16 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [Vou. VI. 
and confections were amply provided. Others preferred examining the 
various articles in the Hall. Order having been restored,— 
Professor Hind made some interesting remarks on the climate of this 
part of the Province. He said we were, he hoped, at the end of one of 
the severest winters that had been felt in Upper Canada for a great 
number of years. This same severity as regards temperature had, how- 
ever, been felt over the whole of the United States. He then proposed 
and answered very fully the question—What is it that, generally speak- — 
ing, renders the Canadian peninsula less liable to suffer from the 
intensity of cold, and the extremity of heat that characterizes the 
United States? We had a climate singularly ameliorated by three or 
four vast bodies of water. Upper Canada formed a kind of peninsula 
among the lakes. He had prepared several, diagrams by which to 
exhibit this distinction. Here Mr. Hind exhibited and explained at 
some length three diagrams to demonstrate that our temperature was 
not so extreme as that of the Western States. He contrasted the 
temperature of Fort Preble, on the Atlantic coast, in latitude 43 degrees, 
38, and Fort Armstrong, Illinois, in latitude 41 degrees, 28, with that of 
Toronto ; and showed that the mean temperature of Fort Preble, east of 
the lakes, was 46,67, and of Fort Armstrong, west of the lakes, was 51, 
64, while that of Toronto, subject to the ameliorating influences of the 
lakes, was 44, 39. Fort Armstrong is fully two degrees south of 
Toronto, yet its mean temperature in January is nearly a degree lower 
than at Toronto, while the mean temperature of the hottest summer 
month is upwards of eleven degrees higher there than at Toronto. Fort 
Preble, in the east, about the same latitude as Toronto, has a mean 
temperature for January of three degrees lower than Toronto, and for 
July upwards of three degrees higher. The influence of climate on 
agricultural productions was also estimated by the humidity of the 
atmosphere during the agricultural months. The rapid growth of 
vegetables in Western Canada was due to the serenity of the summer 
sky, and the uniform distribution of rain over the agricultural months 
In the Western States, generally, the unequal distribution of rain 
throughout the year renders the cultivation of wheat, the grasses, and 
the root crops, more hazardous than in Western Canada. The mean 
annual number of clear days on the lakes is about 120, remote from the 
lakes 210. Cloudy days on the lakes 140, remote from the lakes 75. 
The Chairman in thanking Professor Hind for his address, said that 
he felt himself bound to take up the cudgels in defence of this much 
abused winter. He believed that the memory of the oldest inhabitant 
was at fault in this instance, as within the space of twenty years there’ 
