120 Temperature of Rome and New York. 



Art. XIII. — Temperature of the cities of Rome {Italy) and 

 New York; by Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, M. D. (now resid- 

 ing in Rome.) 



TO PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. 



^^V — It was deemed advisable early last year that one of my 

 children should pass some time in a milder climate than we enjoy 

 in New York, and 1 determined to take my family to France, 

 Switzerland, and Italy. 



When the cold weather drove us from Florence in December, 

 we found at Rome that delicious temperature, and mild, balmy 

 air so grateful to the invalid, and there we spent the residue of 

 the season. Indeed, the effects were so cheeking, that I have 

 come to this city to make the necessary arrangements for a resi- 

 dence of some years in that delightful climate. 



Since my return, very many applications have been made for 

 a comparison of the climates of New York and Rome. It so 

 happens that I have with me a fragment of a register I kept in 

 the latter place, and have prefixed to it an extract from a meteo- 

 rological journal most accurately kept by a highly intelligent and 

 observing lady of this city — thus showing the temperature of 

 each place. I send them to you for insertion, should you deem 

 them of sufficient importance or interest to occupy a page or two 

 of your valuable Journal. 



The range of the thermometer speaks for itself ; but I may add, 

 that vegetation continued green, the orange-trees under our win- 

 dows were covered with fruit, and many of our rose-bushes were 

 never without flowers during the winter. The inhabitants nev- 

 ertheless called it a bad season. 



For incipient diseases of the chest, the climate is admirable, 

 and therefore I am induced to remain. These maladies are very 

 rare among the natives, as may be learned from the fact that at 

 the general hospital, Santo Spirito, where there are eighteen hun- 

 dred beds, besides two hundred kept for accidents, and where all 

 disorders are admitted, amounting to nearly twenty thousand in 

 the year, the number of patients with diseases of the chest and 

 lungs in 1840 was one hundred and seventeen. 



Although little proficient in botany, the beauties of the vegeta- 

 ble kingdom delight and instruct me, and it was an amusement 



