Weekly Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1853-1861, 1856-10-16
SfEistellaasoass.
Climatology Of the Union.

many, ard tho United States of North Amer
lea, are in so many respects so very intimately
connected, that a communication on the cli-
matology of this country may be well justi-
fed. The great changes in temperature in
one and the same places in the United States,
will first occupy our attention, the coast OF
the Pacific ocean, which has nearly Euro
pean climate, being excepted from our re-
marks The heat in summer time is nearly
a tropical one. Fruits which only ripen in
tropical countries, and which need but a
single summer for their full growth, thrive
exceedingly well in the Southern States on
the Mississippi, and from our principal pro-
ducts of expectation.
The isothermal line of eighty degrees
Fahrenheit, which embraces all the States
on the Mexican Gulf, does not touch Europe
at all, and can only be found to small ex-
tent in Sicily; and even there only on the
Mediterranean coast of Africa. The isother-
NAL line Of seventy-fve degrees Fahrenheit
(eighteen and one-half degrees Reaumur)
touches Baltimore, Louisville and St Louis,
and extends further north over the prairies
it then goes to the Salt Lake City, and from
thence to Sacramento and San Joaquin, in
California. The same temperature is only
70 be found in Europe on the northern coast
of the Mediterranean, and nearly in the
same ATTITUDES as in North America There
fore, Europe and North America have, in
summer time, under the same latitude, the
same temperature, and where the United
States are situated in a lower degree of lati-
tude, there they are by far warmer than any
country in Europe.
From this there are only two exceptions
the elevated plains of the Rocky Mountains
and the coast of the Pacific ocean. The first
named are so elevated that their ordinary
temperature, as in the North of New Mexico,
is the same as in England during the sum-
mer, (sixty degrees Fahrenheit) and the
coast of the Pacific ocean IS cooled down, by
extraordinary circumstances, to a middlipg
temperature, (seventy-fve degrees Fahren-
heit.) The great elevation of the high plains
in the interior, is sufficient cause for its low
temperature; and it is only astonishing that il
Is at all fit for cultivation; for some points lie
as high as the snow line of the Alps. The
heat Is so much greater in Europe that no
rule of temperature could be established at
Fort Laramie, which is four thousand five
hundred feet above the level of the sea. The
average temperature is the same under the
same degree of latitude, as on the Atlantic
coast.
The line of the average summer heat of
sixty-fve degrees of Farenheit (Which nee
essary for the growth Of Indian corn) extends
north 20 the springs of the Mississippi valley
and on the Red river Of the North to the
Saskatchewan Territory in British North
America; from there it turns to the eastern
foot of the Rocky Mountains, to Fort Massa-
chusetts in New Mexico, and then goes again
westward of the Columbia river, and from here
again, southwark, to San Diego and Cali
fornia.
The countries on the Pacific shore are only
partly adapted for the cultivation of Indian
corn, and some places are entirely unfit for it.
The western frontier of the large steppes is,
Notwithstanding its higher elevation, warmer
than the eastern. Ever to the north the ele-
waited plains slope down, and they are on the
Missouri, from one thousand to two thousand
feet lower than on the Platte and Arkansas
rivers; while the springs of the Missouri are
nearer to the Pacific ocean than the two last
named rivers.
West of the Rocky Mountains we find
other phenomena. The temperature On the
coast is, strangely enough, everywhere the
same, and its variation-from year to year
from San Francisco go deg. northern lati-
tude) to the northern frontier of the United
States, (49 deg. north latitude is only five
degrees, whilst its variation in the same dis
lance on the Atlantic coast amounts to 20
deg. Gin summer 20 deg. and in winter 80
deg.) The coast of the Pacific ocean has
nearly the same climate as that of Western
England, Scotland, and Norway, and were it
not traversed by the Coast range, Cascade
mountains, &C., it would extend far into the
interior. As it is, the temperature in the in
terror near the Rocky Mountains, is very
changeable and if even somewhat milder in
the winter, it is yet subjected to great ex-
tremes. The summer is hot and very change
able, and in general the climate resembles
much more that of the interior of Asia than
that of any part of Europe.
The winter in the United States is very
variable; the interior and the East are ex-
trenely cold, whilst the coast on the Pacific
IS nearly as warm as in summer time. The
plains, near the Mississippi, are the coolest of
all and on the mouth Of the Red river, at
the Winnebago lake, go deg. north latitude,
to where the isothermal line of sixtyfve de-
grees does not extend, and where Indian corn
is planted, the average temperature in the
winter is zero Fahrenheit, or nearly fourteen
degrees below zero, fourteen degrees Reau-
muir. On the other hand, Puget Sound, in
Washington Territory, (only two and half
degrees of latitude further SOUTH has an
average temperature of forty degrees Fahren-
heit, or plus four degrees Reaumur, nearly
the same as the southwest of England, the
south of France, and Italy The average tenn
perature in New York in winter is thirty-two |
degrees Fahrenheit, ten degrees Reaumur.
and the isochimal line does not reach to the
coast of the Pacific ocean it extends from
the Great Salt Lake over Santa Fe, st. Louis |
and Cincinnati traverses the Atlantic ocean
to Iceland and the coast Of Norway, and from
thence turns again southerly through central
Europe over Berlin to the lower Danube and
the Crimea.
The contrast between the tropical Florida
and the North and the interior of the United
States are, especially in the winter, very re-
markable. Even the changes in the differ
ent years are very great In the middle
States, from Norfolk to Fort Smelling, (near
the springs of the Mississippi,) the difference
In the average temperature of different years,
IN period of twenty-five years, is ten de-
grees. For instance, in the coolest year the
average temperature is five degrees, and un-
der, and in the warmest year, five degrees
over the average. This difference is smaller
on the great lakes in the New England
States, and in the South, and not quite a
third as much as in the countries of the Pa
cific ocean, in the last six years that records
have been kept.
The coolest years, on an average, since the
are the years of 1872, 1916, 1920, 1924, and
49,! In the years 1881, 1843, and 1852,
the weather in some parts of the States was
unusually severe. The warmest years since
1918, were the years from 1924 till 1928,
1880, 1916 till 1848, 1853, and 1854. A |
certain regularity in the change of warm and
cold years is not observable. The same IT.
in the change Of temperature is
visible even in our climate, without regard to
the degrees of seasons and in this regard
Central Europa resembles very near1v the