BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 377 
situated amidst swamps, is said to be as free from intermittent 
: fever as any part of New Jersey. The weather on this and the 
preceding day was remarkably temperate and agreeable, just like 
. what we usually experience at this season in England, and in the 
evening became extremely cool and fresh, with some stratified 
clouds forming, thought by our worthy host (who in this instance 
showed himself a true porphet), to portend a change to wet. 
I have often heard it remarked, and my own experience as far 
as it goes, confirms the observation, that the excessive heat of 
summer in the northern and middle states, rarely continues for 
. more than a very few days without a change to cool, damp, or 
cloudy weather, which, unless it incline too much towards this 
opposite extreme, as it is apt to do near the close of the season, 
proves very refreshing and beneficial to the earth and its inha- 
bitants. Even in the height of summer a shift of wind to the 
east or north-east will make a fire very agreeable, if not indispen- 
sable, at least of an evening. It is remarkable, that the east wind 
in this country, though coming over a vast ocean, and conse- 
quently charged with humidity, excites and irritates the nervous 
system of those susceptible of its noxious influence as in Europe, 
but with this difference in its sensible qualities, that whilst with 
us this unwholesome blast is harsh, dry, and mostly accompanied 
with clear weather, here it is damp and brings with it an atmos- 
phere loaded with clouds and vapours. In the New England 
States, easterly winds prevail along the coast in the spring and 
early summer as much as they do with us, and with the same 
injurious effect on vegetation; they do not, however, usually blow 
far inland, and hence form a common subject of complaint against 
the climate of Boston, to persons coming from the interior of 
Massachusetts at the season of their prevalence. 
That well known and humorous definition of the English 
summer, three hot days and a thunder-storm, interpreted with all 
the limitation due to proverbial expressions, does but describe 
those fluctuations of temperature and varying aspect of the sky, 
to which the climate of the United States is subject, in common 
with our own. In point of steadiness, I am persuaded the balance 
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