Meteorological Journal. 85 



Mountain regions, as wild geese were seen flying to the south as early 

 as the 19th of the month. The winter thus far has been mild. No 

 ice was formed in our rivers until the 29th Dec, when a little was seen 

 floating in the Muskingum. The spring months were earlier than 

 those of 1832, by about a week. Cultivated fruit trees brought 

 forth abundantly, especially the apple, the crops of which were unu- 

 sually fine, many thousand barrels having been sent to the market 

 below. 



The summer was mild and pleasant, and the crops of all kinds gen- 

 erally good. After September, the autumnal months were cold and 

 very windy, blowing in strong gales from the western quarters for 

 many days in succession, "Indian Summer," commonly a delight- 

 ful season in the western states, barely made its appearance, before 

 the setting in of hard frosts, destroyed the foliage of our forests, and 

 put a stop to that slow and gradual change of color, which gives to 

 our woodlands, those rich and varied tints, so much admired by the 

 painter and the poet. 



In November, occurred that beautiful meteoric display, of which 

 a notice is subjoined. In December, there fell, within a few days, 

 two feet of snow, which soon melted gradually away, so that at this 

 time the earth is nearly bare. The whole year has been unusually 

 healthy in this part of Ohio. Not a single death by cholera, that ter- 

 rible scourge, which has visited and made sorrowful, so many places 

 in the west, both above and below us, has occurred in Marietta. It 

 may perhaps, be attributed to its naturally healthy location, to the 

 wide, airy streets and commons ; the cleanly and sober habits of the 

 people, and to the great abundance of shade trees, which every where, 

 deck our streets and door yards. It was observed, several years since, 

 while the disease was yet confined to the eastern continent, that re- 

 gions thickly covered with woods, and towns and villages in which 

 grass plats and trees abounded, suffered much less, and in many in- 

 stances not at all from the cholera. It may be philosophically ac- 

 counted for, in the known property which the dense foliage of trees 

 possesses, of decomposing the poison which generates miasmatic fe- 

 vers, and with which the cholera was closely allied, from its prevailing 

 mostly in districts subject to these diseases. Whatever may have 

 been the cause, the inhabitants of Marietta, have great reason for 

 gratitude and praise to that being who ruletb the destinies of man. 



Marietta, Ohio, Jan. 1, 1834. 



