of the last Half of the Year 1817. 195 



Great Heats. 

 We have had daily the most remarkable heats. On the /th 

 of June the thermometer at Paris rose to 26° centigr. where it 

 remained the whole day. On the 18th it was at 28°, and on 

 the 20th at 30°. In some parts of Great Britain it rose still 

 higher. At London on the 28th, between three and five o'clock 

 in the afternoon it v/as Z\i<' centigr. being 10" above the greatest 

 heats of ordinary summers. In the north of Asia, on the con- 

 trary, there was scarcely atiy summer at all this year, the cold 

 contmuing until the 21st of June, the time at which the fine 

 season in the northern parts of Siberia usually terminates. In 

 the hyperborean regions of Europe, again, the heat was so in- 

 tense that the coasts of Greenland, which had been covered for 

 ages with enormous masses of ice, were completely liberated, and 

 the sea vas laid open as far as the mountains of Spitsbergen, and 

 even as high as the 84'-' of latitude. Enormous masses of ice 

 descended into the Atlantic sea as far as the 40° of latitude with- 

 out melting. 



The months of June, July, August and September were of a 

 stifling heat, especially at Rome, at Maples, and at Trieste, 

 where it was impossible to go abroad till evening. The warmest 

 day at Perpignan was the 4th of July; at Marseilles, the 17th 

 of August, when the thermometer exposed to the sun remained 

 stationary at 44". At Cayenne, winter, v.-hich is the rainy season 

 in that country, was unknown ; it ordinarily lasts six months 

 complete, but last year there were only sixty-two days of rain, 

 and that slight and intermittent. 



Untimely Colds. 



After long intervals of heat, of abundant rains, and wasting 

 storms, we were visited on the 23d of August with squalls of cold 

 rain, and weather truly autumnal. The atmosphere was wholly 

 changed. The equinoctial winds raged with violence ; at Paris 

 they tore up the stoutest trees by the roots. On the 23d of Sep- 

 tember, the weather v/as mild, and of a temperature rather mpre 

 elevated than suited the period of the year; but next day a strong 

 wind arose from the north-east, which dried up the earth and 

 gave all the chill of winter to the atmosphere. On the 10th of 

 October, the Parisians felt as if in the middle of January. The 

 like unseasonable cold was felt in the south. From the' cliipate 

 of Africa to that of Lapland was a common transition. After 

 more than ten months without rain, and a heat the most ardent, 

 they were obliged on the 15th of October to have recourse to fires, 

 the temperature having become on a sudden icy cold. 



The damage occasioned by this unseasonable cold, in the two 

 nights of the 22d and 24th of August, to the standing crops of 



N 2 ,11 



