24 CAPTAIN TUCKEY'S NARRATIVK 



^vhicli has about 4500 feet of elevation, but also the Avhole 

 central ridge of hills down to 1400 feet are usually enveloped 

 in clouds from 10 o'clock in the morning. This humidity 

 clothes the hills with thick pasture grass, giving to the 

 country a feature entirely unlooked for in so low a latitude 

 and of so small an elevation alcove the sea. 



" It is also this moist atmosphere that causes the mean 

 temperature of the island to be so much less than that of 

 Senegambia. According to Humboldt's new scale of mean 

 temperatures, the curve will intersect the latitude of St. 

 Jago at 27° of the centigrade thermometer, (80° 7' of Faren- 

 heit,) which is probably the middle between the iso-ther- 

 mometer of the island and of Senegambia, the latter being 

 probably not less than 30° centig. {86° of Fahrenheit). On 

 the 10th of April the temperature of the well in the valley of 

 Trinidad was 25"" centig. (73° Fahrenheit), the well being 

 two or three fathoms deep, and the afflux of water con- 

 siderable, as it supplies the M'holc town. It is probable 

 that this is about the mean temperature of the well through- 

 out the year, and that Ave shall not be far wrong in con- 

 sidering it also as the iso-therm. of the lower parts of the 

 island.* 



* On boad the sliip in the bay at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the thermometer 

 was 7C°, while in the ton n of Porto Prava it was at the same time 84°. 



