Yet a chaste Platonic love of theory, unsoiled by “the rage of drawing general conclusions from partial and equivocal observations,” and indulged with those by whom one may not be misunderstood, is not inadmissable. Mr. Jefferson had mentioned to the Marquis de Chastellux that “the sea breezes which prevail in the lower parts of Virginia during the summer months, and in the warm parts of day, had made a sensible progress into the interior country; that formerly, within the memory of persons living, they extended but little above Williamsburg; that afterwards they became sensible as high as Richmond; and that at present they penetrate sometimes as far as the first mountains, which are above a hundred miles further from the sea coast than Williamsburg is.” The Marquis published this fact in a book; it came under the notice of the Academy of Science; and M. le Roy, member of the Academy, wrote Mr. Jefferson a “polite and learned letter,” asking his views on the cause of this phenomenon.
PAGE OF ACCOUNT BOOK
Entries of the upper half of the page are in Jefferson’s normal writing. Those of the lower half were made with his left hand after the fracture of his right wrist. (From Randall’s Life of Jefferson.)
Mr. Jefferson, writing with his left hand, his right wrist having been lately fractured by a fall, composed a letter of nine pages octavo, setting forth in full detail the theory of climatic changes induced by deforestation:
The first settlements of Virginia were made along the sea coast, bearing from the south towards the north, a little east-wardly. These settlements formed a zone in which, though every point was not cleared of its forest, yet a good proportion was cleared and cultivated. The cultivated earth, as the sun advances above the horizon in the morning, acquires from it an intense heat which is retained and increased through the warm parts of the day. The air resting on it becomes warm in proportion, and rises. On one side is a country still covered with forest, on the other is the ocean. The colder air from both of these then rushes towards the heated zone to supply the place left vacant there by the ascent of the warm air. The breeze from the West is light and feeble, because it traverses a country covered with mountains and forests, which retard its current. That from the east is strong, as passing over the ocean, wherein there is no obstacle to its motion. It is probable therefore that this easterly breeze forces itself far into, or perhaps beyond, the zone which produces it. This zone is, by the increase of population, continually widening into the interior country. The line of equilibrium between the easterly and westerly breezes is therefore progressive.
But according to the lie of the land, these prevailing breezes ought to be southeasterly; whereas in fact they blow pretty directly from the east, and sometimes from the northeast. How is this? “We know too little of the operations of nature in the physical world to assign causes with any degree of confidence.” Yet making the best guess one can, one would say it is probably due to lateral pressure of the strong east wind of the tropics, plus the influence of the sun, which is more freely exercised outside the equatorial belt “in proportion as the surface of the globe is there more obliquely presented to its rays.” Moreover, the northern air which flows down towards the equatorial parts “to supply the vacuum made there by the ascent of their heated air, has only the small rotatory motion of the polar latitudes from which it comes. Nor does it suddenly acquire the swifter rotation of the parts into which it enters. This gives it the effect of a motion opposed to that of the earth, that is to say, of an easterly one.” As a matter of free conjecture, “willing always, however, to guess at what we do not know,” one might perhaps assume that all these causes taken together would account for the direction of the sea breezes on the Virginian coast.
When running on in the vein of pure conjecture, too, one’s interest is always heightened if one can give one’s scientific imagination a practical turn. Speaking of the strong tropical east winds, he goes on to observe to M. le Roy that “they are known to occasion a strong current in the ocean in the same direction.” This current breaks on the wedge of land of which St. Roque is the point, the southern column of it probably turning off down the coast of Brazil. “I say probably, because I have never heard of the fact, and conjecture it from reason only.” The northern column is probably the agency that scooped out the Gulf of Mexico, cutting the continent nearly in two. It reissues from the northern part of the Gulf, washes the whole coast of the United States with a warm current, and then turns off eastwardly to the Banks of Newfoundland. It goes by the name of the Gulf Stream.
Since the Gulf Stream, then, has already so nearly bitten its way through the continent, why not hurry up its work for civilization? The Spaniards were desirous of trading with the Philippine Islands by way of the Cape of Good Hope. The Dutch were opposing them under authority of the Treaty of Munster, thus forcing them to consider a trade-route through the Straits of Magellan or around Cape Horn. Very well; then let the Spaniards cut a canal through the Isthmus of Panama! This would be “a work much less difficult than some even of the inferior canals of France,” and almost any kind of cut would answer, because the current of the Gulf Stream would do the rest. “The tropical current, entering it with all its force, would soon widen it sufficiently for its own passage, and thus complete in a short time that work which otherwise will still employ it for ages.” Great consequences would ensue. First, ships would have with them a steady wind and tide straight from Europe to Asia. Second, the Gulf of Mexico, “now the most dangerous navigation in the world, on account of its currents and movable sands, would become stagnant and safe.” Then, too, the Gulf Stream on the coast of the United States would cease, and the “derangements of course and reckoning” which its motion brings upon mariners, would cease also. Moreover, the fogs on the Banks of Newfoundland, which Franklin’s ingenious conjecture had ascribed to “the vapours of the Gulf Stream, rendered turbid by cold air,” would no longer plague the seafarer. Finally, when the Banks were no longer continually supplied with sand, weeds and warm water, “it might become problematical what effect changes of pasture and temperature would have on the fisheries.” As far as America was concerned, this last point was something for the New Englanders to worry about. Let John Adams scratch his head over it. In view of any larger good, the great agricultural republic at large need not consider these possibilities too carefully.
