The northern parts of Spain, according to Strabo, are but ill inhabited because of the great cold.
Allowing, therefore, this remark to be just, that Europe is become warmer than formerly, how can we account for it? Plainly by no other method than by supposing that the land is at present much better cultivated, and that the woods are cleared which formerly threw a shade upon the earth and kept the rays of the sun from penetrating to it. Our northern colonies in America become more temperate in proportion as the woods are felled,91 but in general, every one may remark that cold still makes itself more severely felt both in North and South America, than in places under the same latitude in Europe.
Saserna, quoted by Columella, affirmed that the disposition of the heavens was altered before his time, and that the air had become much milder and warmer. “As appears hence,” says he, “that many places now abound with vineyards and olive plantations which formerly, by reason of the rigour of the climate, could raise none of these productions.” Such a change, if real, will be allowed an evident sign of the better cultivation and peopling of countries before the age of Saserna;92 and if it be continued to the present times, is a {p165} proof that these advantages have been continually increasing throughout this part of the world.
Let us now cast our eye over all the countries which were the scene of ancient and modern history, and compare their past and present situation. We shall not, perhaps, find such foundation for the complaint of the present emptiness and depopulation of the world. Egypt is represented by Maillet, to whom we owe the best account of it, as extremely populous, though he esteems the number of its inhabitants to be diminished. Syria, and the Lesser Asia, as well as the coast of Barbary, I can really own to be very desert in comparison of their ancient condition. The depopulation of Greece is also very obvious. But whether the country now called Turkey in Europe may not, in general, contain as