January 18, at 2 P.M., maximum 34·2° C.
A comparison with the temperature of Lima, on the same days, gives an average of 5·7° C. of heat in favor of Miraflores.
The River Rimac, which rises among the glaciers of the Cordilleras, and after a course of no great length, intersects the city, doubtless contributes to cool the atmosphere.
The climate of Lima is agreeable, but not very healthy. During six months, from April to October, a heavy, damp, but not cold mist, overhangs the city. The summer is always hot, but not oppressive. The transition from one season to another is gradual, and almost imperceptible. In October and November the misty canopy begins to rise; it becomes thinner, and yields to the penetrating rays of the sun. In April the horizon begins to resume the misty veil. The mornings are cool and overcast, but the middle of the day is clear. In a few weeks after, the brightness of noon also disappears. The great humidity gives rise to many diseases, particularly fevers, and the alternations from heat to damp cause dysentery. On an average, the victims to this disease are very numerous. It is endemic, and becomes, at apparently regular but distant periods, epidemic. The intermittent fevers or agues, called tercianos, are throughout the whole of Peru very dangerous, both during their course and in their consequences. It may be regarded as certain that two-thirds of the people of Lima are suffering at all times from tercianos, or from the consequences of the disease. It usually attacks foreigners, not immediately on their arrival in Lima, but some years afterwards. In general the tribute of acclimation is not so soon paid by emigrants in Lima as in other tropical regions.
In consequence of the ignorance of the medical attendants, and the neglect of the police, the statistical tables of deaths are very imperfectly drawn up, and therefore cannot be entirely depended upon. I may, however, here subjoin one of them, which will afford the reader some idea of the mortality of Lima.
The annual number of deaths in Lima varies from 2,500 to 2,800.
In the ten months, from the 1st of January to the 30th of October, 1841, the number of marriages was 134, of which 46 were contracted by whites, and 88 by people of color.
DEATHS IN LIMA FROM JANUARY 1, TO OCTOBER 30, 1841:-
| Diseases. | Men. | Women. | Children. | Total. |
| Dysentery | 171 | 105 | 59 | 335 |
| Fevers, chiefly intermittent | 57 | 88 | 71 | 216 |
| Typhus | 14 | 7 | 24 | 45 |
| Pulmonary Consumption | 87 | 110 | 11 | 208 |
| Inflammation of the Lungs | 78 | 75 | 26 | 179 |
| Dropsy, for the most part a consequence of intermittent fevers | 33 | 32 | 7 | 72 |
| Hooping-cough | 36 | 36 | ||
| Small Pox | 3 | 1 | 4 | |
| Sudden death | 23 | 13 | 1 | 37 |
| Shot | 3 | 3 | ||
| Various Diseases | 271 | 228 | 610 | 1,109 |
| 740 | 658 | 846 | 2,244 |
The number of births were:—