18 Dr. Forry on the Climate of the Utiited States, ^c. 



Art. II. — Researches in Elucidation of the Distribution of Heat 

 over the Globe, and especially of the Climatic Features pecu- 

 liar to the Region of the United States ; by Samuel Forry, 

 M. D., Author of "The Climate of the United States and its 

 Endemic Influences," Editor of " The New York Journal of 

 Medicine and the Collateral Sciences," etc. 



Climatology, notwithstanding of the highest interest to man 

 in every conceivable relation of his present existence, has, in the 

 wonderful advancement of human knowledge during the current 

 half century, especially as regards the natural sciences, by no 

 means kept pace with the progress of its kindred branches. 

 With us, the barren work of M. Yolney on the climate of the 

 United States, written forty-five years ago, when this French 

 savant made a flying visit through our country, is still quoted by 

 every writer on this topic. To Baron Humboldt is due the dis- 

 tinguished credit of having first generalized the various meteoro- 

 logical data, which had been accumulated in difl'erent parts of 

 the globe ; but so little do philosophers seem to have profited by 

 these deductions, that even Charles Lyell, Esq., in his " Princi- 

 ples of Geology," when speaking of the mild climate of Europe, 

 says — ''but this region, constituting only one seventh of the 

 whole globe, proved eventually to be the exception to the general 

 rule.'" Now it will be a leading object of this paper, contrary to 

 the opinion here advanced on such high authority, to demonstrate 

 the harmony of the laws of climate throughout the globe.* 



The merit of being first to establish, on an extensive scale, a 

 system of meteorological observations, with a view to the elucida- 

 tion of the climate of the United States, is due to the Medical 

 Bureau of the Army ; and these registers date back regularly to 

 the year 1819, when Dr. Joseph Lovell was the Surgeon General. 

 The only instruments used at first were a thermometer and vane ; 

 and to these, the observations were long confined, with general 

 notices of the weather. At the present time, however, observa- 

 tions are taken on a more extended scale, comprising the barom- 

 eter, the thermometer attached and the thermometer detached, 



* In presenting the present analysis of our various writings on the laws of tem- 

 perature of the United States, we have not hesitated, as regards the dry details of 

 mere facts, to adopt the language used on previous occasions. 



