centuries after that age of desolation, to point out the causes of
a cosmical commotion, which has never recurred to an equal extent,
to indicate scientifically the influences, which called forth so
terrific a poison in the bodies of men and animals, exceeds the
limits of human understanding. If we are even now unable, with
all the varied resources of an extended knowledge of nature, to
define that condition of the atmosphere by which pestilences are
generated, still less can we pretend to reason retrospectively
from the nineteenth to the fourteenth century; but if we take a
general view of the occurrences, that century will give us copious
information, and, as applicable to all succeeding times, of high
importance.

In the progress of connected natural phenomena from east to west,
that great law of nature is plainly revealed which has so often
and evidently manifested itself in the earth's organism, as well
as in the state of nations dependent upon it. In the inmost
depths of the globe that impulse was given in the year 1333, which
in uninterrupted succession for six and twenty years shook the
surface of the earth, even to the western shores of Europe. From
the very beginning the air partook of the terrestrial concussion,
atmospherical waters overflowed the land, or its plants and
animals perished under the scorching heat. The insect tribe was
wonderfully called into life, as if animated beings were destined
to complete the destruction which astral and telluric powers had
begun. Thus did this dreadful work of nature advance from year to
year; it was a progressive infection of the zones, which exerted a
powerful influence both above and beneath the surface of the
earth; and after having been perceptible in slighter indications,
at the commencement of the terrestrial commotions in China,