278 SUMMER AND WINTER. [Cuar. XV. 
the sea, however, in this part of the empire, has a 
tendency to check the extremes of both heat and 
cold; but these are much greater in the northern 
interior. The northerly winds in the winter and 
spring months are severely cold in the south of 
China; indeed, I have suffered more from cold at 
Hong-kong and Macao in the month of February, 
than I have ever done in England. 
At Shanghae, in the province of Keangsoo, in 
latitude 31° 20’ north, the extremes of heat and cold 
are much greater than what we experienced in the 
southern provinces. Through the kindness of Dr. 
Lockhart, who kept up my meteorological tables 
during my absence in different parts of the country, 
I have obtained a very complete set of observations 
for nearly two years. From these it appears that 
in July and August the heat is the greatest; the 
thermometer in the shade sometimes standing for 
several days at 100° of Fahrenheit. The heat 
during these days was almost insupportable to 
Europeans, who, when I was in Shanghae, were 
obliged to live in Chinese houses, which, from their 
construction, were ill calculated to exclude the 
heat. In the end of October the thermometer 
sometimes sinks as low as the freezing point. In 
the evening of the 28th of that month, in 1844, 
the remains of the cotton and other tropical plants 
which are cultivated in the fields during the 
summer, were destroyed by frost. December, 
January, and February are the coldest months in 
