CLIMATOLOGY. 319 



summers which, in mean temperature, resemble those of 

 Berlin and Munster, and that of Cherbourg in Normandy, 

 *nd during this season the thermometer sometimes re- 

 mains for weeks together at 30 and 31 Cent. (86 or 

 87.8 Pah.) ; but these summers are followed by winters in 

 which the coldest month has the severe mean temperature 

 of 18 to 20 Cent. ( 0.4 to + 4.0 Fah.) Such con- 

 tinental climates do indeed deserve the name of excessive 

 which they received from Buffon, and the inhabitants 

 of those countries almost seem condemned in Dante's 

 words, ( 392 ) 



" A sofferir tormenti caldi e geli." 



I have in no part of the earth, not even in the Canary 

 Islands, in Spain, or in the south of France, seen more 

 magnificent fruit, especially grapes, than at Astrachan. 

 near the shores of the Caspian, in lat. 46 1'. With 

 a mean annual temperature of about 9 Cent. (48 

 Fah.), the mean summer temperature rises to 21. 2 Cent. 

 (70. 2 Fah.), which is that of Bordeaux; while not only 

 there, but also still more to the south, at Kislar at the 

 mouth of the Terek (in the latitude of Avignon and Eimini), 

 the thermometer sometimes falls in winter to 25 or 30 

 Cent. (13 to 22 Fah.) 



Ireland, Guernsey and Jersey, the peninsula of Brittany, 

 the coast of Normandy and that of the south of England, all 

 present, by the mildness of their winters, and by the low tem- 

 perature and clouded skies of their summers, the most 

 striking contrast to the continental climate of the interior of 

 eastern Europe. In the north-eastern part of Ireland, in lat. 



54 56', under the same parallel as Konigsberg, the myrtle 

 VOL. r. z 



