178 



Mr. Hinds on Climate in connexion 



mer succeeds, it is to run into the opposite excess of oppress- 

 ive heat. The changes from heat to cold and vice verm are 

 extremely rapid, so that the spring and autumn to be expected 

 in these latitudes are obliterated in the rapid transitions of 

 summer and winter. The climate has not been found par- 

 ticularly healthy, arising, no doubt, from the exposure in the 

 clearings of a soil containing much vegetable matter in de- 

 composition. Vegetation is very active ; immediately on the 

 breaking up of the winter the trees put forth their buds, and 

 herbaceous plants spring rapidly into existence. Some little 

 cultivation is now taking place at Ascension, which is yearly 

 increasing ; about fifty acres have been broken up, and small 

 as the quantity is, a notable change is said to have been pro- 

 duced by it on the climate. Rain is become more frequent 

 than formerly ; and though there is no mention of the altered 

 temperature, the circumstance of an increased deposition of 

 moisture bespeaks a change in the range of the thermometer. 

 In Canada it is also generally allowed, that the climate has 

 become milder since the disappearance of the forests from any 

 extent of surface. 



Many instances might be mentioned where the removal of 

 forests has greatly lessened the quantity of rain ; and every 

 one of the West India islands would furnish examples, with 

 the consequent disappearance of streams and mountain-tor- 

 rents. Supposing the circumstances of evaporation to remain 

 the same, — and surely the removal of vegetation is not likely to 

 increase it, rather the contrary, — the only cause to which the 

 greater rarity of rain is attributable, is the higher standard 

 which the low ranges of temperature have taken. In Europe, 

 where cultivation has been very extensively practised, the cli- 

 mate is certainly warmer than formerly ; and if we trust to 

 the accounts left us by the historian Tacitus of the circum- 

 stances of a German winter, the changes have indeed been 

 great. At the present day, in those parts of Europe where 

 forests exist, as in Germany and Poland, their influence is 

 distinctly felt. In their vicinity the harvest is not so advanced 

 by several days, and a corresponding decrease of temperature 

 is noticed. 



Among the controlling causes of temperature, the relative 

 distribution of land and water is not the least important or 

 interesting. In the ocean originate the peculiarities of an 

 island-climate, conferring an atmosphere laden with moisture 

 and limited in its range of temperature, and forming a subject 

 of great attraction to the geographic botanist; its influence 

 over continents is also great. We trace its outline into deep 

 gull's and seas, separating large masses of land from each 



