DISTRICT OF CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORELAND. 
325 
this opinion, shows that the inhabitants enjoy a milder and more equable climate than 
those who reside in the open country. The town of Whitehaven, from its proximity 
to the sea on the west coast, is well known to have a much higher mean temperature 
than is due to its latitude ; it is also much less subject to those great and sudden 
fluctuations of heat and cold to which inland places are liable. Yet the mean 
temperature at Seathwaite, in the heart of the lake country, is only about 1°‘5 lower 
than with us. In 1847 and 1848 the mean temperature of Seathwaite was 47°’46 and 
47°’ 10, whilst at Kendal it was 46°‘67 and 46°'32 respectively. 
In winter, the mean of the night temperature is several degrees higher than at 
Cockermouth in the open plain, where the frost is much more severe. The indica- 
tions of the thermometer are in accordance both with the assertions of the residents 
and with my own observation ; for in travelling to the lakes, where the roads over the 
commons were frozen hard, I have often found them quite soft and clammy on arriving 
amongst the hills. 
These valleys not only have a higher winter temperature than many localities 
greatly to the south of them, but they very rarely experience those low extremes 
which not unfrequently occur in the southern counties of England. The mean 
temperature of the winter months at Chiswick, in Middlesex, is nearly the same as 
in the Lake District, whilst a much greater extreme of cold is frequently felt there 
than in the north. In the neighbourhood of the metropolis the thermometer some- 
times indicates a degree of cold almost unknown in these districts. Thus, on the 
night between the IJth and 12th of February 1847, the temperature at Greenwich 
fell to 6°, at Chiswick to 4°, and at Uckfield, Sussex, to 1° ; when at Seathwaite the 
minimum was 24°'5, and the minimum for the month 20°. 
The lakes, by absorbing heat in the summer and giving it out in the winter 
months, added to that radiated from the rocky mountain breasts, and, above all, the 
caloric evolved in a sensible form by the condensation of such enormous volumes of 
vapour, no doubt tend greatly to modify the climate of these sequestered localities. 
Temperature on Sea Fell . — Last summer I stationed a pair of Rutherford’s self- 
registering thermometers (previously compared with a standard) on the top of Sea 
Fell Pike ; they are suspended in a deal box, having the sides and base riddled with 
small circular holes, so that the instruments are freely exposed to the air, and at the 
same time thoroughly protected from the effects of terrestrial radiation. On the 
summit of the Pike is a cairn, or large pile of stones about 8 feet in height, having a 
stout pole in the centre, which projects about 2 feet above tbe top of the pile. To 
this pole the box containing the thermometers is firmly fixed. 
From the maximum thermometer I have never been able to obtain any correct 
readings, as, from some cause, the steel needle is always found at the extreme end of 
the stem, furthest from the bulb. I cannot account for this, unless indeed the fine 
steel needle is affected by electrical currents at such an extreme height in the clouds. 
The readings of the maximum thermometer would, however, have probably been of 
MDCCCXLIX. 2 u 
