The Philosophy of the Weather Part 31

TABLE VIII.

--------------------------------------------------- 1855. JANUARY FEBRUARY. MARCH. APRIL.

--------------------------------------------------- Key West 67.18 65.94 70.28 75.09 Mean 66.58 68.88 72.88 75.38 Fort Snelling 17.09 12.62 25.30 49.86 Mean 13.76 17.57 31.41 46.34 Fort Kearney 23.55 25.69 32.86 54.39 Mean 21.14 26.11 34.50 47.13 Fort Laramie 35.85 29.01 36.41 52.94 Mean 31.03 32.60 36.81 47.60 Fort Arbuckle 41.94 39.86 49.09 67.43 Mean 39.10 43.69 53.22 61.85 Fort Belknap 45.92 44.49 53.09 70.00 Mean 42.80 47.47 56.90 65.79 Fort Chadbourne 48.89 45.87 56.68 68.51 Mean 44.29 46.75 58.01 65.52 Fort McKavitt 46.74 44.51 53.66 67.05 Mean 44.75 46.87 57.39 66.25 Fort Merrill 54.51 54.65 61.82 74.50 Mean 54.82 57.20 68.66 73.27 Fort Brown 60.23 61.60 66.24 74.98 Mean 60.41 63.63 68.95 75.05 Fort Inge 52.21 50.63 61.22 74.48 Mean 49.46 55.39 62.63 68.02 ---------------------------------------------------

The return transit to the south for this winter, 1855-6, has been an extreme one. It is too early yet (Feb. 18th) to write its history, but the extreme southern transit is as obvious as the unusual severity of the cold. The rains which usually fall upon the Southern States are precipitated further south upon the West Indies, and threaten a deterioration of their sugar crop. The snow, and cold winds, and ice, of the middle lat.i.tudes, are felt even in Florida. Our sheet of counter-trade has been exceedingly thin, and the barometer has ranged, in fair weather, much below the mean. Occasional, and for a part of the time, _weekly_ periods of an increase of its volume, with a corresponding elevation of the barometer, and a consequent moderation of the intense cold, and a storm, have occurred. But those periods have been few and brief. No regular thaw has yet occurred. From the 26th of December to this date, at Norwalk, there have been but two periods when the wind has blown from the south-west with sufficient force to stir the limbs of the trees.

There has been no wind from south of that point, or east of north-east; and even our storm-winds, with one exception, have been north of north-east--owing to the situation of the focus of precipitation far to the south of us--and there is reason to fear that a cold summer like those of 1816 and 1836 may follow. If this extreme transit is owing to defect in the influence of the sun, from spots, or other causes, such will probably be the result. If from volcanic action at the south, the influence of that action may cease, and a rapid return transit, and an ordinary season, may follow. Believing in the laws of periodicity in relation to the weather and disease, I planted an early kind of corn (the Dutton), in 1836, and had a crop when few around me succeeded. We must watch this return transit, with hope, indeed, but not without fear, and be wise in time.

There is a ma.s.s of other evidence in these summaries which shows the truth of what I have written. There is not a deduction of Mr. Blodget which it will not explain. The ascent of the summer lines of temperature to the west is explained by the diminution of magnetic intensity. Their descent in winter by the location and attractions of the concentrated trade. The excess of precipitation in Alabama and Mississippi by the succession of summer and winter belts. That of the interior of the Atlantic slope in summer, by the showers which fall upon the elevations; and of the coast, by the easterly storms and their attraction of the surface atmosphere of the ocean, at other seasons. But I cannot further particularize. Even the influence of the spots is clearly demonstrated by the observations at _interior stations_, which were unaffected by contiguous oceans or elevations. At Forts Was.h.i.+ta, Gibson, Scott, Smith, and others, the years 1847 and 1848 were below the mean. All that evidence, and those deductions, however, I must pa.s.s by for want of s.p.a.ce, and take leave of the subject.

Footnotes:

[1] See the diagram for summer at page 55.

[2] Law of Storms, p. 42.

[3] Kearakakua Bay (called Cavrico above), is on the S. W. side of the island, and the trade was reversed during the day by the cloud condensation inland.

[4] Lieutenant Wilkes spent twenty days upon the top of this or an adjoining mountain, and his observations there will be alluded to in another connection.

[5] All attempts to produce this result by the sudden exhaustion of air about the chickens in receivers, or shooting them from cannons, have failed, and no patent for a chicken-picker has been applied for.

[6] A meter is 1 yard, and .0936 of a yard.

[7] See his map, accompanying the Geography of the Sea.

[8] See Am. Jour. of Science, New Series, Vol. 18. p. 187.

[9] Their estimate was 100 to 120 miles.

[10] Since the text was in type, and, as might have been antic.i.p.ated, we have intelligence confirmatory of this, from the Cape De Verde Islands.

The inter-tropical belt of rains has not moved as far north as the northern islands--they have had no rain--and the people are in a starving condition.