CHAPTER I.

Cold Winters in one Country producing Mild Winters in another.-Popular Illustrations and Examples in America, England, and Constantinople.— Transfer of Temperature from one Area to another a cause of Change of Weather and Difference in the Seasons.-Particular or Marked Days reciprocating with distant Areas.-Hot Days in one Region attended by Cold ones in another place, as England and Jerusalem, or S. E. Area. -The S. E. Wind and Sirocco of our summer, and Electrode, or the conductor of Heat and Electricity in our great Thunder Storms.-Electric Changes in Clouds. Their action connected with some distant Station.-Occasionally with Jerusalem Area.-Suggestive Thoughts and Ideas, Natural, Moral, and Spiritual, on Electric Telegraph.-Poetry.-Connection with the 139th Psalm, and Dr. Watts's expressive and solemn versification.-Its vast import. -Action and effect of High Barometer in England.-On S. E. or Meditterranean Area.-Gales, etc.-Polarity of Heat.--Transfer of Heat from the Polar or Arctic Regions.—Climate of England not more Variable than many others.-Its Specific Advantages.-The Transfer of Heat an Important and Inherent Property.-Definite Amount and Quantity of Heat.Equivalent Volumes of Unequal Weight.

CHAPTER I.

IT has been frequently remarked that seasons in the same hemisphere do not preserve a constant uniformity; that one area or country may have a cold or severe winter, while some other area or district has a comparatively warm winter. Sufficient instances have been adduced from time to time to show that this is not unusual. The winter of 1849, in England, was mild, and in the early part of January snowdrops and aconites were blooming. In the fields, on road sides, and in gardens, the primroses abounded, and the crocus and daffodil opened their flowers by the 23rd. The roads became dusty. The thrush was tuneful all the month.

fine-dry, calm, The roads and

February, until the 20th, was very and pleasant weather, with much sun. fields were quite clean for walking. The thermometer stood at 56° on the 15th of February, and the day was lovely and beautiful throughout, every way like

summer.

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SEVERE WINTER IN THE UNITED STATES.

But the winter of 1849 throughout Canada was one of extreme rigour, and at Newfoundland of unprecedented severity. The extreme cold of winter in the United States extended to the south as far as Louisiana, killing all the orange and lemon trees; and letters from New York, dated 20th February, 1849, say: "These regions appear more like Greenland, and the people like Esquimaux. The cold is so rigorous and intense, that most of the men wear long beards for warmth, and incapacity to hold a razor to shave themselves. The thermometer has sunk below the scale usually adapted to habitable lands.

At a village called Deposit, at which your correspondent endeavoured to sleep, last Friday night, 16th of February, the thermometer was at 21° below zero. And at Bangor in Maine on the 13th it was 28° below zero."

So widely different was the winter in England and America and, what is remarkable, that the warmest day, February 15th, was the coldest day in the United States.

But there are other instances in which the winter has been very cold in England, but very mild in America―reversing the action. Or they may correspond, and have the season of the same character.

The next year, 1850, displays a difference of temperature at the same season in other parts.

February, 1850, in England was extremely mildviolent winds and rain. There were only two frosty mornings in the month; and after the 16th it was altogether fine, mild, and sunny. Again, as in the

MILD WINTER IN ENGLAND.

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preceding year, all the little flowers were in bloom, as the aconite, snowdrop, crocus, primrose, and anemone. The land was dry, and seeding went on, and the roads were quite dusty. The highest temperature was 58°; and the mean of the month was 45° or 7° above the average.

But the winter at Constantinople in February, 1850, was the most severe they had had for the last forty years; so much so, it was stated that 3000 persons were frozen to death. Fish left the waters in thousands, and were frozen, and the beach was strewed with them. The whole of Constantinople was shut up, and not a house or a door was open. And the following statement from Athens was given in the public papers :"That every possible evil appears to have assailed unhappy Greece; for within the memory of man so severe a winter has never been felt, and although we are now approaching to the end of March, Hymettus, Pentelicus, and the whole sweep of hills round to Marathon, are still white with snow, and pieces of ice are floating on the brawling waters of Ilissus." These popular examples sufficiently and powerfully illustrate the general fact. In 1849 the winter was rigid in the American States and Canada, but we hear nothing of Constantinople; but then in 1850 we hear nothing from New York, but from Constantinople, Greece, and the adjacent countries we have the most melancholy accounts; while England presented in each year the same mild and favourable condition. And it is worthy of remark that New York and Constantinople are in