subject therefore would require an accurate account of the climates of those countries where the plague is found to commit the greatest ravages, and a comparison of them with those which are now accounted the most unhealthy in other respects, and likewise a comparison of the diseases produced in the latter, with the true plague. [26] Philosoph. Transact. No. 364. The most unhealthy climates now existing (those where the plague commonly rages excepted) are to be met with in the hottest parts of the world; the East and West Indies, the wastes of Africa, and some parts of America. In all these, Dr. Lind, who has written a treatise on the diseases incident to Europeans in hot climates, seems to lay the whole blame upon the heat and moisture accompanying it. In the East Indies Bencoolen, in the island of Sumatra, is the most unhealthy of all the English settlements; but he informs us, that by building their fort on a dry, elevated place, about three miles from the town, it became sufficiently healthy. Next to this, Bengal is most subject to sickness; for which he assigns the following reason: “The rainy season commences at Bengal in June, and continues till October; the remainder of the year is healthy and pleasant. During the rains, this rich and fertile country is covered by the Ganges, and converted as it were into a large pool of water. In the month of October, when the stagnated water begins to be exhaled by the heat of the sun, the air is then greatly polluted by the vapours from the slime and mud left by the Ganges, and by the corruption of dead fish and other animals. Diseases then rage, attacking chiefly such as are lately arrived. The distempers are fevers of the remitting or intermitting kind; for, though sometimes they may continue several days without sensible remission, yet they have in general a great tendency to it. If the season be very sickly, some are seized with a malignant fever, of which they soon die. The body is covered with blotches of a livid colour, and the corpse, in a few hours, turns quite livid and corrupted. At this time fluxes prevail, which may be called bilious or putrid, the better to distinguish them from others which are accompanied with inflammation of the bowels. The island of Bombay has of late been rendered much more healthy than it formerly was, by a wall built to prevent the encroachments of the sea, where it formed a salt marsh; and by an order that none of the natives should manure their cocoa-trees with putrid fish.