198 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
and partly to the greater distance from the now rapidly heating plains 
of the Lower Mississippi. The effect of this delay of spring is 
not disadvantageous, for the occurrence of the last frost damaging to 
vegetation is very nearly alike in point of time in the lake region 
and in the central parts of the continent, and in the former districts, 
vegetation being less advanced when that frost occurs, suffers less 
from its effects. The general effect of the greater liability of the 
Mississippi valley to intense frosts in winter, sudden changes and late 
frosts, is such that north of Tennessee no peach districts are found 
which compare, in immunity from injury through low temperatures, 
with the peach belts east of Lake Michigan and in the neighborhood 
of Lakes Erie, Ontario and Huron. 
What is true of the annual and seasonal extremes of the lake 
region and the Western States, has its parallel in regard to the daily 
range of temperature. It is only once in many years that Toronto, 
which is fairly representative in this respect of the lake borders of On- 
tario, knows a range of forty degrees in any one day. The late Prof. 
Loomis, discussing the results of two years’ records of over one hun- 
dred stations scattered over the continent north of the 35th parallel 
and between the Rocky Mountains and the neighborhood of the At- 
lantic, states that only in the Province of Ontario had he found sta- 
tions at which the mercury had not ranged occasionally forty degrees 
in a single day. At the stations in the Mississippi valley and west- 
ward to the Rockies, greater changes than forty degrees were recorded 
several times in each of the two years ; at several stations twenty to 
sixty times. Even as far south as Northern Texas sudden changes 
of remarkable extent are recorded by the American Signal Service. 
Tn one instance a fall from 80° to 18° within a few hours is noted ; 
and on the 7th of September, 1881, on the northern borders of Texas, 
a sudden lowering of temperature proved fatal to over 300 cattle. 
The facts given show that in equability of climate the Province of 
Ontario is one of the most favoured districts in the temperate latitudes 
of this continent. 
While the whole of the lake region of the Province of Ontario as 
far east as the Ottawa River experiences the modifying influence of 
the great lakes, the measure of that influence differs greatly accord- 
ing to elevation, and distance and direction from large bodies of lake 
water. In fact, the lake influence, while rendering the whole region 
more temperate than any part of the Mississippi Valley to the west- 
