PROFESSOR FORBES ON THE CLIMATE OF EDINBURGH. — 343 
_mean temperature from the average of fifty-six years. The succeeding columns 
show, First, the range of the monthly means within one and the same year. 
Secondly, the approximate date of the maximum temperature of summer, deduced 
from the monthly means, on which some remarks have already been made in 
Art. 41. Thirdly, the highest and lowest mean temperature of any day in each 
year, with the dates (the Dunfermline observations not included). Fourthly, the 
extreme temperatures occurring in any year, with the dates (confined to the 
period for which self-registering instruments were used). The highest individual 
temperature noted in the twenty-eight years 1822-1850, was 87°, on the 24th 
and 26th June 1826, and on the 17th June 1839; and the lowest, 5°, occurred 
on the 31st January 1845 and the 29th January 1848. 
50. It will easily be seen that the second, fourth, and fifth columns afford the 
means of supplying the approximate constants for the curve of each year denoted 
by A, B, and w,, in the note to Art. 35, and in§ 6, below. It might be wished that 
these constants were compared in several moderately distant localities (for example 
over Europe), to see how far the characteristic features of any season may be 
held to extend. By this means it might even be possible, after ascertaining the 
proportional constants for each season, to infer the characters of the climate of 
“any locality from a few years’ observation only. Even were this method appli- 
cable to so limited an area as that of Great Britain, it might be of great use in 
‘generalizing meteorological results. 
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