8o baker's north YORKSHIRE. 



The surface of a sea, it is well-known, always becomes cooled 

 and heated much less rapidly than the surface of the earth. 

 The Gulf Stream carries across the Atlantic a current of heated 

 water from subtropical to high northern latitudes. For Europe 

 the north-east and the south-west are the two great contending 

 winds, the former being the cold polar and the latter the warm 

 equatorial current. And it is the modification which these 

 influences combined exert in disturbing the normal relations of 

 temperature to latitude that gives York a summer of I.apland and 

 a winter of Northern Italy or, as we should perhaps rather say, 

 Umea the summer of York and Milan the winter of York. And 

 we have in the climate of Britain upon a small scale the same 

 modification exemplified that we have in the climate of Europe 

 upon a grand scale, the south-east more continental, the south- 

 west comparatively insular in its range of variation, and the north 

 of England intermediate between them. 



At York the North-west, the wind which blows from the 

 highest parts of the Pennine chain, is the coldest and the other 

 two winds which conspicuously lower the temperature are, as 

 might be expected, the North and the North-east. The North- 

 east is the most prevalent wind in March, and it is frequent 

 through April till July, but it would seem that before it reaches 

 the vale of York its bitterness is somewhat broken by the 

 eastern hills. The South-west for the year taken as a whole, is 

 at once the warmest and most frequent of the winds. The West 

 is the next highest in point of temperature and the East is high 

 in Summer and Autumn ; and these three with the South all 

 upon the average elevate the temperature. 



It is probable that the temperature of the rest of the low 

 country throughout the Riding does not vary greatly from that 

 of York ; and that the differences which exist will be regulated 

 by the exposure of any particular spot to the sun's influence 

 and its position with regard to the hill masses. No doubt 

 the temperature of the level part of Cleveland will be lower 

 than that of York, bounded as it is by a range of high hills 



