"Notwithstanding the opposing testimony of meteorological data, we have the assertion of some of the oldest inhabitants of the country that the climate of Canada has become perceptibly milder within their recollection, and are thus left to conciliate this traditional record with contradictory facts, and the only mode of doing so appears to be the application of their remarks, more to the duration of the mild season than the degrees of cold that were indicated by the thermometer in the course of the year."—Bouchette, vol. i., p. 334, 340, 1831; Lambert's Travels through Canada in 1808, vol. i., p. 119.
Kalm says in 1748, September 12th, "The weather about this time was like the beginning of our August, Old Style. Therefore it seems that autumn commences a whole month later in Canada than in the midst of Sweden."—P. 682.
FOOTNOTES:
[223] On the theory of the isothermal lines, see the papers of Kupfer in Poggend., Ann., bd. xv., s., 184, and bd. xxxli., s. 270, in the Voyage dans l'Oural, p. 382-398, and in the Edinb. Journal of Science, new series, vol. iv., p. 355. See, also, Kamtz, Lehrbuch der Meteor, bd. ii., s. 217, and on the ascent of chthon-isothermal lines in mountainous countries, Bischoff, s. 174-197; Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. i., p. 347.
[224] Quebec lies nearly in the same latitude as Paris, and from the description which the Emperor Julian has given of the winters he quartered there during his command in Gaul, there seems to be little difference between the winters of France in this respect and the present winters of Canada.—Juliani Imper., Opera.
The author of Récherches Philosophiques sur les Américains supposes the difference in heat between the two continents to be equal to 12 degrees; that a place 30 degrees from the equator in the Old Continent is as warm as one situated 18 degrees from it in America, tom. i., p. 11. Dr. Mitchell, after observations carried on during thirty years, contends that the difference is equal to 14 or 15 degrees of latitude, p. 257.—Heriot's Travels through the Canadas, p. 117.
No. XXVI.
The Vitis vinifera is found in America in its wild state; in James's "Expedition to the Rocky Mountains" it is thus described: "The small elms along this valley were bending under the weight of innumerable grape vines, now loaded with ripe fruit, the purple clusters crowded in such profusion as almost to give a coloring to the landscape. On the opposite side of the river was a range of low sand-hills, fringed with vines, rising not more than a foot or eighteen inches from the surface. On examination, we found these hillocks had been produced exclusively by the agency of the grape vines, arresting the sand as it was borne along by the wind until such quantities had been accumulated as to bury every part of the plant except the end of the branches. Many of these were so loaded with fruit as to present nothing to the eye but a series of clusters, so closely arranged as to conceal every part of the stem. The fruit of these vines is incomparably finer than that of any other native or exotic which we have met with in the United States. The burying of the greater part of the trunk with its larger branches produces the effect of pruning, inasmuch as it prevents the unfolding of leaves and flowers on the parts below the surface, while the protruded ends of the branches enjoy an increased degree of light and heat from the reflection of the sand. It is owing, undoubtedly, to these causes that the grapes in question are far superior to the fruit of the same vine under ordinary circumstances. The treatment here employed by nature to bring to perfection the fruit of the vine may be imitated, but, without the peculiarities of soil and exposure, can with difficulty be carried to the same magnificent extent. Here are hundreds of acres, covered with a movable surface of sand, and abounding in vines, which, left to the agency of the sun and of the winds, are, by their operation, placed in more favorable circumstances than it is in the power of man to so great an extent to afford."—Vol. ii., p. 315, 316.
No. XXVII.
"Fir-trees, Thuja, and Cypress-trees are a northern type, which is very rare in the tropical regions. The freshness of their evergreen leaves cheers the desert winter landscape; it proclaims to the inhabitants of these regions that although snow and ice cover the earth, the internal life of the plants, like the fire of Prometheus, is never extinguished."—Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 90.