CLIMATE, HUMID AND TEMPERATE. 15l 
Chapter IT. 
“ For surely the country is temperate, and freed from extremi¬ 
ties of cold by the vicinity of the sea, which causeth a moderate 
warmth; through whose working, the frosts and snows are not here 
so piercing, nor of such continuance as in the inland countries. 
Indeed the furious gusts of wind in the winter season, rowling 
upon the high hills and upon the moors, make the air cold, and 
by their boisterous assaults, tyrannize, keeping down hedges 
and trees as if shorn.” 
Risdon’s Devon. 
It falls to the lot of naturalists resident in this 
maritime locality to record a climate of such a vary¬ 
ing character, as to defy the formation of many 
rules or characteristics. It is uncertain from day 
to day, and uncertain as respects a given period in 
its annual return. 
In the first place, by means of our proximity to 
the sea, and the prevalence of winds from that 
quarter particularly also in the cold season, we have 
a climate remarkable for humidity, and as this same 
wind comes from a surface varying much less than 
the land in point of temperature, it confers upon us 
a climate remarkable also for uniformity as regards 
the mean of the annual heat. Commonly speaking 
the extremes are not great, they are prevented 
probably from departing much from the average 
temperature by the cause just named; by the 
fact of the soil being generally stiff and hard, 
