TEMPERATURE. 6& 



obtaining the general results desired ; and some of them 

 do not even embrace all the elements of the climatic 

 conditions of the locality. 



In the close of 1860 there were established five stations 

 for meteorological observations on the coasts of Southern 

 Norway, and some years later another was established at 

 Dovre, in the interior of the country. In 1866 there was 

 organised a Meteorological Institute ; and additional 

 stations were established ; and now fifty-five Norwegian 

 stations send regularly their observations to the Institute. 

 They are pretty equably distributed over the country, 

 principally along the coasts; and several of the most 

 recently established of them have communicated observa- 

 tions of no small value in their bearing on the climatology 

 of Norway, 



Meteorologists have on maps connected with a line 

 places at which the mean or, as many would call it, the 

 average temperature is the same. The lines thus pro- 

 duced are called isothermal lines lines of the same heat. 

 'It is found/ I quote Dr Balfour ' that while at the 

 equator these correspond nearly with the lines of latitude, 

 as we recede from the equator the two are widely separ- 

 ated. They run in curves, rising in their course from the 

 east of America towards the west of Europe, and sinking 

 towards the south in the interior of Europe. The yearly 

 isotherm of 50 passes through the latitude of 42 30' on 

 the east of America, 51 30' in England, 47 30' in Hun- 

 gary, and 40 in Eastern Asia. This want of conformity 

 between the isothermal and latitudinal lines will be easily 

 understood when we consider that a place having a mode- 

 rate summer and winter temperature may have the same 

 annual mean as one having a very cold winter and a very 

 warm winter.' But even this isothermal curve is not 

 uniform : it is marked by numerous minor curves. 



According to Dr Broch, the isothermal lines in Norway 

 follow as a general rule the configuration of the coasts, 

 being affected, on the one hand, by the tempsrature of ths 