Speculation on the Panama Canal project and its consequences had often put a restless brain to sleep in the solitude of the Virginia hills, after an evening spent over some new geographical report or treatise. Other heads had been entertaining similar ideas. About a year and a half after broaching this theory to M. le Roy, Mr. Jefferson informs Carmichael of the assurance he had received from the Chevalier de Burgoyne, that a survey had been made of the Isthmus of Panama, “that a canal appeared very practicable, and that the idea was suppressed for political reasons altogether.” De Burgoyne, had seen the official report and given it a careful examination. Carmichael, as diplomatic and commercial representative of the United States at Madrid, might some time possibly be in a way to get track of it or even perhaps get a glimpse of it; so Mr. Jefferson casually drops a flea in his ear by saying that “this report is to me a vast desideratum, for reasons political and philosophical.” At this time, the United States was bounded on the west and south by an unbroken line of Spanish territory, and on the north by British territory. All the maritime American trade of the Mississippi Valley had to pass through the Spanish port of New Orleans. Some day, probably, these frontiers would be rectified, by one means or another, to the advantage of the United States. For the moment, however—indeed, for a good while to come—Spain would be a much more desirable neighbour than either of the two great predatory European Powers which were just then running up into the early preliminaries of a mighty duel. The thing was, to keep Spain’s foot where it stood; at all costs to keep the border territory from falling into the hands of France which, for all its innumerable private excellences, was “a den of robbers”; and on the other hand, to prevent any extension of territory o
n the part of the English, “a nation of buccaneers, urged by sordid avarice, and embarked in the flagitious enterprise of seizing to itself the maritime resources and rights of all other nations.” Spain must be regarded hopefully; Spain must be kept on the blind side of American foreign policy. Therefore, with respect to the Isthmus of Panama, Mr. Jefferson tells Carmichael that he “can not help suspecting the Spanish squadron to be gone to South America, and that some disturbances have been excited there by the British. The court of Madrid may suppose we would not see this with an unwilling eye. This may be true as to the uninformed part of our people; but those who look into futurity further than the present moment or age, and who combine well what is with what is to be, must see that our interests, well understood, and our wishes, are that Spain shall (not forever, but) very long retain her possessions in that quarter; and that her views and ours must, in a good degree and for a long time, concur.”
III
Mr. Jefferson’s fiddle-playing came to a sudden end on the afternoon of the fourth of September, 1786. Returning from a long walk in company with an acquaintance, he fell when about four miles from home, and broke his right wrist. He did not permit the accident to interrupt the conversation, nor did he mention it at the moment to his companion, but grasping the broken wrist, he held it tight behind his back until he reached his house, where finally informing his acquaintance of what had happened, he made his excuses and sent for a surgeon. In the intervening hour, the wrist had swollen; the fracture was improperly set, and the wrist remained always weak, painful and almost useless. This was the last of the violin—there was no help for that—but while one had one’s left hand, one could still write fairly well with a little practice, and the sooner one got into practice, the better. Accordingly, on the same afternoon, he made the regular entries in his account-book quite legibly; and in time he became ambidextrous with the pen, the weakness of the right hand somewhat offsetting the awkwardness of the left. The consciousness of being forever debarred from the execution of music did not apparently disincline him to music made by others, for according to his account-book, he went alone to a concert on the eighth of September, four days after his misadventure, and on the ninth he went alone to the opera.
Presently he got in another surgeon for consultation with the first, and there are indications of others concerned with his case in an advisory capacity. After four months had gone by, this array of talent, seeming not to know what else to propose, recommended Mr. Jefferson to bathe his disabled wrist in mineral water. They suggested several resorts, and out of the lot Mr. Jefferson, who had little confidence in the proposal, with characteristic forethought chose Aix; because if the treatment were ineffectual, he would not have spent his time in vain. While in the neighbourhood, he would be able to examine the canal of Languedoc, “acquiring knowledge of that species of navigation, which may be useful hereafter.” The interest in canal projects in the United States was then gathering strength to become in a few years a sheer rage. In particular, there was the great Potomac Canal project, headed by George Washington, which, as a purely speculative enterprise, had so much to do with the establishment of the national capital in a most ineligible place. Mr. Jefferson had no financial interest in this, or indeed in any speculative undertaking, never even acquiring a foot of land for speculative purposes in the whole course of his life. His personal distaste for money made in these ways, however, did not blind him to the “great view” presented by a project which “was to unite the commerce of the whole western country, almost, with the eastern.” Similar projects were being talked up in New York—Mr. Jefferson still had a year to live after the completion of the Erie Canal—in Pennsylvania, in South Carolina, here, there and everywhere. Decidedly one should know something about canals, and where could one learn better than in France? Besides, one could “make the tour of the ports concerned in commerce with us, to examine on the spot the defects of the late regulations respecting our commerce, to learn the further improvements that can be made in it.” Two or three months would be none too long for all this, “unless anything happens to recall me here sooner.”
