208 November 1748. 



deg. and twenty-five min. nearer to the true 

 north 5 or, which is the fame thing, about two 

 min. annually. Mr. Alexander ', a man of great 

 knowledge in aftronomy and in mathematics, 

 aflured me, from feveral obfervations, that, in 

 the year 1750, on the eighteenth of September, 

 the deviation was to be reckoned fix deg. and 

 twenty-two min. 



THERE are two printers in the town, and 

 every week fome EngHJh gazettes are publifhed, 

 which contain news from all parts of the world. 



THE winter is much more fevere here than in 

 Penfyfoania, it being nearly as cold as in fome of 

 the provinces of Sweden : its continuance, how- 

 ever, is much fhorter than with us : their fpring 

 is very early, and their autumn very late, and the 

 heat in fummer is exceflivc. For this reafon, 

 the melons fown in the fields are ripe at the be- 

 ginning of Auguji ; whereas we can hardly bring 

 them fo foon to maturity under glaffes and on 

 hot beds. The cold of the winter I cannot juft- 

 ly determine, as the meteorological obfervations 

 which were communicated to me, were all cal- 

 culated after thermometers, which were fo placed 

 in the houfes, that the air could not freely come 

 at them. The fnow lies for fome months toge- 

 ther upon the ground ; and fledges are made ufe 

 of here as in Sweden, but they are rather too 

 bulky. The river Hudfon is about an Englijli 

 mile and a half broad at its mouth : the differ- 

 ence between the higheft flood and the loweft 

 ebb, is between fix and feven feet, and the water 

 is very brackijfo ; yet the ice (lands in it not only 



one, 



