Report on Smyrna (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1856 Excerpt: ...and this deviation is confined to the uneducated; the aorist active is occasionally pronounced by the poorer Greeks as it is pronounced by the English schoolboy; " kaiXrj(r-"=" I sold," is pronounced as if it were written litmXrpa.; and the same is the case with nouns like axfleia and suyevsia; they are occasionally pronounced as though they were written aA)j9sia and euysvJa, and belonged to the same class of nouns as 8ouA, -'- and 3-nX-/. Climate. Smyrna lies in lat. N.380 25' 36," long. E. 27 6' 45." Conditions more forcibly affecting its climate are furnished by the character of the mountains surrounding it, and the extent of cultivated soil and of forest land in its immediate neighbourhood. There are no mountains in the neighbourhood of Mountains not Smyrna like those which run along the whole of the snowcaPPedsouthern coast of Asia Minor, and preserve on their summits a covering of eternal snow. The highest peak within two days' journey of Smyrna does not attain a height of 3,500 feet, and it is seldom, even in winter, covered with snow for more than two days together. Immunity from those sudden alternations to snowchilled mountain winds from blazing heat, which are so common and so injurious, not only in the parts of Asia Minor just mentioned, but in places like Florence and Montpellier in southern Europe, is in consequence enjoyed in Smyrna. The valleys in this part of Asia Minor are very cultivation, generally cultivated and covered with verdure during the spring, autumn, and winter months, though considerably burnt up and parched from the middle of June to the end of August. But at all times the eye finds abundance of vegetation to rest upon in the green foliage of the fig and pomegranate, and t...