Dr. Forry on the Climate of the United States, i^'c. 239 



Europeans in the country ; that the warm weather of autumn ex- 

 tends further into the winter months, and the cold weather of 

 winter and spring encroaches upon the summer ; that the wind 

 being more variable, snow is less permanent, and perhaps the same 

 remark may be applicable to the ice of the rivers. These effects 

 seem to result necessarily from the greater quantity of heat accu- 

 mulated in the earth in summer, since the ground has been clear- 

 ed of wood, and exposed to the rays of the sun ; and to the great- 

 er depth of frost in the earth in winter, by the exposure of its un- 

 covered surface to the cold atmosphere." 



It is thus apparent that the opinion that the climate of the States 

 bordering the Atlantic on their first settlement, resembled that 

 now exhibited by Fort Snelling and Council Bluffs, is wholly gra- 

 tuitous and unsustained by facts. No accurate thermometrical 

 observations yet made in any part of the world, as already re- 

 marked, warrant the conclusion that the temperature of a locality 

 undergoes changes in any ratio of progression ; but conversely, 

 as all facts tend to establish the position that climates are stable, 

 we are led to believe that the changes or perturbations of tempe- 

 rature to which a locality is subject, are produced by some regu- 

 lar oscillations, the periods of which are to us unknown. That 

 climates are susceptible of melioration by the extensive changes 

 produced on the surface of the earth by the labors of man, has 

 been pointed out already ; but these effects are extremely subor- 

 dinate, compared with the modification induced by the striking 

 features of physical geography — the ocean, lakes, mountains, the 

 opposite coasts of continents, and their prolongation and enlarge- 

 ment toward the poles. 



But evenMalte-Brun has ventured the assertion, that "France, 

 Germany, and England, not more than twenty centuries ago, re- 

 sembled Canada and Chinese Tartary — countries situated, as well 

 as our Europe, at a mean distance between the equator and the 

 pole." This illustration is certainly very unhappy ; for, rejecting 

 the pretended antiquity of the Chinese — the fables in relation to 

 Fohi and Hoang-Ti, the former of whom, we are told, founded 

 the empire of China about five thousand years ago, we must, with 

 Malte-Brun, date its origin at least eight or nine centuries before 

 Christ. China should, therefore, possess a milder climate than 

 Europe, inasmuch as agriculture is represented to have been al- 

 ways in the most flourishing condition. As the practice of fal- 

 lowing is unknown, almost the whole arable land is constantly 



