68 



Rockport, Ohio. — The following table of the mean auiuial temperatuie for a 

 •series of ten years is published by Mr. Edward Colbourn : 



O ' o 



1854 51 I ISGO 52 



1855 5;:! j 1861 58,^ 



IhoC 50 ; 18()2 53.i 



1857 52 I 1863 . 53" 



1858.... 54 ' 



1859 - 53 I Mean 52J 



Northport, Michigan. — H. 11. Schetterly, M. D., of Northport, Michigan, in 

 a letter to the Commissioner of Agriculture, dated January (i, 1864, gives the 

 following information with regard to the climate on the east shore of the north 

 end of Lake Michigan : 



"We seldom have frost in the \ncinity of the lake (Michigan) and Grand 

 Traverse bay between May 10 and October 9. Last summer was the only ex- 

 ception in ten summers I haA^e resided here. The ground is never frozen in 

 winter, and in spring the temperature of the lake water makes the growing 

 season late, especially the blossoming of fruit trees. I am persuaded that this 

 will be one of the best fruit regions in Michigan. The fruit trees here bear 

 every year. They are in no danger of frost I have already stated that last 

 summer Avas an exception to a rule here with regard to frosts, though the frosts 

 (happening at the same time) were by no means so severe as in other States. I 

 have now to state that this winter is also a similar exception. Heretofore ^er- 

 manenf. ice never formed on the east side of Lake Michigan aiul Grand Traverse 

 bay till late in February, though shore ice extending a rod or two would some 

 years form near the close of December and in January, and be dissolved again 

 by warm water driven in. On December 31, ultimo, at 12 m., a gale started up 

 from the west, and drove the water on the beach during the following night appar- 

 ently as high as it had ever been driven, though it had been subsiding since last 

 spring, and has lately been two and a half feet lower than a year ago. In the 

 morning (January 1) a heavy fall of snow accompanied the gale, and both 

 continued full forty-eight hours without any intermission, attended by intense 

 cold, the air being so iilled with snow that objects, say ten rods distant, could 

 not be seen. Ice more than a foot thick now extends (January 6, 1864) forty 

 or forty-live rods into the lake, and is fast extending, though the cold is moder- 

 ating this evening. The cold never becomes so intense, by nine or ten degrees, 

 around the lake and bays in this region as it often does in northern Indiana, 

 and thirty miles north of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Avhere I have lived." 



NOTE TO OBSERVi^ES. 

 Observers are requested to be careful to write their name, date, and place on 

 every register. Owing to the omission of these, much time is sometimes lost in 

 examination and comparison to ascertain where they come from, and several are 

 now on hand which we have not yet been able to identify. In recording tem- 

 peratures below zero considerable want of uniformity exists, and in some cases 

 causes uncertainty in reading the records. They should always be written simply 

 with a dash before the figures, thus — 4, and in no other way. When the 

 temperature is aboA-e zero, write the figures' without afiixiug any mark or word. 

 Care should also lie taken so to record the rain as to leave no doubt whether 

 it includes the melted snow or not. It will prevent any uncertainty if only rain 

 is registered in the column for rain, and at the end of the month the amount , 

 of rain and depth of snow added up separately at the foot of the respective 

 columns, and then one-tenth of the whole depth of snow added to the amount of 

 rain. In case the observer actually melts the snow and measures it in his rain- 

 gauge, he should take a column of snow as deep as it has fallen and exactly 

 equal in diameter to the opening of the rain-guage which it is measured in, and 

 60 record it as to show that the melted snow is included with the rain 



