and freshness pervade the air, producing
mingled sensations of pleasure and repose.

The mountain tract, which terminates Western Assyria to the north, has a
climate very much more rigorous than the central region. The elevation
of this district is considerable, and the near vicinity of the great
mountain country of Armenia, with its eternal snows and winters during
half the year, tends greatly to lower the temperature, which in the
winter descends to eight or ten degrees below zero. Much snow then
falls, which usually lies for some weeks; the spring is wet and stormy,
but the summer and the autumn are fine; and in the western portion of
the region about Harran and Orfah, the summer heat is great. The climate
is here an "extreme" one, to use on expression of Humboldt's--the range
of the thermometer being even greater than it is in Chaldaea, reaching
nearly (or perhaps occasionally exceeding) 120 degrees.

Such is the present climate of Assyria, west and east of the Tigris.
There is no reason to believe that it was very different in ancient
times. If irrigation was then more common and cultivation more widely
extended, the temperature would no doubt have been somewhat lower and
the air more moist. But neither on physical nor on historical grounds
Can it be argued that the difference thus produced was; more than
slight. The chief causes of the remarkable heat of Mesopotamnia--so
much exceeding that of many countries under the same parallels of
latitude--are its near vicinity to the Arabian and Syrian deserts, and
its want of trees, those great refrigerators. While the first of these
causes would be wholly untouched by cultivation, the second would be
affected in but a small degree. The only tree which is known to have
been anciently cultivated in Mesopotamia is the date-palm; and as this
ceases to bear fruit about lat. 35 deg., its greater cultivation could have
prevailed only in a very small portion of the country, and so would have
affected the general climate but little. Historically, too, we find,
among the earliest notices which have any climatic bearing, indications
that the temperature and the consequent condition of the country were
anciently very nearly what they now are. Xenophon speaks of the
barrenness of the tract between the Khabour and Babylonia, and the
entire absence of forage, in as strong terms as could be used at the
present day. Arrian, following his excellent authorities, notes that
Alexander, after