XCl , 



pared for such a severe spell of cold weather as came over us from Friday, 

 December 20th, till Saturday, Decenaber 28th. From Saturday evening 

 until the following Friday morning the temperature sank every day to or 

 below zero, and Monday, the 23rd, at 5 p. m., till Wednesday, the 25th, at 

 nine a. m., for forty hours, the temperature remained below zero. The same 

 has happened in St. Louis during the last thirty-seven years (my meteor- 

 ological observations in St. Louis extend through that period — more than 

 a third of a century) only once, and that during the cold spell of new 

 year of 1S64, from the evening of December 31, 1863, to the morning of 

 January 2, 1864. The lowest temperature occurred in the night from De- 

 cember 23 to 24, probably in the early hours after midnight. With me, 

 on the outskirts of the city, tvvo miles from the river, it reached 19.5 ; in 

 the city itself different observers noted 14.17 degrees below zero. On the 

 new year's day of 1864 the lowest temperature observed by me amounted 

 to 22.5. 



During the cold spell of the past weeks the temperature remained below 

 the freezing point from Saturday night, December 14, to Sunday noon, 

 December 29 — over 14 days. 



The past December was, on the average, by far the coldest I have ob- 

 served here in 40 years. My observations gave me the mean for the 

 month 23.5 degrees, those of the signal service 255; but even this last 

 temperature is several degrees lower than I have ever noted it before. 



The mean temperature of December in St. Louis is nearly 34 degrees ; 

 this last December was the ninth on which I have found it below 30; 

 the coldest of these were those of 1838, 1845, 1859 ^""^ '^^ — while in two 

 instances, 1857 and 1862, it was over 40 degrees. 



But coming to a more pleasant and hopeful view of this question of cold 

 and chilliness, I find that my records exhibit the fact that cold Decem- 

 bers have in all the above enumerated instances been followed by mild 

 Januarys, and that every winter which began with such a severe December 

 turned out, on the average, a moderate or even a inild one. Let us hope 

 that the coming months will not falsify so favorable precedents. 



It may be proper to add that the winter temperature within the city of 

 St. Louis appears to be getting milder and milder as the city enlarges, and 

 as hundreds of thousands of fires warm the houses and send their smoke 

 upwards to form a dismal and dark but sheltering canopy over the city. 

 The outskirts are not as warm in winter, and I may add not as warm in 

 summer, as the heart of the city. And from isolated observations we 

 must conclude that the temperature in the country, even at a moderate 

 distance, is, in many localities at least, still more extreme in heat as well 

 as in cold. 



Dr. Engelmann also stated that he had received a copy of the 

 London Lancet containing an interesting account of a fossil man 

 found at Mentone, on the coast between Genoa and Nice. The 

 conditions under which it was found, and the associated remains 

 of animals, many of which are extinct, indicated great antiquity ; 



