APPENDIX II. 



A SEVERE WINTER IN MINAS GERAES. 



I HAVE mentioned that the inhabitants of Brumado, in Minas 

 Geraes, told me of the extraordinary frosts of the year 1870. I 

 now give some details thereof, translated, by special permission of 

 the author, from M. Emmanuel Liais's very valuable book.* 



" On the high table-lands of Minas Geraes, between Sao Paolo, 

 Barbacena, and the extensive mountains in the neighbourhood of 

 Ouro Preto, whose heights range from nine hundred to eleven 

 hundred metres, the mean temperature is on an average 5 centi- 

 grade below that of sea level on the same parallel, and, owing 

 to the difference of latitude, about 4 centigrade below that of 

 Rio de Janeiro. At Atalaia, near the last-named city, the lowest 

 temperature given by my minimum thermometer, under good con- 

 ditions of free access to air and guarded against radiation, has 

 been io'8 centigrade, and that is in one year only. Generally 

 the yearly minimum never went below 12-5 centigrade. . . . 



" Real frost was quite unknown on the highlands, nonage- 

 narians never remembered having seen any, and were astonished 

 when, in the month of June, 1870, this phenomenon was pro- 

 duced with an extraordinary intensity for those regions. This 

 time the frost was very persistent, and lasted five or six days, from 

 Barbacena to the Serras of Ouro Branco, in all the eastern boun- 

 daries of the central highlands of Minas. This phenomenon was 

 local, limited, unaccompanied by abnormal temperatures in other 

 regions of Brazil- not far distant. I was then in the centre of the 

 province of Bahia, where the temperature was as high as usual ; 



* " Climats, Geologic, Faune, et Geographic Botanique du Bresil," p. 584, 

 et seq. 



