114 Dr. Hale on the Meteorological Journal 
Another question of equal interest, upon which this journal 
has a direct bearing, is the progressive melioration of our 
climate. The opinion has prevailed extensively, that the clear- 
ing up of our forests,. and the draining of marshes, which 
have attended the progress of cultivation; have been accompa- 
nied by an increase of the temperature of the climate. If this 
opinion be well founded it may be expected that some decisive 
evidence of it will be furnished by a journal kept with so much 
care, in the same situation, and by the same individual, for nearly 
forty years, of a period when these changes in the face and 
condition of the country have been extensively made. 
That these causes may powerfully affect the healthfulness 
and the temperature of the climate in the immediate vicinity of 
the places in which such operations are carried on, no one will 
doubt. But the question is much more extensive, and refers to 
the influence of these, or of some other causes, upon the tempe- 
rature of the climate of the whole country. Dr. Holyoke him- 
self believed this to be the case. Ina paper in the second vol- 
ume of the Memoirs of the Academy, on the difference between 
the temperature of our climate and that of some countries in 
Europe in the same parallels of latitude, he attributes the great 
comparative cold of this country to the abundance of forests. 
And among the papers obligingly furnished me by his grand- 
son, I find the following note, dated July, 1813. “TI believe we 
may be pretty well assured that storms have not been nearly so 
frequent within the last twelve or fifteen years, as they were 
before that period; especially those from the northeast. Short 
storms from the southeast, indeed, have been pretty common, but 
generally they have been of little importance or duration; a 
southeast storm seldom continues to blow with violence more 
