APPENDIX NO. XIII. 
427 
cess, aided by some calculation when necessary, and require no correc¬ 
tion to reduce them to the level of the sea. 
Referring to the map, the seasons have been separated in accordance 
with the custom of meteorologists, which arrangement holds good in 
these high latitudes, except for one anomalous month, March, belong¬ 
ing decidedly to the winter season. 
Examining first the winter months, December, January, and Feb¬ 
ruary, we recognise the meridian in the vicinity of 95° west of Green¬ 
wich as comparatively the coldest, a feature common to each of the 
three months. During February and March the curves, without any 
great change of form, have slowly descended to lower latitudes. 
During the same two months the temperature at Rensselaer Harbor 
is nearly tho same as at Melville Island, although the latter place is 
nearly 4° farther south. 
Spring opens with an anomalous and excessively cold month; yet 
it has, in common with the other two months, the preservation of the 
greatest cold at nearly the same meridian as noticed in the preceding 
season, this feature being well impressed upon every isotherm. While 
in March the mean temperature of Prince Patrick and Melville Islands 
has been considerably elevated, when compared with the previous 
month, it has as much been depressed at Rensselaer Harbor, where 
the atmosphere is found colder indeed than in any other month. A 
similar though less marked anomaly we find in the Wostenholm 
series, where the lowest temperature took place in February. 
At the openiug of summer the curves, before contracted longitudi¬ 
nally, widen, and a most rapid general increase of temperature takes 
place during this season. The summer months are characteristic for 
a decided circular bent in the isotherms, which in June was yet 
blended with the curvature of the previous month, but in July and 
August was apparently accommodating itself to the shore-line of Baf¬ 
fin’s Bay. Affected by this alteration in the form of the isotherms, 
the meridian of comparatively greatest cold has shifted almost 20° to 
the eastward, it being now found during the summer mouths in longi¬ 
tude 75°. While the temperature in general was still rapidly on the 
increase from May to June, the curves have but slightly ascended to 
higher latitudes during July and August, nearly with the same velo¬ 
city with which they had travelled in the opposite direction during the 
Months of January and February. In September a rapid decrease 
of temperature is observed, and continues through October and No¬ 
vember, but becoming less marked in December. While in Septem¬ 
ber the meridian of greatest cold is still in the vicinity of Baffin’s Bay, 
