rty-five degrees of latitude, and along
that parallel (crossing the Rhone near the mouth of the Isere) to the
Alps; thence along the Alps and Apennines, to what parallel of
latitude I know not. Yet here the tracing of the line becomes the most
interesting. For from the Atlantic, so far we see this production the
effect of shelter and latitude combined. But where does it venture to
launch forth unprotected by shelter, and by the mere force of latitude
alone? Where, for instance, does its northern limit cross the Adriatic?
I learn, that the olive tree resists cold to eight degrees of Reaumur
below the freezing-point, which corresponds to fourteen above zero of
Fahrenheit: and that the orange resists to four degrees below freezing
of Reaumur, which is twenty-three degrees above zero of Fahrenheit.

May 19. _Castelnaudari. St. Feriol. Escamaze. Lampy_. Some sheep and
cattle; no enclosures. St. Feriol, Escamaze, and Lampy are in the
montagnes noires. The country almost entirely waste. Some of it in
shrubbery. The _voute d'Escamaze_ is of one hundred and thirty-five
yards. Round about Castelnaudari the country is hilly, as it has been
constantly from Beziers; it is very rich. Where it is plain, or nearly
plain, the soil is black: in general, however, it is hilly and reddish,
and in corn. They cultivate a great deal of Indian corn here, which they
call millet; it is planted, but not yet up.

May 20. _Castelnaudari. Naurouze. Villefranche. Baziege_. At Naurouze is
the highest ground which the canal had to pass between the two seas. It
became necessary, then, to find water still higher to bring it here. The
river Fresquel heading by its two principal branches in the _montagnes
noires_, a considerable distance off to the eastward, the springs of the
most western one were brought together, and conducted to Naurouze, where
its waters are divided, part furnishing the canal towards the ocean,
the rest towards the Mediterranean, as far as the _ecluse de Fresquel_,
where, as has been before noted, the Lampy branch and the Alzau, under
the name of the Fresquel, enter.

May 20. They have found that a lock of six _pieds_ is best; however,
eight _pieds_ is well enough. Beyond this, it is bad. Monsieur Pin tells
me of a lock of thirty _pieds_ made in Sweden, of which it is impossible
to open the gates. They therefore divided it into four locks. The small
gates of the locks of this canal have six square _pieds_ of surface.
They tried the m