232 Dr FoiTy on the Climate of the United States. 



States, the quotation of a single passage from Dr W.'s es- 

 say must here suffice. According to John Megapolensis, a 

 Dutch clergyman, who resided at Albany just two centuries 

 ago, " the summers are pretty hot, and the winters very cold. 

 The summer continues till All Sainfs Day (Nov. 1), but then 

 the winter sets in, in the same manner as it commonly does 

 in December, and freezes so much in one night that the ice 

 will bear a man. The freezing commonly continues three 

 months ; sometimes there comes a warm and pleasant day, 

 yet the thaw does not continue ; but it freezes again till 

 March, and then commonly the river begins to open, seldom 

 in February." Modern winters, according to this account, 

 have not moderated. A common winter is still of three 

 months duration, the Hudson, at Albany, usually freezing 

 early in December, and continuing closed till March. 



From this extensive and learned array of historical facts, 

 Dr Webster's final conclusion, in his second essay, as regards 

 the influence of clearing the country of its forests upon the 

 seasons of the year, has a striking cori'espondence with our 

 own deductions. 



" From a careful comparison of these facts," he says, " it 

 appears that the weather, in modern winters, is more incon- 

 stant than when the earth was covered with wood at the 

 first settlement of Europeans in the country ; that the warm 

 weather of autumn extends further into the winter months, 

 and the cold weather of winter and spring encroaches upon 

 the summer ; that the wind being more variable, snow is 

 less permanent, and perhaps the same remark may be appli- 

 cable to the ice of rivers. These efl^ects seem to result ne- 

 cessarily from the greater quantity of heat accumulated in 

 the earth in summer, since the ground has been cleared of 

 wood, and exposed to the rays of the sun ; and to the greater 

 depth of frost in the earth in winter, by the exposure of its 

 uncovered surface to the cold atmosphere." 



It is thus appai ent, that the opinion that the climate of 

 the States bordering the Atlantic, on their first settlement, 

 resembled that now exhibited by Fort Snelling and Council 

 Bluffs, is wholly gi-atuitous, and unsustained by facts. No 

 accurate therraometrical observations yet made in any part 



