_Linteamina and Surplices_ (Vol. iv., p. 192.).--It seems probable that the surplice became an ecclesiastical vestment at an early date, though the exact period of its introduction into the Christian church it is difficult to ascertain; it may not unlikely have been taken from the white linen ephod of the Jewish priests. Wheatly (c. ii. § 4.) quotes a passage from Jerome to the following effect: "What offence can it be to God for a bishop or priest to proceed to communion in a white garment;" and he considers it not improbable that it was in use in Cyprian's days. Bingham (_French Churches' Apology_, book iii. chap. vii.) cites a letter of Peter Martyr to Bishop Hooper on the vestment controversy, in which he states that a distinction of habits may be proved by many passages of Eusebius, Cyprian, Tertullian, and Chrysostom. By the twelfth canon of the Council of Narbonne, A.D. 589, the clergy were forbidden to take the _albe_ off until after mass was ended. In ancient times, as Mr. Palmer observes (_Orig. Lit._ ii. 409.), the _surplice_ probably differed not from the _albe_; it differs now only in having wider sleeves. N. E. R. (a Subscriber.) _Climate_ (Vol. iv., p. 231.).--A _climate_ was a zone contained between two parallels of latitude. The climates were made to contain various arcs of _latitude_, in different systems. See Hutton's _Mathematical Dictionary_ at _Climate_, or any work which efficiently explains old astronomical terms. Thus a _climate_ originally meant a certain range of latitude; and as we now speak of warm and cold latitudes, so it became customary to speak of climates, until the last word became wholly meteorological. M. "_Climate_ or _Clime_ in geography is a part of the surface of the earth, bounded by two circles parallel to the equator, and of such a breadth as that the longest day in the parallel nearer the pole exceeds the longest day in that next the equator by some certain spaces, viz. half an hour. "The ancients, who confined the climates to what they imagined the habitable parts of the earth, only allowed of seven. The first they made to pass through Meroë; the second, through Sienna; the third, through Alexandria; the fourth, through Rhodes; the fifth, through Rome; the sixth, through Pontus; and the seventh, through the mouth the Borysthenes."--_Encyclopædia Britannica_, art. "CLIMATE." S. C. C. Corfe Castle.