Caleb Airoater on the Winds of the West, 285 



three degrees of latitude, and 100 feet greater elevation pro- 

 duce three weeks difference in the seasons ? Is there that dif- 

 ference between Baltimore in Maryland, and Wilkesbarre in 

 Pennsylvania ? Is there that difference between New- York 

 and Fort Edward on the Hudson ? It is believed that there is 

 jiot one half that difference. 



I have referred but little to thermometers, because they are 

 kept in so many different situations by their owners, that I 

 have known no less than 8 degrees of difference between se- 

 veral of them kept in one town, within almost a stone's throw 

 of each other, at one and the same moment of time. 



Every allowance being made for other causes, I am still of 

 the opinion that the difference in the climates of the Ohio and 

 lake regions of country, is to be attributed chiefly to the pre- 

 valence of different currents of air. The southern current 

 rarely, if ever, reaches the northern lakes, and the northern, 

 until lately, never reached the Gulf of Mexico. But as the 

 country is cleared of its native forests, we may reasonably 

 conclude this cold current of air will prevail more and more, 

 until we shall have snow enough for sleighs, at least two months 

 in every winter ; the summers will be shorter, the extremes of 

 heat and cold will be greater than at present, and those clouds 

 which formerly obscured the sun almost continually during the 

 summer months, will be chased away, and with them the pale 

 cheek, the sallow hue, the oppression at the breast, and the 

 difficulty of respiration, the headache, and the thousand ills 

 which many of the first emigrants have experienced in our 

 climate. We shall probably then have fewer diseases, and 

 more acute ones. The storms will probably be fewer, more 

 severe, and not continue as long as at present. There are still 

 further views which might be taken of this subject, but they 

 are left to abler pens and future observations. 



Thus I have endeavoured to give my opinion on a subject 

 of some interest to the present, as well as future generations ; 

 in doing which, I have not sought for flowers which might have 

 been gathered by stepping out of my path, but the fruit rather 

 of my own observation and experience : I have not wandered 



