8fll Diference of Climate. 



from winter to summer. While all was verdure at Cape 

 Prince of Wales in America, the opposite point of East Cape in 

 Asia was covered with eternal ice. A few hours sailing directly 

 to the west sank the thermometer from 59*^ to 43^ F. 



The general agent of the Oregon Society says, ' that the 

 climate on the shores of the Columbia river is remarkably 

 mild and healthful.' A person ignorant of the difierence of 

 climate between the two coasts of a continent, might naturally 

 enough look at his map, and having discovered what spot of 

 the eastern or Atlantic coast was of the same latitude as the 

 mouth of the Columbia river, he would infer the mean annual 

 temperature of the latter to be the same as that which he 

 knows the former to possess. He would be deceived in that 

 case, as in any other in which he would take parallels of lati- 

 tude to measure climates, without reference to numerous modi- 

 fying causes; among the chief of which, is the kind of expos- 

 ure just mentioned. 



In New California, on the Pacific ocean, they cultivate 

 with success the olive along the canal of Santa Barbara, and 

 the vine from Monterey to the north of the parallel of 37° 

 N. latitude, which is that of the country near the mouth of the 

 Chesapeake Bay. The mouth of the Columbia river, in lat. 44° 

 40' N. has a mean temperature of 55° F., the same as that of 

 Pekin, in China, on the opposite continent, in lat. 39° 54' N. 

 Philadelphia, on the eastern side of the continent, is in about 

 the same latitude as Pekin, or nearly five degrees farther 

 south than the mouth of the Columbia river, and yet its mean 

 temperature, 52° F., is three degrees less than that of the 

 latter. 



In corroboration of these views, for which we are indebted 

 to the celebrated traveller Humboldt, it may be mentioned, that 

 on the shores of the narrow channels of the Bosphorus and 

 Dardanelles, dividing Europe from Asia, the western coast of 

 the latter continent has a more genial climate than that of the 

 former. In the spring, says Wittman, vegetation is several 

 weeks more. advanced on the Asiatic than on the European 

 side, and the productions of the soil more vigorous and of 

 larger growth. 



So far, we see that marine exposures to the west appear to 

 give a milder climate ; and if we carry our investigations far- 

 ther, we shall find that the mean annual temperature of places 

 in the same latitude diminish as we advance to the east. 

 Thus Warsaw, the capital of Poland, has a less medium 

 temperature than Amsterdam, on the same line of latitude ; is 

 hotter in summer and colder in winter. Astrachaq, at the 

 mouth of the Volga, is nearly in the same latitude as Lyons. 



