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