TEMPERATURE OF SOILS. 
231 
Labor, directed with intelligence, or guided by a full knowledge of facts, may overcome 
great and serious difficulties. 
Each district is underlaid by rocks unknown in the others, and which in each case have 
something peculiar. Thus the Highland district is underlaid by primary rocks ; the 
Eastern district, by the taconic rocks ; the Third district, by rocks of the Champlain divi¬ 
sion ; the Western, by the Ontario and Helderberg divisions ; the Southern, by the shales 
and sandstones of the Erie division ; the Atlantic, by sea sands. In each there enters some 
gelogical element, and this modifies the respective productions of the district. The clas¬ 
sification is also geographical, and hence convenient for reference ; and the geography too 
has its influence, which is clearly seen in the length of the winters of the northern, when 
compared with the middle and southern parts of the State. Height is another element 
that must not be lost sight of. Climate, which is intimately connected with elevation, is a 
complex condition, and must also be studied as one of the controlling conditions affecting 
the husbandry of the State. 
VI. TEMPERATURE OF SOILS. 
As the atmosphere has its own climate, so the soils have theirs, which is not, however, 
independent of that of the air, but has probably a fixed relation, and is controlled by it. 
The temperature of a place, if derived from observations taken just beneath the surface, 
would be found to vary in its mean several degrees. 
The climate of the soil has not, so far as we have observed, been determined for any 
latitude : indeed we do not know that any observations have been made upon the subject. 
We shall here give a few observations of our own ; they may be regarded as a beginning 
of an inquiry, which may result in something at least interesting if not useful. There are 
certain conditions of the soil, which modify its temperature, irrespective of place or height. 
The principal modifying condition is water. The influence of this is well known, and the 
popular opinion here is correct: wet lands are said to be cold ; the application of the thermo¬ 
meter proves it, and this coldness is found to arise from a superabundance of water. The 
coldness in question depends upon the property of evaporation : water, in passing from a 
liquid form to that of vapor, takes caloric from the surrounding bodies ; and hence where 
this process goes on rapidly, the surface will be kept cold by the loss of heat required to 
convert a liquid into a vapor. 
The following observations were made in this city, upon soil which is always slightly 
shaded, or which never receives the direct rays of the sun. The bulb of the thermometer 
was usually placed about seven inches below the surface. The place for inserting it was 
