CLIMATE. 289 
August, +16°06 deg. Cent. 
September, - +10°72 5 
October, - - +5°60 3 
November, 0°14 $5 
December, : 3°88 5 
‘This relatively mild climate Finland owes to the seas 
which surround it; as these are never frozen throughout 
their whole extent the winds traversing them during 
autumn and winter come upon the country with a tepid 
heat, and as a matter of fact it is only by the higher 
temperature of winter that Finland differs from places 
situated more to the east under the same parallel. While - 
the isothermal lines are almost the same for Finland as for 
the Governments of Archangel and Olonetz, the isochime- 
nal lines, on the contrary, descend directly towards the 
south, so that Uleaborg has in winter the same mean tem- 
perature as Saratoff, and Helsingfors and Abo the same as 
Astrachan. We do not mean to intimate that the winters 
of Finland are not severe. A temperature of —30° centi- 
grade is at Helsingfors mdeed a rare thing, but it 
is not an extraordinary thing; and at Tornea it happens, 
if not every year, at least many times in every decade, 
that mercury freezes in the thermometer. 
‘There is a considerable difference between the climate 
of the coast and that of the interior. The coast, influenced 
immediately by the waters of the sea, which, heated in 
summer, lose slowly their high temperature, but which, 
once frozen, regain it slowly, and coo] down warmer winds 
coming from the west and the south; in consequence of 
this the change is much less sudden on the coasts than it 
is in the interior. At Helsingtors, for example, vegetation 
is much more tardy than at ‘Tavastehus, which is more to 
the north ; but, on the other hand, the trees there retain 
their foliage much longer, and the sea is there free of ice 
many weeks after the lakes around Tavastehus are frozen. 
‘The proximity of the sea occasions also in Finland a 
considerable rainfall. Observations made at Helsingfors 
give an average of 160 days of rain per annum, and the 
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