Fahrenheit's thermometer in summer to 34° be

1815,

1835,

low zero in winter. In Massachusetts and Con- Jan. 31. necticut its common annual limits are 98° above zero, and 15° below. In Massachusetts 102° perhaps indicates the extreme of heat which has been experienced, and 20° below zero the extreme of cold. Once in the present century the mercury at New Haven in Connecticut has fallen to 25° below zero. The mean temperature of the year in Massachusetts varies between fortyfour and fifty-one degrees. Great changes are so sudden, that the mercury has been known to range, at

Boston, through forty-five degrees within twenty

1

Jan. 5.

1847,

April 22.

four hours. In a day within the last forty years, it rose twenty-seven degrees between seven o'clock in 1821, the morning and two in the afternoon, and fell Jan. 13. thirty-three degrees in the seven hours next succeeding. Nor was this anything more than a singular instance of such fluctuations. The common opinion that the climate has moderated since the time of the European settlements is probably erroneous.2

Rain and

Droughts, though not of unusual occurrence, are not often of great severity. At Cambridge, in Massachusetts, the average annual fall of rain is about droughts. forty-three inches; at Brunswick, in Maine,3 about forty inches; and at New Haven, in Connecticut, forty-four inches. The extremes in Massachusetts have been a fall of fifty-four and of thirty inches. In Maine, in two different years, it is recorded that 1757, 1763. snow fell to the depth of five feet upon a level. In twen

1 In the evening of March 4, 1856, it fell eight degrees, from 39° to 31°, in five minutes.

2 Remarks on the Climate of New England, by Mr. John C. Gray, appended to the First Annual Report of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, 147 et seq. Dr. Enoch Hale's Memoir, in the Memoirs of the American Acad

1850, 1846.

emy, New Series, I. 114 et seq. — Mr. Savage (Winthrop, History of New England, I. 119) favors the common opinion.

3 According to Williamson (History of Maine, I. 99), the average fall in Maine is thirty-seven inches, of which about one third part is in snow and hail. 4 Ibid., I. 100.

1825-1850.

ty-five years the extreme range of the barometer at Cambridge, in Massachusetts, was two inches and sixty-four hundredths. The summer heats are often allayed by tempests of thunder and lightning. Tornadoes occur but rarely. There is no appearance of volcanic formation. But from time to time there have been earthquakes, which have created alarm without being destructive. The most considerable, in the same month with the great earthquake at Lisbon, was observed to extend from Halifax, in Nova Scotia, to Chesapeake Bay. It shook down a hundred chimneys in Boston. It was the last that did any damage.

1755, Nov. 18.

Local dis

eases.

The great and sudden variations of temperature impair the salubrity of the climate, and in other respects the large features of geographical structure above described must be presumed to produce local modifications of its general character. The long winters of the highlands, their strong and dry northwest winds, and their cool summers, have an effect on the human frame different from that of the damp and chilly airs which, in company with the tides of icy water, descend upon the region that borders the eastern shore. The coast country of Rhode Island and Connecticut, out of the reach of the harsh currents, which are arrested or turned away by the projection of Cape Cod,3 and accessible instead to the softer influence of southern tides and gales, may be supposed to present another class of conditions of health. Yet such diversi

1 The most violent known to have occurred was that which passed through the towns of Waltham, West Cambridge, and Medford, August 22, 1851. An account of it by Professor Eustis is in the Memoirs of the American Academy, New Series, V. 169 et seq.

2 Professor Hitchcock rejects the opinion that "there are traces of volcanic action at Gay Head," on the Island of Martha's Vineyard. (Report on

the Geology of Massachusetts, 2d edit., p. 208. But comp. p. 431.)

