246 



ALASKA. 



Meuorological ahatrdct, i^-c. — Continued. 



Month of record. 



Januaiy. 



Febraary, 



March. 



April. 



Masimam relative humidity 



Minimum relative humidity 



Prevailing wind 



Number of miles traveled by wind 



Mean daily velocity of wind 



^ean hourly velocity of wind 



Maximum hourly velocity of wind 



Proportion of cloudiness 



Amount of rain-fall, in inches 



Greatest daily amount of rain-fall 



Amount of melted hail and snow, (in- 

 cluded in rain-fall) 



Number of days on which precipitation 

 occurred 



!N"umber of days on which hail or snow 

 fell 



100 

 53 

 E. N. E. 

 17, 903 

 577.5 

 24.1 

 43 



62.8 



0.96 



.39 



.83 



21 



20 



100 

 49 

 X 

 16, 646 

 594.3 

 24.8 

 82 

 74.9 

 5.78 

 1.07 



4,87 



27 



25 



100 

 46 



jr. 



14,512 



468.1 

 19.5 

 88 

 68 

 1.21 

 .38 



1.21 



27 



27 



100 

 63 



N. 

 18, 607 

 620.2 

 25.84 

 .53 

 73.6 

 1.77 

 .60. 



1.7T 



Note. — It will be noticed that I have not spelled the name Behring in accordance with 

 the usual custom observed by English writers, who have tbns given the phonetic value of 

 the Sclavonic characters used by the Eussians in writing the name of this celebrated navi- 

 gator ; hut by reference to the following statement made by Professor Gill, of the Con. 

 gressional Library, it will be seen that the name in question may properly be spelled 

 ".Bm?i£r." Professor Gill says : " The name of the navigator which has been conferred on 

 the strait separating' America and Asia, is unquestionably spelled' Berixg and not Behring, 

 I submit, in explanation, my reasons : 1st. The navigator himself was born in Jutland, and 

 a scion of a Danish family, whose members bore the name of Bering, and two represent- 

 atives of which had the same Christian name, viz, (1) Titus Bering, born 1617, died 1675, 

 some time professor of poetry at Copenhagen, and (2) Vitus Bering, born 1682, died 1753, a 

 priest of OUerup and Kirkeby. The form Behring, so far as I can ascertain, is unknown 

 in Denmark, (see Nyerup's Dansk-Norsk Litteratur-lexicon, v. i, pp. 56, 57, 1818.) 2d. The 

 form Bering is almost (but not quite) universally adopted in all non-English works ; for 

 example. Biographic Universelle, (Michand,) v. 4, p. 261, 1811, also, nouv. ed., v. 4, p. 28, 1854 ; 

 Nouvelle Eiographie GfinSrale, (Hoefer,) v. 5, p. 527, 1855 ; Allgemeine Encyclopadie der 

 "Wissenschaften und Kiinste, (Ersch und Gruber,) v. 9, p. 136, 1822 ; Neues Konversations- 

 Lexicou, (Meyers,) v. 3, p. 238, 1862 ; Deutsch-Amerikanisches Conversations-Lexicon, 

 (Schem,) v. 2, p, 296, 1869, and numerous others. The exceptional cases, e. g. Pierer'a Uni- 

 versal Lexicon, Grande Dictionnaire Universelle du six. si^ele, &c. In English dictionaries,, 

 the true form Bering is adopted in the Brief Biographical Dictionary, by Holes, 1865, and 

 the Dictionary of Biographical Reference, by Phillips, 1871, and is gradually superseding 

 the more familiar English form. An explanation of the reason of the origin of the name 

 Behring is found in the fact that it was originally derived from the Kussian, without a 

 knowledge of its primitive source, and was the nearest English phonetic expression of the 

 iRussian characters. Inasmuch, however, (1) as the original form of a name, without re- 

 gard to its pronunciation, is universally adopted in our biographies and bibliographies, and 

 (2) as the original form of the navigator's name was Bering, such is the correct one, and 

 that which must ultimately supersede the other. It need only be added that Bering him- 

 self, and the Ku.ssians universally, (?) adopt that form when writing in English charactersy 

 and that the Kuasian letter ('e') in his name, represented by 'M,' is especially ordained by 

 the Unssians to be rendered by the Latin character ' e,' in accordance with the pronuneiar 

 tion of the Latin and continental races generally." 



