CLIMATE OF NEW MEXICO. 147 



Mexico. Nowhere — not even under the 

 much boasted SicUian skies can a purer or a 

 more wholesome atmosphere be found. Bil- 

 ious diseases — the great scourge of the valley 

 of the Mississippi — are here almost unknown. 

 Apart, from a fatal epidemic fever of a typhoid 

 character, that ravaged the whole province from 

 1837 to 1839, and which, added to the small- 

 pox that followed in 1940, carried off nearly 

 ten per cent, of the population, New Mexico 

 has experienced very Uttle disease of a febrile 

 character ; so that as great a degree of longe- 

 vity is attained there, perhaps, as in any other 

 portiqn of the habitable world. Persons with- 

 ered almost to mummies, are to be encoun- 

 terered occasionally, whose extraordinary age 

 is only to be inferred from their recollection of 

 certain notable events which have taken place 

 in times far remote. 



A sultry day, from Santa Fe north, is of very 

 rare occurrence. The summer nights are 

 usually so cool and pleasant that a pair of 

 blankets constitutes an article of comfort sel- 

 dom dispensed with. The winters are long, 

 but not so subject to sudden changes as m 

 damper climates ; the general range of the 

 thermometer, throughout the year, being from 

 10' to 75' above zero, of Fahrenheit. Baron 

 Humboldt was led into as great an en'or Avith 

 respect to the chmate of New Mexico as to 

 the rivers ; for he remarks, that near Santa Fe 

 and a Uttle further north, "the Rio del Tsorte 

 is sometimes covered for a succession of seve- 

 ral years, with ice thick enough to admit the 



