110 Contributions to Meteorology. 



produce a very rapid evaporation, while the severe frosts of our 

 winters might be turned to account for the concentration of the 

 water by freezing, as is practised in northern Russia. Expe- 

 riments would enable us to determine how far the concentration 

 can be carried during the winter months, and whether this pro- 

 cess could be advantageously employed during the cold season, 

 in preparing strong brines for the summer. The sulphates of 

 magnesia and soda, and the potash salts, would find a ready mar- 

 ket in England, if the consumption of carbonate of soda and soda- 

 ash in the province should not be found sufficient to warrant the 

 establishment of furnaces for the manufacture of these alkalies in 

 the country. 



In the construction of a saline it would be necessary to choose 

 a locality where there is a considerable extent of nearly level surface 

 between the lines of high and low water. High embankments 

 would be necessary to protect the evaporating ground against th<i 

 tides of our coasts, but these once constructed, the high tides 

 would ena' ile us to fill reservoirs at such an elevation as would 

 carry the water by its own gravity through a series of basins, and 

 thus dispense, in a great measure at least, with the elevating ma- 

 chines employed in the salines of the Mediterranean. 



I have given these suggestions, and have entered into many de- 

 tails of the process of working the salines, from a conviction of 

 the great importance of this industry as now developed in France, 

 and from a hope that some persons may be induced to inquire 

 whether these processes may not be economically applied upon 

 our own coasts. 



T. S. H. 



ARTICLE XII. — Contributions to Meteorology, reduced from 

 Observations taken at St. Martins, Isle Jesus, County of 

 Laval, Canada East. By Charles Smallwood, M.D., 

 L.L.D., Professor of Meteorology, University of McGill Col- 

 lege. 



These observations extend over the past year (1857). The geo- 

 graphical co-ordinates of the place are, latitude 45° 32' north, 

 and longitude 75° 36' west from Greenwich. The cisterns of the 

 barometers are 118 feet above the mean sea-level. The instru- 

 ments are standard ones, and are verified at suitable seasons. 

 The results are reduced from tri-daily observations, taken at 



