127 
TEMPERATURE AND METEOROLOGY. 
Oue remarks, though hypothetical in appearance, are intended to have a purely 
useful and practical bearing. The present year, or, rather, the two last entire 
seasons of Winter and Spring— the former commencing with the cold weather of 
November — have presented so many striking phenomena, as not only to command 
reverential wonder, but to prove that the science of Meteorology possesses peculiar 
interest, and claims the full exercise of the gardener's observant and reflecting 
faculties. We do not propose to amuse and mystify by the assumption of prog- 
nostics; let any one retrace the absolute antagonism of the two last seasons, 
commencing with the third week of November in each year, and reflect that the sun 
rose at the same moment, that his course throughout the several days of any given 
period, and his meridian altitude, were identical, and the fallacy of prediction must 
be self-evident. Yet causes, agencies — active and unerring — there must have been, 
to produce the almost exceptionless warmth of the former season, and the steadfast, 
abiding rigours of the latter ! The gardener had to contend with the several 
opposed contingencies of these two seasons ; he felt, and suffered by, the damp, the 
gloom, and unnatural mildness of 1845 — 6, succeeded as they were by myriads of 
insect marauders ; and independent of these perplexing results — strange as it may 
appear to the uninitiated — he found it more difficult to govern and regulate his 
machinery for producing heat than during the intensity of the late season, which 
did not finally terminate till the 6 th of May. It is a fact established by experience, 
that any measured or weighed quantity of a combustible does not communicate so 
much heat to a dwelling, or forcing-house, during mild, gloomy weather, and a 
southerly wind, as in a diametrically opposite condition of the atmosphere. Yet 
philosophers tell us that the chemical modification of the air, as respects its constituent 
gases (oxygen and nitrogen), are everywhere and always the same ; also that the 
oxygen is the sole exciting and supporting cause of combustion. The development 
of heat and light is one of the most profound mysteries of the universe ; yet modern 
discoveries have paved the way for investigation, as we shall concisely endeavour to 
prove, after observing, as a leading fact, that the heat of the sun, when passing 
through glass into a plant-house, diffuses heat with perfect equability, whether its 
beams pass unobstructed through that transparent, refracting medium, or are 
softened by the intervention of some light screen. Our heating machinery, whatever 
be the material employed — operating by radiation — acts unequally ; as thermometers 
suspended in various situations but too clearly evince, by the very different degrees 
of heat which they indicate. It therefore becomes the interest and duty of every 
one whose aim it is to expose errors, and to promote the science of Horticulture, to 
seize upon, and make known, any fact that bears the resemblance of truth. Thus, 
in reference to the sun, a modern lecturer has said — " We commonly consider the 
