The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-06-05 00:00:00

CLIMATE.

Though Guiana is situated on the torrid zone, it enjoys
comparatively a more temperate climate than other countries
under the same latitude. The mean temperature for the
year is 81°•2, the maximum 90 degrees, the minimum 74 de-
grees. It is generally considered that two wet and two dry
seasons constitute the changes during the year. However
regular the setting in of these periods may have been for-
merly, this has not been the case during later years. The
great dry season commences at the coast regions towards the
end of August, and continues to the end of November, after
which showers of rain follow to the end of January : the short
dry season continues in the middle of February, and continues
to the middle of April. The rains descend afterwards in
torrents, and the rivers commence to inundate their shores.
During that period the wind is frequently from the west and
south-west, and, coming from the land, is thought un-
healthier than the regular sea-breeze, which during the dry
season begins to set in between ten and eleven A.M., and con-
tinues until sunset, sometimes even through the night. The
months of October and November are the most delightful in
the year; the sky cloudless, the heat moderate, and the
thermometer. at noontide scarcely higher than 85 degrees
Fahr. During the rainy season the oppressive weight of the
atmosphere is tempered by northern breezes, and in the
months of September to November the breezes from the east
and south-east, which have passed over a vast extent of the
ocean, are invigorating, and refresh the air to such a degree,
that during the night the thermometer has been known to
fall to 74 degrees Fahr.

The moisture necessary to maintain vegetation is then re-
placed by dew ; and not only in the interior, where the coun-
try is not extensively cleared, but likewise in the open savan-
nahs, the trees and plants will be found in the morning
dripping with dew. _

Tlie Change of the season is marked by severe thunder-
storms ; but however loud the peals of thunder may rever-
berate, and however vivid the flashes of lightning which pre-
cede them, fatal accidents by lightning are unknown in
Guiana. Gales are scarcely known, much less those terrific
phtenomena of nature—hurricanes, which in the neighbouring
islands destroy in a brief time the fruits of many years' labour,
causing devastation and loss of life to a vast extent.

A few shocks of earthquake are occasionally felt, but they
are so insignificant that the inhabitants scarcely notice them
when they occur. _

The temperature of the interior is still more mild, and the
climate healthy. The season in the interior is only marked
by two changes ; from the month of August to the month of
March there are only occasional showers, but from March to
August the rain descends in torrents, and the rivers com-
mence to swell and overflow their banks, to a greater or less
extent according to their locality.

The night is generally from 8 degrees to 10 degrees cooler
than the day. A greater difference prevails however at the
table land, from which Roraima rises to a height of 7000 feet;
there I have known a difference of 35 degrees in the range of
the thermometer, compared at the hours of five in the morn-
ing and two in the afternoon. At this table-land, which was
only elevated about 3000 feet above the sea, the thermometer
half an hour before sunrise ranged between 59 degrees and
62 degrees, and rose between two and three o'clock in the
afternoon to 95 degress in the shade.

When the heat of the air is greatest, the temperature of the
water in the rivers is at its lowest comparative point ; and
during night, but chiefly towards sunrise, the water is about
10 deg. warmer than the air. The Indian takes his custom-
ary bath generally in the morning, when the water is most
congenial to the feelings.
The climate of British Guiana has been described as un-
healthy, and detrimental to European settlers ; consequently
emigrants have rather preferred encountering the chilly
blasts and severe winters of Canada and the United States,
or to subject themselves to the horrors of a prolonged voyage
to Australia; there to suffer expatriation perhaps for ever
from their native homes and families, than to settle in a
colony where constant summer prevails, and which, with the
nigh establishment of regular steam-boats to those parts,
may be reached in 16 or 17 days from England.
But by a comparison of facts, it may be demonstrated that
the climate of British Guiana ensures as great a duration of
life as that of many European countries. It has been proved
" that the range of mortality even among the labouring
population, is about one in thirty seven to forty, but in Lon-
don and France it is equal as regards the whole population,
rich and poor, and in other countries it is even more : thus
in Naples one in thirty-four ; Wirtemberg, one in thirty-
three ; Paris, one in thirty-two ; Madrid, one in twenty-
nine ; Rome, one in twenty-five ; Amsterdam, one in twenty-
four ; Vienna, one in twenty-two and a half; and a com-
parison of the mortality in Demerara and the healthy county
of Rutlandshire in England, proves that duration of life is in
favour of the colony."
The fatal cholera which committed such destruction in
Asia, Europe, and America, and which in Quebec carried to
the grave a tenth of its whole population, was never felt in
Guiana, neither was the influenza or the grippe.
When physicians were unacquainted with the proper method
of treating the yellow fever, many Europeans fell victims to
that disease. Medical men are at present more successful in
its treatment, and for many years it had totally disappeared.
After an interval of fifteen years it showed itself again in
1837, and was evidently to be ascribed to local causes, viz.,
to the neglected state of the sewers and the filth accumulated
between the wharfs. The wharfs, which extend along Water-
street or the commercial part of Georgetown, were formerly
erected upor. piles, and the tide had full access to carry off
whatever filth had accumulated : at a later period these wharfs
have been erected of masonwork, and as a separate wharf is
generally attached to every lot or building, openings have re-
mained between them which are too narrow to allow the tide
to enter freely and to sweep away the impure matter thrown
there by neglect. The rapid decomposition of animal and
vegetable matter under the tropics created in this instance
an effluvium, which is generally considered by the physicians
in the colony to have been the cause of the late calamity. It
showed itself therefore first in Water-street, and was mostly
restricted to that part of the town: it spread next among the
shipping which were anchored in front of these wharfs, where
it prevailed with great mortality among the sailors. In the
infected part of the town a faint and sickly smell was per-
ceived ; and it has been, 1 believe, generally acknowledged
and proved, that those who were attacked by the disease out
of town or in Berbice, had previously visited Water-street
and breathed the noxious exhalations. Immediate contact
with the sick did not propagate the disease, nor did seclusion
diminish it ; and there is no instance known in which it ex-
tended to the more elevated places in the interior.
(To be continued.)