UNITED STATES. 



this is the most elevated point of the great platform; 

 a circumstance totally inconsistent with the law of 

 elevations. 



The descriptions that have been given me (says 

 Volney) of the Winter throughout Genessee do not 

 correspond with the coldness of this season in the 

 parallel of Vermont, or of New Hampshire, but 

 rather with the climate of Philadelphia, three de- 

 grees farther south.* In the latter city it has been 

 remarked as singular, that frosts occur there in 

 every month cf the year, except July ; and to meet 

 with a place similarly circumstanced in Genessee, we 

 must go as far as the village of Oneida, in the lati- 

 tude of 43 deg. v/hileon the east of the mountains, at 

 Albany, no month of the year is exempt from frost, 

 and neither peaches nor cherries will ripen. 



Lastly, at Montreal, in tlie latitude of 45 deg. 20 

 min. the cold is less severe, and of shorter continu- 

 ance, than m that part of Maine and Nova Scotia, 

 whicli is east cf the mountains; and the snow does 

 not remain on the ground at Pvlonireal so long, by two 

 months, as at Quebec, though it is higher up the 

 river ; which also is contradictory to the law of ele- 

 vations, and indicates some other cause, that remains 

 to be discovered. 



* Volney was ri^s'^dy iiiibnned. The climate of the Genessee 

 ccvintry is much rni]der than the eastern states. According to a de- 

 scription of the tracts put)]isbed in 1799^ it appears, that cattle are 

 ^unied out during the Vv^inter....the tender peach-tree is never killed 

 hj the frost, ...mills are never stopped, if a trif. ing precaution be used 

 ....and the thermometer, in 1796 - 7, at Bath, in Steuben county, was 



iVom il to 13 degrees highec than at Lancaster, in Pennsylvania 



This superior mildness of climate is ov/ing to the great bodies of fresh 

 xrater ca the uoxih and north-west; witliout a mountain intervening. 



