UNITED STATES. 269 
same month in different years at Ancaster. In 1837, the mean heat 
of December was 40? 53', which is nearly one degree above the average 
of the same month in London; in 1845 the mean temperature of 
December was 22! or 183 degrees below that for 1837, being in the 
former case 10? 70' above, and in the latter 7° 83' below the average of 
eleven years, which is 29°83’. Winter and summer are equally uncer- 
tain and capricious in their advent, continuance and departure ; pr 
perpetual recurrence, at the former season, of thaws and mild o 
weather render sleighing a very precarious medium of contrition 
whilst at the warmer period of the year garden produce is ever in 
from the severe night frosts, to which every month of summer is at times 
liable. As a specimen of the climate of the lake districts of Upper 
Canada, I subjoin the following tables of monthly means, the result of 
eleven years of observations by register thermometers, by Dr. Craigie, 
at Ancaster, Gore District, C. W., N. lat. 43°10’, W. long 80? *, 
from 1835 to 1845 inclusive :— 
Fehi Mar. r3 | a r| June. | July. | Aug. | Sept. gum Nov. 
vs 2545 |3379 | 43°80 | 54°59 | 63-20 | 68-72 | 66-42 | 59°00 | 47-34 | 37°63 2 
Mean temperature for eleven years, 46:40; spring 44:06; summer 
66:11; autumn 47:99; winter 27:59. Highest temperature 95, 
lowest —9 | 
From the foregoing table it will appear how much more potent is 
the influence of the great body of fresh water which environs this lake 
district of Canada, in mitigating the cold of winter, than in allaying the 
heat of summer, and that for reasons which will be given presently. 
The mildness of the winter is very remarkable when compared with that 
of other parts of the country under the same parallel, since the greatest 
cold registered in eleven years is but nine below zero, quite trifling 
compared with the intensity of the frost experienced in other parts of 
America, situated even some degrees to the southward, but removed 
from the calorifie agency of these inland seas. 
The climate of the middle and in some measure of the more tempe- ` 
rate northern States, as Connecticut and Rhode Island, including the 
lower part of New York, is, as far as regards temperature, an exagge- 
ration of that possessed by the countries of central Europe ten degrees 
* Approximately ue burn within a very few minutes of the true positions. 
The mper ar of Ancaster above Lake Ontario, if any at vi e be inconsiderable, 
and that lake being the Trei of the chain, the height of the village above the level 
of the dante 5 cannot be sufficient to affect the MNA to any notable extent. 
