Weather and Diseases at Londonderry. 51 



■.was not as accurately inspected as it ought to be, and 

 therefore the instrumental temperature of the air cannot 

 .be deemed a perfectly just measure of it. The thermo- 

 meter was observed no lower than 28° 50', which, at 

 best, must be allowed to be only an approximation 

 to the truth. The quantity of rain, during the three 

 winter months, was considerable, being no less than 

 13.318299 inches. 



What has already passed of the spring has been cold 

 and dry ; only 0.998354 parts of an inch of rain fell in 

 March ; and April promises to yield still less. Near the 

 middle of March, the thermometer dropt so low as 

 31° 50'; and near the end, the temperature of the air was 

 genially warm. The 13th and 14th of April, there was 

 some flakey snow, which soon dissipated; on the 14th, 

 at 6, A. M., the thermometer, in the shade, was 35°. 



In the beginning of March, some old people, from 60 

 years upwards, were carried oiF, partly owing to exhaust- 

 ed constitutions, and partly owing to the influence of the 

 weather. One gentleman, aged eighty-two, fell a vic- 

 tim, in the space of a week, to frequent and inordinate 

 paroxysms of intermittent fever, which he brought on 

 by sitting a whole day in damp clothes* 



In the beginning of April appeared an irritative fever, 

 which is now so general as to be commonly called an in- 

 fluenza ; but it is not of that description, the organs of 

 respiration not being fundamentally engaged. It begit^s 

 with some symptoms of pyrexia, viz., chilliness, head- 

 ache, impaired appetite, thirst, and diminution of 