But an object of far more interest than canals, seaports and the incidence of commercial regulations, was the economic and social condition of the producing class. “You must ferret the people out of their hovels, as I have done,” he wrote Lafayette, urging him to make a similar voyage of discovery, “look into their kettles, eat their bread, loll on their beds under pretence of resting yourself, but in fact to find if they are soft. You will feel a sublime pleasure in the course of this investigation, and a sublimer one hereafter, when you shall be able to apply your knowledge to the softening of their beds or the throwing a morsel of meat into their kettle of vegetables.” Here one was once more on the ground of reality. The show of civilization, as one saw it in Paris, was all very fine, but it was secondary and dependent. Here, on the contrary, the appeal to the æsthetic sense is authoritative; one yields to it with all one’s heart. “From the first olive fields of Pierrelatte to the orangeries of Hieres, has been continued rapture to me,” he tells Lafayette, “I am never satiated with rambling through the fields and farms, examining the culture and cultivators with a degree of curiosity which makes some take me to be a fool, and others to be much wiser than I am.”
He travelled alone, from the instinctive preference which kept him alone in most of his undertakings, and alone in spirit when he had company about him. “I think one travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.” He had no respect for the tourist’s or journalist’s notion of travel, regarding it as a mere licentious itch for covering ground. “To pass once along a public road through a country, and in one direction only,” he remarks to Professor Ebeling, “to put up at its tavern and get into conversation with the idle, drunken individuals who pass their time lounging in these taverns, is not the way to know a country, its inhabitants or manners.” The daily record of his travels is an elaboration of the farm and garden journals that he kept in Virginia; it is written laboriously, now with the right hand and again with the left, at the end of each day’s gleaning of information reported in a foreign tongue, chiefly in “a patois very difficult to understand.” For example, he observes that as one approaches the Rhone, in the direction of Aries, “the soil becomes a dark grey loam with some sand, and very good. The culture is corn, clover, St. Foin, olives, vines, mulberries, willow and some almonds. There is no forest. The hills are enclosed in dry stone wall. Many sheep.
At Nismes the earth is full of limestone. The horses are shorn. They are (March 22) pruning the olive. A very good tree produces sixty pounds of olives, which yield fifty pounds of oil; the best quality sells at twelve sous the pound retail, and ten sous wholesale. . . . The horse chestnut and mulberry are leafing; apple trees and peas blossoming. The first butterfly I have seen. . . . The arches of the Pont St. Esprit are of eighty-eight feet. Wild figs, very flourishing, grow out of the joints of the Pont du Gard. The fountain of Nismes is so deep that a stone was thirteen seconds descending from the surface to the bottom.
At the outset of his journey, near Sens, he was puzzled to see that instead of living in scattered farmhouses, after the Virginia fashion, the people tended to cluster together in villages. “Are they thus collected by that dogma of their religion which makes them believe that to keep the Creator in good humour with his own works, they must mumble a mass every day?” He seems not to have inquired into the matter, but to have referred it arbitrarily to his general principle that the farther one keeps from one’s neighbours, the better. “Certain it is that they are less happy and less virtuous in villages than they would be insulated with their families on the grounds they cultivate.” He hears great things of the climate in certain quarters. At one place there had been a notable cold spell fifteen years before, when “from being fine weather, in one hour there was ice hard enough to bear a horse. It killed people on the road.” Yet he is told, and apparently believes, that after all this, “the old roots of the olive tr
ees put out again.” Elsewhere he was informed that “about five years ago there was such a hail as to kill cats.” After a winter in Paris, it seems, Mr. Jefferson’s ears were open to almost any tall story of the weather. Rather oddly for one of his great strength and stature, he was always painfully sensitive to cold. He wrote to William Dunbar in 1801, no doubt with vivid memories of the climate of Paris, especially in the notable winter of 1788, which nearly finished him, that “when I recollect, on the one hand, all the sufferings I have had from cold, and on the other, all my other pains, the former predominate greatly”; and it is often a matter of wonderment to him “that any human being should remain in a cold country who could find room in a warm one.” Still, although he could believe a great deal about the peculiarities of the French climate, the published reports of one hailstorm, even when supported by aristocratic authority, were almost too much for him. “I considered the newspaper account of hailstones of ten pounds weight, as exaggerations. But in a conversation with the Duke de la Rochefoucault the other day, he assured me that though he could not say he had seen such himself, yet he considered the fact as perfectly established.”
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