CLIMATE. 
385 
Winter on the 21st June, when the sun is furthest north. Twice 
during the year the sun is vertical — on the 5th February and the 
6th November. 
The length of day is very uniform throughout the year, the longest, 
occurring on December 21st, being thirteen hours two minutes’ dura- 
tion ; and the shortest, the 2 1st J une, being eleven hours eight minutes, 
exactly the opposite of what occurs in England. Spring is charac- 
terized by a minimum temperature of 5 5 * 5°, and a maximum of 68°, 
with bright, sunny, cheerful weather, occasionally varied by fresh 
and gentle showers ; while the oaks, bursting out into full leaf, with 
gorse, mimosas, buddlea, and other plants, in full blossom, min- 
gling" their delicious perfumes with the fragrance of the newly- 
mown hay, give to the season much of the charming character of 
an English spring. Summer is marked by hotter weather, the 
thermometer reaching as high as 72'8° on the high land, and 82'6° 
in Jamestown. The vegetation of the lower land becomes scorched 
up, and heavy tropical rains occur about the month of March. The 
chief sign of autumn is the fall of the leaf, which occurs with the 
oak and some other exotic plants with as much regularity as it 
does in England, the temperature becoming less, with small drizzling 
rains, usually called Scotch mists, dux-ing the month of J une. In 
the winter, the temperature falls to 53‘2°, the weather becomes 
squally, wind and rain both increasing, until on the high land fires 
become not only bearable, but necessary, both for personal comfort 
and for the preservation of property from ruin by damp and mould. 
The climate of James’ valley during the summer months is not 
agreeable ; it is then and there that the only approach to really hot 
weather is experienced. 
It is easy to imagine the indignation of some wayfaring visitor 
to Jamestown, after having passed — not slept, for sleep is often 
out of the question — a night there, restless from ‘heat, and 
worried by mosquitoes ; but the climate of the town must not 
be considered in any way a type of that of the Island generally. 
The atmosphere of the town is so completely influenced by local cir- 
cumstances, that it is altogether different from the rest of the Island. 
Built in one of those deep, narrow, water-cut ravines which trans- 
versely intersect the leeward coast, and enclosed between two huge ba- 
saltic hills, sloping up at angles of about 35° to a height of eight or 
ten hundred feet, it becomes, when the sun has heated them by day, 
