NICE, April 2, 1765.
DEAR DOCTOR,--As I have now passed a second winter at Nice Ithink myself qualified to make some further remarks on this climate. During the heats of last summer, I flattered myself with the prospect of the fine weather I should enjoy in the winter;but neither I, nor any person in this country, could foresee the rainy weather that prevailed from the middle of November, till the twentieth of March. In this short period of four months, we have had fifty-six days of rain, which I take to be a greater quantity than generally falls during the six worst months of the year in the county of Middlesex, especially as it was, for the most part, a heavy, continued rain. The south winds generally predominate in the wet season at Nice: but this winter the rain was accompanied with every wind that blows, except the south;though the most frequent were those that came from the east and north quarters. Notwithstanding these great rains, such as were never known before at Nice in the memory of man, the intermediate days of fair weather were delightful, and the ground seemed perfectly dry. The air itself was perfectly free from moisture.
Though I live upon a ground floor, surrounded on three sides by a garden, I could not perceive the least damp, either on the floors, or the furniture; neither was I much incommoded by the asthma, which used always to harass me most in wet weather. In a word, I passed the winter here much more comfortably than Iexpected. About the vernal equinox, however, I caught a violent cold, which was attended with a difficulty of breathing, and as the sun advances towards the tropic, I find myself still more subject to rheums. As the heat increases, the humours of the body are rarefied, and, of consequence, the pores of the skin are opened; while the east wind sweeping over the Alps and Apennines, covered with snow, continues surprisingly sharp and penetrating.