I Am Now Preparing For
My Long Journey; But, Before I Leave This Place, I Shall Send You
The Packet I Mentioned, By Meriton.
Mean-while I must fulfil my
promise in communicating
the observations I have had occasion to make upon this town and
country.
The air of Boulogne is cold and moist, and, I believe, of
consequence unhealthy. Last winter the frost, which continued six
weeks in London, lasted here eight weeks without intermission;
and the cold was so intense, that, in the garden of the
Capuchins, it split the bark of several elms from top to bottom.
On our arrival here we found all kinds of fruit more backward
than in England. The frost, in its progress to Britain, is much
weakened in crossing the sea. The atmosphere, impregnated with
saline particles, resists the operation of freezing. Hence, in
severe winters, all places near the sea-side are less cold than
more inland districts. This is the reason why the winter is often
more mild at Edinburgh than at London. A very great degree of
cold is required to freeze salt water. Indeed it will not freeze
at all, until it has deposited all its salt. It is now generally
allowed among philosophers, that water is no more than ice thawed
by heat, either solar, or subterranean, or both; and that this
heat being expelled, it would return to its natural consistence.
This being the case, nothing else is required for the freezing of
water, than a certain degree of cold, which may be generated by
the help of salt, or spirit of nitre, even under the line. I
would propose, therefore, that an apparatus of this sort should
be provided in every ship that goes to sea; and in case there
should be a deficiency of fresh water on board, the seawater may
be rendered potable, by being first converted into ice.
The air of Boulogne is not only loaded with a great evaporation
from the sea, increased by strong gales of wind from the West and
South-West, which blow almost continually during the greatest
part of the year; but it is also subject to putrid vapours,
arising from the low marshy ground in the neighbourhood of the
harbour, which is every tide overflowed with seawater. This may
be one cause of the scrofula and rickets, which are two
prevailing disorders among the children in Boulogne. But I
believe the former is more owing to the water used in the Lower
Town, which is very hard and unwholsome. It curdles with soap,
gives a red colour to the meat that is boiled in it, and, when
drank by strangers, never fails to occasion pains in the stomach
and bowels; nay, sometimes produces dysenteries. In all
appearance it is impregnated with nitre, if not with something
more mischievous: we know that mundic, or pyrites, very often
contains a proportion of arsenic, mixed with sulphur, vitriol,
and mercury. Perhaps it partakes of the acid of some coal mine;
for there are coal works in this district.
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