of EcUnltirgh, Session 1883-84. 
4G7 
alteration on our seasons, may be doubtful. The only cheering fact 
which they disclose is that the first set of returns do not support 
the idea that the mean temperature in the olden time was higher than 
it is now. There are two sets of returns printed in the first volume 
of the Transactions^ one kept at Branxholm, from 1773 to 1783, 
communicated by the Duke of Buccleuch, who was the first Presi- 
dent of the Society, and the second by Mr Macgowan, kept at 
Hawkhill, near Edinburgh, from 1770 to 1776. In the first, the 
mean temperature of the ten years is 44°, in the second 45° — not a 
very genial retrospect. Things must have been somewhat dis- 
couraging for the farmers in 1782, for a paper is noticed in the 
second volume of the Transactions^ by Dr Bpebuck of Sheffield, 
who was the manager of the Carron Iron Works, recommending 
farmers not to cut their corn green in October, although there was 
ice three quarters of an inch thick at Borrowstounness, because corn 
would fill at a temperature of 43°. Things looked brighter from 
1794 to 1799, for which years we have results furnished by Play- 
fair. For the first three years, 1794, 1795, and 1796, the niean 
temperature was 48° ; and that although 1795 was one of the most 
severe winters on record, the thermometer having stood frequently 
several degrees below zero, and a continuous frost having lasted for 
fifty-three days. The mean temperature in 1794, however, was 50°. 
The account of the great frost of 1795, which is given in the 
Transactions, is well worth referring to. In the next three years 
the mean temperature Avas 48°, that of 1798 being 49°-28°. Of this 
year (1798) Playfair says that the climate of this part of the island 
hardly admits of a finer season. 
bio tables were furnished to the Society in continuation of those 
of Professor Playfair until 1830, Avhen fortunately Dr Barnes of 
Carlisle communicated to the Society a series of meteorological 
tables kept at Carlisle for the first twenty -four years of the century. 
The results seem mainly to concur with those of Professor Playfair. 
The mean temperature for the twenty-four years being 47°, being 
3 degrees higher than the average of the ten years from 1773 to 
1783 at Branxholm, and 2 degrees higher than the mean temper- 
ature of the years from 1770 to 1776 at Hawkhill. The highest 
temperature I have noted in these returns is that of May 1807, 
when the thermometer stood at 85° at Carlisle, and the heat on 
the 5th of August 1770, when the theimometer at Hawkhill Avas 
A^OL. XII. 2 H 