3 The importance of this influence appears in the fact that, to a great extent, the fishes and mollusks are different on the two sides of the Cape. The meteorological journals which I have consulted for the course of the winds at Boston and at Providence are both deficient in respect to a few days' observations. From that kept at Boston it

ties are subordinate to a general uniformity, in which New England gives to all her children the birthright of a fair prospect of health and longevity. The configuration of the surface forbids the stagnation of masses of water, and the tides of the neighboring ocean, the snow on the hills, and the winds which the rapid changes of temperature keep in motion, are perpetual restorers of a wholesome atmosphere. In the absence of marshes diffusing noxious miasmata, intermittent fevers rarely occur.' Among the fatal maladies pulmonary consumption numbers most victims. Diseases of the nervous system are next in frequency. Malignant epidemic fevers, especially of the typhoid type, are of occasional occurrence. The partial returns in Massachusetts of 80,995 deaths, 1852-1855. in four years, showed 4,482 persons to have died at an age exceeding eighty. Of 20,798 whose deaths were registered in a recent year, ten were more than a hundred years old.

1855.

In less than two centuries and a half a different climate and regimen on this continent have produced in the descendants of the English some remarkable physiological changes. The normal type of the Englishman at home exhibits a full habit, a moist skin, curly hair, a sanguine temperament. In the transplanted race the form is oftener slender, the skin dry, the hair straight, the temperament bilious or nervous.

The agricultural season is short. Winter lasts through nearly half the year. In Massachusetts, the mean temperature of the eight cold months is less than

Agriculture.

forty degrees. That of the four warm months is nearly seventy. In storms the aspect of winter is austere. In fair weather it is brilliant, with its radiance of snow and ice reflecting sun or stars through a transparent atmosphere. No verdure but that of evergreens resists the annual cold, and an unmelted mass of snow often covers the ground for months. The late and sudden bursting forth of the spring severely tasks the laborer, while the rapid growth which follows surprises the traveller from a lower latitude. In years of average vernal temperature in Massachusetts, the ground is ready for the plough by the first week in April. The average blossoming of the apple is on the 16th of May. Grass is cut for drying between the middle of June and the middle of July. Indian corn is ripe in September. By the first week of November the last fruits of the year are gathered in. Some of the aspects of nature are of rare beauty. No other country presents a more gorgeous appearance of the sky than that of the New-England summer sunset; none, a more brilliant painting of the forests than that with which the sudden maturity of the foliage transfigures the landscape of autumn. No air is more delicious than that of the warm but bracing October and November noons of the Indian summer of New England.

Soil.

The soil generally is not fertile. There is a wide beach

of sand along the coast; in the interior, rocks

and gravel, with occasional veins of clay, cover a large part of the surface. The cultivation of more than two centuries has greatly improved the quality of those portions of the land which have convenient communication with markets. But most of the natural fruitfulness

1 Here too, however, differences occasioned by the inequalities of surface come into the account. In the opening of spring, the valley of the Connecticut is, on an average, a fortnight in advance of the highlands on its borders;

and snows cover the low lands as well as the hills of Berkshire weeks before it is seen, and after it has disappeared, in the meadows about Massachusetts Bay.

of the region was found in the valleys of the great rivers. The borders of the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the Connecticut, and other streams, enriched in past ages and still reinvigorated by the deposits of the annual overflow, exhibit a fecundity in strong contrast with the stony hill-sides. Massachusetts is the least fruitful of the six States. Maine, skirted by a barren shore, contains inland the largest proportion of good arable soil. The wide grazing lands of New Hampshire and Vermont send immense herds and flocks to the markets of the sea-coast.

Minerals.

There is no part of the country which is not well provided with fresh water. Numerous springs bring it to the surface, and an ample supply is everywhere to be procured by digging a few feet. Mineral wealth is still but partially developed. A little copper is found, some lead, some graphite, and considerable quantities of iron and of manganese. There are beds of an inferior description of anthracite coal. In Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, there are ample quarries of slate, and limestone abounds in Rhode Island and Maine. The granite and sienite of Eastern Massachusetts, the white marble of the western mountain range, and the sandstone of the Connecticut valley, are valuable materials for building, while the serpentine of Vermont and the variegated marbles of Connecticut have come into use for architectural embellishment. Here and there are medicinal springs, generally of a chalybeate quality. Salt is only to be had from sea-water.

The native grasses of the upland were rank, but so little nutritious that the European planters found Botany. it better to fodder their cattle on the salt growth of the sea-marshes; and this consideration determined

1 "The natural upland grass of the country, commonly called Indian grass, is poor fodder, perhaps not better, if so

good, as barley straw." (Hutchinson, History, I. 424, 426, 427.) The first settlers were deceived by its rankness,