ocean rolls his sickening shoals to land.

[_His sickening shoals_. 330. Mr. Marsden relates, that in the island of
Sumatra, during the November of 1775, the dry monsoons, or S.E. winds,
continued so much longer than usual, that the large rivers became dry;
and prodigious quantities of sea-fish, dead and dying, were seen floating
for leagues on the sea, and driven on the beach by the tides. This was
supposed to have been caused by the great evaporation, and the deficiency
of fresh water rivers having rendered the sea too fast for its inhabitants.
The season then became so sickly as to destroy great numbers of people,
both foreigners and natives. Phil. Trans. V. LXXI. p. 384.]

--Fair CHUNDA smiles amid the burning waste,
Her brow unturban'd, and her zone unbrac'd;
_Ten_ brother-youths with light umbrella's shade,
Or fan with busy hands the panting maid;
335 Loose wave her locks, disclosing, as they break,
The rising bosom and averted cheek;

[_Chunda_. l. 331. _Chundali Borrum_ is the name which the natives give
to this plant; it is the Hedylarum gyrans, or moving plant; its class is
two brotherhoods, ten males. Its leaves