Mean Temperature of New York, ^-c. 249 



dove having plucked an olive leaf only when the waters had 

 abated, which must have been from a tree which was still 

 standing. 



The organic remains found in the old alluvium and gene- 

 rally attributed to the deluge, themselves, I think, tend rather 

 to prove that they are of a different epoch, as they mostly be- 

 long to species of animals which are now extinct. — The allu- 

 vium in which they occur I would refer to a more ancient pe- 

 riod, even to one before the creation of man, whose bones, I 

 may remark, have never been discovered in it. 



One of the most difficult facts to account for in any other 

 way than by limiting the deluge to those parts of the earth 

 inhabited by man, is the occurrence of certain species, and even 

 genera and families of plants and animals, peculiar and con- 

 fined to countries far separated from each other, to which we 

 cannot imagine them to have travelled from the ark, without 

 having stocked the tracts they would pass through ; or intro- 

 duce them in any other way than by supposing them to have 

 been left from their first creation — unless we have recourse to a 

 miracle, a new creation, — a solution which I think should in no 

 case be adopted, but when there appears no secondary way. of 

 accounting for a fact, and even then with great caution, as our 

 ignorance may be owing only to the limited knowledge of mor- 

 tals concerning " the wondrous works of Him who is perfect 

 in knowledge." (Job, xxxvii. 16.) 



February 1828. W. C. T. 



Art. VIII. — On the Mean Temperature of Twenty-Seven 

 different places in the State of New York for 1828. 



In the sixteenth number of this Journal we have given a 

 brief abstract of the " Returns of Meteorological Observations 

 made to the Regents of the University by sundry Academies 

 in the State of New York"" for the year 1826. Owing to some 

 accident we have not received a copy of the Report for 1827; 

 but as that for 1828 has just reached us, we shall proceed to 

 lay before our meteorological readers a summary of its highly 

 valuable contents. The abstract of the returns contained in 



