INTRODUCTION. 
79 
Juty is 36°, (from 58° to 94°), and for the year 112°, (from — 18° to 
+ 94°). The contrast which these figures present to the corresponding 
data, (53°, 27° and 80°), for the only point of observation in North Car- 
olina which receives the same annual amount of heat, is very great. And 
if the absolute maxima and minima were compared, the result would be 
still more striking. Taking the highest and lowest accessible records for 
Dubuque in ten years, 99° and — 29°, (last winter it went to - — 35°), the 
absolute range rises to 130° ; while in Boone there is no record below 3° 
and none above 90°, so that the greatest absolute range is under 90°. 
And it is not greater for any part of the State. And those who have 
noticed the current weather reports of the last few years can hardly have 
failed to notice that during the prevalence of the most fearful cold for 
several days over the whole northern tier of States, 30°, 35° and 40° 
below zero, from Boston through New York to Iowa, the thermometer 
here in middle North Carolina scarcely reached the freezing point. And 
even during this present January, 1875, while the telegraph reports 20° 
to 25° below zero in various places north, the lowest record here in Raleigh 
during the same week is 27® above zero. 
And so in midsummer, while the daily telegraphic reports from the 
north show 98° and 100°, the thermometer ranges here from 90° to 93®, 
rarely reaching 95°. 
The importance of such climatic data to a proper understanding and 
estimation of the adaptation of a country or region to human industries 
and comfort and longevity, is only beginning to be appreciated. These 
are in fact the most important characteristics of climates, both as concerns 
vegetable and animal life, and it lias come to be recognized as a sani- 
tary fact of great importance that there is a most intimate relation between 
the death-rate in the human family and the range of the thermometer. 
“ The severity of the strain of extreme climates on the human system is 
shown in a striking manner in the rapidly increasing death-rate according 
as the difference between the July and January temperatures is increased. 
Thus the mortality is 8 per cent, greater in England than in Scotland, 
the climate of the latter country being more equable or insular in its 
character; and it is found on advancing into the Continent of Europe, 
that the more extreme the climate becomes, so much the more is the 
death-rate increased.” (Buchan). The same thing will no doubt be 
found in passing from the more littoral and equable climates of the Ameri- 
can shores into the rigorous conditions which prevail in the interior. 
Blodget says, in a very full discussion of the relations of disease to cli- 
mate, “ All forms of disease of the respiratory organs increase as the 
