BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 879 
every Frenchman, of course, devoutly believes we do. Hence 
our countrymen when they go abroad, are so impressed with 
opinions gleaned from books of travels of the superiority of all 
foreign climates, that to their mental vision everything in nature 
seems tinged with the adventitious hue which an exalted imagi- 
nation flings over it. We hear a great deal said by the herd of 
tourists about the greater clearness of the sky and air, the free- 
dom from fog and damps, the brighter colours of the flowers, and 
finer flavour of the fruits, the larger growth of the trees, and a 
thousand other perfections and immunities, denied it would appear 
to our unlucky fatherland alone.* Yet a close observer of facts 
will often see cause for believing that much of this alleged supe- 
riority is assumed on that kind of credit which takes, on the 
dictum of others, what indolence or inattention will not be at the 
pains to correct or disprove. We are, besides, naturally apt to 
think we see that which we have been taught to believe we ought 
to see, and hence many popular fallacies pass current and unques- 
tioned amongst the mass of mankind, because based on conclusions 
` drawn from commonly admitted, but erroneous premises. Without 
pretending to be freer than others from those prejudices or par- 
tialities which warp the judgment of travellers on this and other 
many-sided questions, I have noted down, at intervals, as occa- 
sion or convenience suggested, the result of my observations on 
the climate of the United States, always with a desire to see 
things as they are, and fully sensible that a single year passed in 
traversing a zone of such extent as that country comprises, gives 
me no right to pronounce dogmatically for or against its climate. 
I carried out with me (chiefly with the view of ascertaining the 
mean temperature of the earth's surface by trying that of springs 
and wells) a very delicate standard, thermometer of Newman’s, 
having a slender cylindrical bulb, and graduated for all ordinary 
atmospheric ranges, to accord exactly with others in my possession 
* I once heard an individual relate, that being recommended for his health to try 
a warmer climate, he decided on crossing from Dover to Calais, and returned home 
after some weeks vastly improved, he told me, by the mé/der atmosphere of la belle 
France. So much for a name! . 
