37 



public moneys supplied for their support ; and especially if the apparatus 

 wore furnished them by the state. ■ ' ' 



PECULIARITIES OF CLIMATE. 



People are apt to look upon the climatical, zones of the earth as identical 

 with the zones of latitude, or but slightly varied from that relation. Hence 

 we often hear the expression of one place lying in the same latitude as an- 

 other, as meaning that the two have a similar climatology. This is only 

 true when all other relations are identical, and not otherwise. Two coun- 

 tries on the same parallel, equally elevated, equally distant from the sea, on 

 the same side of a continent, exposed to wind of the same character for tem- 

 perature and aridity, and influenced by the same kind of ocean currents, will 

 have an identical climatology ; so two islands in the same mid-ocean, as in 

 the great Pacific, will be alike in climate. But change any of these condi- 

 tions and the whole climatology is changed. 



The island of Ireland and Newfoundland lie in the same latitude, one on 

 the west and the' other on the east side of a continent, in the region of the 

 same prevailing west winds. In Ireland the thermometer seldom goes below 

 the freezing point, or rises above 66 degrees. There the west wind comes 

 from the warm ocean, and moisture falls in the form of rain; and the mead- 

 ows and pastures are always green. In Newfoundland the west wind in win- 

 ter comes frbm a continent, chilled by passing over high snow covered moun- 

 tains, and severe cold and snows wrap the country more than half the year 

 in the embrace of winter. 



The change is the same or still' greater when one country lies on the coast 

 of the ocean and the other far itiland ; thus Wisconsin, with the same lati- 

 tudinal position as the four northern New England States, has much hotter 

 summers and colder winters tha.n the corresponding latitudes of those states. 



The climatographers, from a series of thermometrical observations at dif- 

 ferent places through years, and from the temperature of the water drawn 

 from wells of the same depth beneath the surface, have established the aver- 

 age temperature of a large number of places upon the earth's surface, for 

 the year and for the different seasons of the j'ear. Comparing these with 

 each other and joining those places which correspond, isothermal lines have 

 been drawn. These isotherms for different seasons of the year, differ from 

 and cross eSch other. This is particularly the case in this state ; and ac- 

 counts for some of the peculiarities of our vegetable productions. 



Although many observations have been already taken at different places 

 in the state of Wisconsin ; and the record of them has been preserved ; yet 

 many more at these and otherplaces all over the state, ought to be taken be- 

 fore there would be sufficient to determine all that is required to be known 

 to designate all the peculiarities of climate in different parts of Wisconsin. 

 These observations ought to be taken in as many towns as practicable, and 

 continued for a long series of years ; while they should be reduced at least 



