40 CLIMATE. 



Joimdknd (1842), says; "We find that tlie oxtioiiiui ;;t tern- 

 pemtiire in Newfoundland are trifling i-onipared Avitli those of 

 Canada. There the thermometer falls as low as twenty-seven 

 degrees below zero, and even lower at times, in winter, and 

 rises to ninety in summer. Here (in Newfoundland) the lowest 

 temperature in winter scarcely exceeds zero, or eight or ten de- 

 grees below it, excepting upon rare occasions ; and in the height 

 of summer does not attain more, in common years, than seventy- 

 nine degrees. Winter ma} really be said to commence here 

 towards the latter end of November only, though fire:, are 

 comfortable adjuncts during most of that month ; and its seve- 

 rity begins after Christmas, runs through January and February, 

 and becomes less and less stern until the middle of April, when 

 it ceases altogether. In the winter of 1840 ploughing was going 

 on after Christmas." 



" It is generally supposed in England that N(;wlnundland is 

 constantly enveloped in fog and wet mi.^t ; nothing, lio-,veve]', 

 could be farther from the truth. The summers are fre(piently 

 so hot and dry that for v«-ant of rain the grass perishes — the 

 summer of 1840 was one of these — and the nights are unusually 

 splendid ; whilst in winter fog is very rarely seen." 



He kept a register in regard to foggy days, from ^\■hic■h it ap- 

 peared that in 1841 there were only seventeen and a half days 

 of thick fog in St. John's, " which is moi'e exposed to the Bank 

 weather, as it is called, than any other part of the Island " ; and 

 light fogs Mere prevalent only nineteen and a half days ; giving 

 thirty-seven days of foggy weather on the shore throughout the 

 year. He remarks further on the light clothing with which the 

 laljouring classes went al)out in winter, and on llicir roliust 

 appearance, and ])i-onounces the climate salubrion- in tlic highest 

 degree. 



The Right Rev. Dr. Mullock, formerly Roman Catholic Bishop 

 of the island, in one of his lectures, says : " We never have the 

 tlu'niKiiiicter down to /cro, uidess once or twice in llic yeai', and 

 then only i'or a few hours and for a k'W degrees, three, foiu' or 

 ])erha]is tv\i ; while we hear of a tenijicratuie of li'u and twenty 



