THE END.
APPENDIX.
Since this work was completed I have received a very valuable publication, entitled, the “Army Meteorological Register.” It is a compilation of the observations made by the officers of the medical department of the army, at the military Posts of the United States, from 1843 to 1854 inclusive, prepared under the supervision of the Surgeon-general, and published by direction of the Secretary of War. To this, there is appended a report or general review of the prominent features of American climatology, so far as the basis afforded by the published observation of the army medical Bureau would warrant positive deduction, by Mr. Lorin Blodget, a distinguished meteorologist, accompanied by temperature and rain charts, for each of the four seasons;—exhibiting the various local differences and peculiarities relative to temperature and precipitation in each.
These local differences and peculiarities and contrasts are deduced and delineated by Mr. Blodget with much ability. He was fettered, however, by the prevailing calorific theories, and the unfortunate practice of grouping the phenomena into means for the seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, which grouping is arbitrary, and comparatively uninstructive. Hence, he failed to discover what the tables and summaries most clearly disclose—the principles and system unfolded in the foregoing work.
But the summaries of this register contain observations made at posts in Western and Southwestern Texas, in Kansas and Nebraska, and in New Mexico and California, where there has been a dearth of such observations hitherto, and enable me to demonstrate, more conclusively, and I think so that none can fail to understand it, the truth of the philosophy I have endeavored to exhibit.
To do this, I will take a year,—divide it into two seasons, the periods of northern and southern transit, the only natural and correct division—and note the phenomena in each, as each progresses.
And I will take the year 1854, because that is the last year for which the record of observation is complete; because it had marked peculiarities which are remembered; and because I have alluded to those peculiarities, and those allusions should be confirmed or disproved by the record. Unless I mistake exceedingly, the confirmation will be found signal and convincing.