That malaria may in some manner be attached to the soil is also well known by its effects, and especially in Italy. There it is remarked that it is extremely hazardous to cut down certain bushy plants which appear to entangle it, and that fevers are a frequent consequence of such carelessness. Thus, also, does fever seize on the labourers who may incautiously sit down on the ground, while they would escape in the erect posture; being thus, indeed, sometimes suddenly struck with apoplexy, which is one of the effects of this poison, or even with death. It has similarly been observed that it is often retained in the shelter of drains, or in the ditches of fortifications; whence frequent fevers among the sentries on particular guards, when the other soldiers escape. And thus was it even proved at Malta, that it was transported from the sea-shore, and thus lodged in a dry ditch of the works at Valetta; all these facts being possibly to be explained, by supposing it possessed of a greater specific gravity than the atmosphere, or else attached to vapour thus weighty, exhibiting effects analogous to those which carbonic acid displays in the Solfatara. But the circumstance most difficult of explanation is, that in Rome, and numerous places in Italy, and even where it is [p051] transported from a distance by the winds, not generated on the spot, it is found, perennially, and through the whole course of successive years, to occupy certain places, and to avoid, as constantly, others quite near, and, as far as the eye can judge, equally exposed, and in all respects similar. Thus, one side of a small garden, one side of a street, or one house, will be for ever exposed to disease, or uninhabitable, when, at a few feet or yards distant, the very same places are as constantly free of danger: and thus it was found at the village of Faro, in Sicily, that all the troops of our army quartered on one side of the single street which formed it, were affected by fevers, and suffered great mortality, while those on the other remained in health. But the most remarkable case of this nature known to me, is a domestic one, and which rests on the testimony of thousands of persons, or of the whole country, however incredible it may appear. It is, that between Chatham and Brighton, including every town and single house, and Sittingbourne among the rest, the ague affects the left hand side of the turnpike road, or the northern side, and does not touch the right side, though the road itself forms the only line of separation.