96 Meteorohs;ical Journal. 



t>' 



causes we are to attribute this series of cool years, is a mystery as 

 yet hidden from mortal ken, although without doubt it arises from 

 the fulfilment of uniform and fixed laws in the regulation of the 

 seasons. The succeeding series of years will most probably restore 

 to the earth the usual amount of heat experienced in former periods. 

 The mean annual temperature for 1836 stands at 50.03°, which is 

 nearly four degrees below the mean heat for this part of the valley 

 of the Ohio, as ascertained from observations made a number of 

 years since, and is more than half a degree less than the year 1835, 

 which was considered an extraordinary cold year. On the 28th of 

 January the mercury fell to — 10° below zero, and on the 5th of 

 February following to — 18°, an excess of cold very unusual in this 

 climate. It seems to have pervaded the whole northern continent, 

 and on the lower Mississippi was very destructive to exotic trees 

 and plants, which usually support the winters of that climate with- 

 out injury. On the Atlantic coast of the eastern states, the cold 

 was more intense and longer continued, than in any year since the 

 winter of 1779-80, At that time the inland sea, called the Sound, 

 between Long Island and the main, near Norwalk in Connecticut, 

 was so frozen as to bear the weight of a man, who deserted from 

 the British troops and came over on the ice. It was now so cov- 

 ered with ice as to put a stop to navigation. Boston harbor was 

 also closed, and many points about New York so frozen as to bear 

 loaded teams, at places not obstructed in this manner since the days 

 of the Revolution. In Ohio, the effect on fruit trees, whose ves- 

 sels contain a gummy juice, as the plum and the peach, was very 

 disastrous, freezing them so hard as to split the wood and bark into 

 long seams, through which the sap exuded the summer following. 

 The mean temperature, for the winter months, is 29.74° 

 Do. do. for the spring months, 48.75 



Do. do. for the sum.mer months, 71.55 



Do. do. for the autumnal months, 50.10 



The mean for the winter is only a fourth of a degree less than 

 that of 1835. That of the spring months is nearly three degrees 

 less, while that of the summer is two and a half degrees greater, 

 than that of the preceding year, and that of the autumnal months is 

 two degrees less. The cold in the spring was continued later than 

 usual, while the heat of autumn disappeared much sooner, especially 

 in October and November, each of which months was more than 

 eight degrees cooler than those of the preceding year. The peach 



