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in the North of England, May in Scotland, June in Orkney and 
regions further north. It always seems to me a little unfortunate 
that the popular period for visiting Scotland and our own Lake 
District should be July, August, and September, or the very months 
of greatest rainfall. For those indeed who go on grouse intent, 
August no doubt is a grim necessity ; but ordinary tourists, I think, 
might well choose an earlier portion of the year. 
The mean temperature of the year at Scaleby for the fifteen 
years ending 1888, was 46°6; that of Carlisle for the twenty-five 
years ending 1888, 46°8: so there is not very much difference 
between us. In order to give you an idea of how we stand in this 
point, let me quote you the mean temperatures of one or two 
other places. That of Edinburgh is 46’9, Dublin 49°3, Greenwich 
50°3, Brussels 50°6, Paris 51'5. ‘The highest mean temperature 
was in 1884, when it rose to 48°3; the lowest was the ungenial 
year of 1879, to which I have already put a black mark, when it 
was only 44°2. The warmest month of the period was July, 1878, 
whose mean temperature was 62°3; July, 1874, and the July of 
the Jubilee year being next, with 61°4 and 61°2._ August 14th and 
15th, 1876, were the hottest days I have recorded, when the 
temperature rose to 93 in shade. The greatest cold, on the other 
hand, took place in that series of severe winters which occurred 
in 1878-9, 1879-80, and 1880-81—delightful specimens of those 
old-fashioned winters which in some quarters are so rapturously 
received—a rapture which I confess myself Iam not young enough 
to share. To me,as I look back upon them, I confess that distance 
lends enchantment to the view. ‘The history of them dispels at 
once the idea of there being any truth in the old adage, “‘A green 
Christmas makes a full kirkyard,” though it is found in more 
languages than one. The advent of extreme cold is marked in 
every case by an alarming increase of the death rate. The mean 
temperature of December, 1878, was 27°; of December, 1879, 31°73 
and of January, 1887, only 26°4; on the 5th of December, 1878, 
the thermometer fell to 5°, and at 9 a.m. there were no less than 
24 degrees of frost, the thermometer remaining under 32° from the 
Ist to the 8th of the month. On the 3rd of December, 1879, the 
