42 Dr. Forry on the Climate of the United States, 6fc. 



wardly, while on the western side, the great range of Rocky 

 Mountains shelters Oregon from the polar winds, and the project- 

 ing mass of Russian America protects it from the polar ice. 



Connected with this subject is the question frequently agitated, 

 whether the old continent is warmer than the new. Volney and 

 others have attempted its solution by a comparison of the mean 

 annual temperatures of different places on both sides of the At- 

 lantic ; but to this mode of determining it, the objection at once 

 presents itself, that the points of comparison represent opposite 

 extremes in the climate of each continent. Indeed, the question 

 in itself involves an absurdity ; for as the laws of nature are unva- 

 rying in their operation, and as similar physical conditions obtain 

 in corresponding parallels of both continents, the same meteoro- 

 logical phenomena will be induced. It shows in lively colors the 

 truth of the remark, that every physical science bears the impress 

 of the place at which it received earliest cultivation. In geology, 

 for example, all volcanic phenomena were long referred to those 

 of Italy ; and in meteorology, the climate of Europe has been 

 assumed as the type by which to estimate that of all correspond- 

 ing latitudes. In making a comparison of the two continents, 

 it is, therefore, necessary that both points have the same relative 

 position. Fort Sullivan, Maine, notwithstanding it is more than 

 11° south of Edinburgh, Scotland, exhibits a mean annual tempe- 

 rature 5^° lower; Bordeaux, which is parallel with Fort Sulli- 

 van, has an annual temperature 15° higher ; and the mean of 

 Stockholm, in lat. 59° 20', is about the same as that of Fort Sul- 

 livan, in lat. 44° 44^. These are not, however, legitimate points 

 of comparison. Pekin and Philadelphia, each on the eastern 

 coast of its respective continent, are fair examples, having the 

 same latitude and a similar relative position, and consequently the 

 same mean annual temperature. A comparison between western 

 Europe and the United States would be equally improper with a 

 comparison between it and China. " Thus at Pekin, in lat. 40° 

 N., long. 116° 20' E.," says Dr. Traill,* "the mean temperature 

 of summer is 78°-8, and of winter 23° — a difference of not less 

 than 55° -8, which gives rise to a frost of several months' dura- 

 tion in that part of China ; yet Pekin is under the same parallel 

 as the southern extremity of Naples, where frost is unknown, and 



Encyclopedia Britannica. 



