24G 



ALASKA. 

 Meieoroloc/ical abstract, ij-c. — Coutinnetl. 



Month of record. 



Maximnm relative hnmidity 



iliuimuni relative humidity 



Prevailing wind 



Xumber of miles traveled bysvind 



Jilean daily velocity of wind 



jdean hourly velocity of wind 



Maximum hourly velocity of wind 



Proportion of cloudiness 



Amount of rain-fall, in inches 



Greatest daily amount of rain-fall 



Amount of melted hail and suow, (in- 

 cluded in rain-fall) 



Xumber of days on which precipitation 

 occurred 



Xuraber of days on which hail or snow 

 fell 



!N"OTE. — It will be noticed that I have not spelled the name Behring in accordance with 

 the usual custom observed by English writers, who have thus given the phonetic value of 

 the Sclavonic characters used by the Ewssians in writing the name of this celebrated navi- 

 gator ; but hy reference to the following statement made by Professor Gill, of the Con. 

 gressional Library, it will be seen that the name in f|uestiou may properly be spelled 

 "Bering." Professor Gill says : " The name of the navigator which has been conferred on 

 the strait separating America and Asia, is unquestionably spelled Beiuxg and not Behrixg. 

 I submit, in explanation, my reasons : 1st. The navigator himself was born in Jutland, and 

 a scion of a Danish family, whose members bore the name of Bering, and two represent- 

 atives of which had the same Christian name, viz, (1) Titus Tiering, born 1617, died 1075, 

 some time professor of poetry at Copenhagen, and (2) Vitus Bering, born 1682, died 1753, a 

 l>ri'est of Ollerup and Kirkeby. The form Behring, so far as I can ascertain, is unknown 

 in Denmark, (see Nyerup's Dansk-Norsk Litteratur-lexicon, v. i, pp. 56, 57, 1818.) 2d. The 

 form Bering is almost (but not quite) universally adopted in all non-English works ; for 

 example, Biographic Universelle, (Michaud,) v. 4, p. 261, 1811, also, nouv. ed., v. 4, p. 28, 1854 ; 

 Ifouvelle Biographic Gcnerale, (Hoefer,) v. 5, p. 527, 1855 ; Allgemeine Encyclopadie der 

 "Wissenscbaften und Kiinste, (Ersch und Gruber,) v. 9, p. 136, ls22 ; Xeues Konversations- 

 Lexicon, (Meyers.) v. 3, p. 238, 1862; Deutseh-Amerikanisches Conversations-Lexicon, 

 (Schem.) v. 2, p. 296, 1869, and numerous others. The exceptional cases, e. g. Pierer's TJni- 

 ver.sal Lexicon, Grande Dictionnaire Universelle du six. siecle, &c. In English dictionaries, 

 the true form Bering is adopted in the Brief Biographical Dictionarj', by Holes, 1865, and 

 the Dictionary of Biographical Eeference, by Phillips, 1671, and is gradually superseding 

 the more familiar English form. An explanation of the reason of the origin of the name 

 Behring is found in the fact that it was originally derived from the Kussian, without a 

 knowledge of its primitive source, and was the nearest English phonetic expression of the 

 Eus-sian characters. Inasmuch, however, (1) as the original form of a name, without re- 

 gard to its pronunciation, is universally adopted in our biographies and bibliographies, and 

 (2) as the original form of the navigator's name was Bering, such is the correct one, and 

 that which must ultimately supersede the other. It need only be added that Bering him- 

 self, and the Russians universally, (?) adopt that form when writing in English characters, 

 and that the Russian letter ('e') in his name, represented by 'eh,' is especially ordained by 

 the Russians to be rendered by the Latin character ' e,' in accordance with the pronuncia- 

 tion of the Latin and continental races generallv." 



