CHAPTER III. 



ON THE CLIMATE AND VITAL STATISTICS OF MADEIRA. 



" Ah! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven, 

 When drooping health and spirits go amiss? 

 How tasteless then whatever can be given! 

 Health is the vital principle of bliss." 



Thomson. 



Climate. — Tables of Temperature — of Rain. — Deluges. — Rainy season. — 

 L'Este. — Clouds. — Sunset. — Snow. — Dampness. — Summer. — Longevity. 

 — Population. — Emigration. 



The mean temperature of Funchal throughout the year may 

 be stated at 66 degrees of Fahrenheit, February and March 

 being the coldest, August and September the hottest months. 

 Even between these months there is not a greater mean 

 difference of temperature than 12 degrees*. It is this 

 uniformity in which the excellence of the climate consists. 

 The causes which are instrumental in forming such a climate 

 in Funchal are threefold : firstly, the lofty hills which imme- 

 diately surround it on the north completely shelter it from 

 the weather at all the points of the compass, except from 

 south-east to south-west ; secondly, the absence of wood, 

 whilst it impairs its beauty, improves its climate ; and, thirdly, 

 the regularity of the alternations of the land and sea 

 breezes tends to preserve a delicious equability of tempe- 

 rature. 



* It is not fair to estimate the climate of a country merely by its mean 

 annual temperature; we should look rather to the distribution of heat through 

 the different months of the year: Humboldt has shown that the isochimenals 

 and isotherals (lines of equal winter and summer temperature) are by no 

 means parallel with the isotkermals (lines of equal annual temperature). 



