CHAPTER II.
CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS.
"Ager totius Asiae fertilissimus."-- PLIN.

H.N.vi.

26.
Lower Mesopotamia, or Chaldaea, which lies in the same latitude with Central China, the Punjab, Palestine, Marocco, Georgia, Texas, and Central California, has a climate the warmth of which is at least equal to that of any of those regions.

Even in the more northern part of the country, the district about Baghdad, the thermometer often rises during the summer to 120 deg.

of Fahrenheit in the shade; and the inhabitants are forced to retreat to their _serdabs_ or cellars, where they remain during the day, in an atmosphere which, by the entire exclusion of the sun's rays, is reduced to about 100 deg.