TEMPERATURE, 69 
obtaining the general results desired; and some of them 
do not even embrace all the elements of the climatic. 
conditions of the locality. 
In the close of 1860 there were established five stations 
for meteorological observations on the coasts of Southern 
Norway, and some years later another was established at 
Dovre, in the interior of the country. In 1866 there was 
organised a Meteorological Institute; and additional 
stations were established ; and now fifty-five Norwegian 
stations send regularly their observations to the Institute. 
They are pretty equably distributed over the country, 
principally along the coasts; and several of the most 
recently established of them have communicated observa- 
tions of no small value in their bearing on the climatology 
of Norway. 
Meteorologists have on maps connected with a line 
places at which the mean—or, as many would call it, the 
average—temperature is the same. The lines thus pro- 
duced are called isothermal lines—lines of the same heat. 
‘It is found,—I quote Dr Balfour—‘that while at the 
equator these correspond nearly with the lines of latitude, 
as we recede from the equator the two are widely separ- 
ated. They run in curves, rising in their course from the 
east of America towards the west of Europe, and sinking 
towards the south in the interior of Europe. The yearly 
isotherm of 50° passes through the latitude of 42° 30’ on 
the east of America, 51° 30’ in England, 47° 30 in Hun- 
gary, and 40° in Eastern Asia. This want of conformity 
between the isothermal and latitudinal lines will be easily 
understood when we consider that a place having a mode- 
rate summer and winter temperature may have the same 
annual mean as one having a very cold winter and a very 
warm winter. But even this isothermal curve is not 
uniform: it is marked by numerous minor curves. 
According to Dr Broch, the isothermal lines in Norway 
follow as a general rule the configuration of the coasts, 
being affected, on the one hand, by the temperature of the 
