Of the Spring Months of the Year IHo-"). 33 



vations there had been greater degrees of cold than those he had noticed. 

 The depression was, no doubt, due to the increased radiation. This 

 severe cold does not appear to have been general ; for I find the great- 

 est recorded cold at Liverpool, for January of that year, was 29° F. 

 at noon ; and at Middlewich, in Cheshire, at 8 a.m., 23° F. 



In a paper in TJie Mcnichester Memoirs, vol. iv., 1793-6, Dr. Thomas 

 Garnet brings together observations made at various places in England, 

 and at Damfries and Kirkmichael, in Scotland, for the years from 17GS 

 to 1795. The lowest recorded temperatures of the period occui-red at 

 Chatham, in the last week of January, 1776. They range from 28° F. 

 to — 3^° F. ; the latter being on the 31st, at the hours of 6, 7, and 8 a.m. 

 In this paper the negative values are expressed by writing the figures 

 below a zero. The winters of 1784 and 1786 seem also to have been 

 characterized by low temperatures ; also those of 1812-13, and 1813-14. 

 At Dumfries, on Jan. 25, 1784, the thermometer stood at 8° F. early 

 in the morning, and on the four previous days had ranged from 11° to 

 14°. The late John Templeton of Cranmore, near Belfast, a distinguished 

 botanist, published in Tlie Belfast Magazine for 1814 a paper, giving a 

 list of the plants destroyed in the severe winter of 1813-14. The frost 

 began in Nov., and on Dee. 29 the thermometer fell to 7° F. 



The registers discussed by Mr. Glaisher in two papers in The Phil. 

 7'/'«72^.(1849, part ii., and 1850, part ii.), run through seventy-nine yeai's, 

 and embrace 200,000 observations, made at Somerset House, Greenwich, 

 Epping, and Lyndon in Rutlandshire. From these he has deduced, 

 with that skill and sagacity which distinguish all his labours in this 

 field, an approach to periodicity in the mean annual temperatures at 

 Greenwich. The results are stated in Mr. Drew's admirable little 

 work on Meteorology; where will also be found a plate giving the 

 projected curve of temperatm-e. So much as relates to our present 

 purpose we give in Mr. Drew's words, p. 84: — "An inspection of the 

 form assumed by this cui-ve shows that, beginning with 1771, the years 

 become gradually warmer till 1779, when the temperature in like man- 

 ner declined, and a batch of cold years occm-s, of which 1784 was the 

 coldest. The heat then increased, but not in so great a degree, till 

 1794, when the extreme cold of that cycle, not so severe as before, was 

 reached gradually in five years from that time. In periods varying from 

 nine to fifteen years, throughout the whole series, we find the cycle of 

 hot and cold years repeated." This is, we believe, the only attempt yet 

 made in this country to grasp such a law of periodicity. Mr. Glaisher 

 has also deduced a formula by which the mean annual temperature of 

 any place may be found from that of Greenwich. 



Vol. IV.— Xo. 1. p 



