It is not necessary to follow with particularity the return transit. It required no great degree of sagacity to predict, at the time, that the drought would continue in the vicinity of New York till about the 10th of September. The return of the belt to that latitude, was not to be expected before that time, and the drought continued, in fact, until the 9th of September.
Its return progress was slow, and it was every where behind time. The autumn was warm, and so, indeed, were December and January, west of the area of magnetic intensity, although upon, and east of it, there was a depression in December. The retreating but lingering edge of counter-trade, with its excess of snow for the season, caught the Iron Horse, with its train and passengers, upon the prairies of the west, and laid its embargoing hands upon them. Few, if any, can have forgotten the thrilling accounts which reached us from that section, of the sufferings endured by those who were thus embargoed for days and nights, far from the comfortable habitations of their fellow men.
But the return transit, though slow, was extreme, and February and March were exceedingly cold for the season. The transit to the north, again, did not commence as early as usual, and the spring was backward, and the summer cool. Both were without irregularity, and the season was productive. The following table exhibits the temperature on a line of posts, running north and south at the west, during the winter months of 1855, and will illustrate what has been said.
TABLE VIII.
| 1855. | JANUARY. | FEBRUARY. | MARCH. | APRIL. |
| Key West | 67.18 | 65.94 | 70.28 | 75.09 |
| Mean | 66.58 | 68.88 | 72.88 | 75.38 |
| Fort Snelling | 17.09 | 12.62 | 25.30 | 49.86 |
| Mean | 13.76 | 17.57 | 31.41 | 46.34 |
| Fort Kearney | 23.55 | 25.69 | 32.86 | 54.39 |
| Mean | 21.14 | 26.11 | 34.50 | 47.13 |
| Fort Laramie | 35.85 | 29.01 | 36.41 | 52.94 |
| Mean | 31.03 | 32.60 | 36.81 | 47.60 |
| Fort Arbuckle | 41.94 | 39.86 | 49.09 | 67.43 |
| Mean | 39.10 | 43.69 | 53.22 | 61.85 |
| Fort Belknap | 45.92 | 44.49 | 53.09 | 70.00 |
| Mean | 42.80 | 47.47 | 56.90 | 65.79 |
| Fort Chadbourne | 48.89 | 45.87 | 56.68 | 68.51 |
| Mean | 44.29 | 46.75 | 58.01 | 65.52 |
| Fort McKavitt | 46.74 | 44.51 | 53.66 | 67.05 |
| Mean | 44.75 | 46.87 | 57.39 | 66.25 |
| Fort Merrill | 54.51 | 54.65 | 61.82 | 74.50 |
| Mean | 54.82 | 57.20 | 68.66 | 73.27 |
| Fort Brown | 60.23 | 61.60 | 66.24 | 74.98 |
| Mean | 60.41 | 63.63 | 68.95 | 75.05 |
| Fort Inge | 52.21 | 50.63 | 61.22 | 74.48 |
| Mean | 49.46 | 55.39 | 62.63 | 68.02 |
The return transit to the south for this winter, 1855-6, has been an extreme one. It is too early yet (Feb. 18th) to write its history, but the extreme southern transit is as obvious as the unusual severity of the cold. The rains which usually fall upon the Southern States are precipitated further south upon the West Indies, and threaten a deterioration of their sugar crop. The snow, and cold winds, and ice, of the middle latitudes, are felt even in Florida. Our sheet of counter-trade has been exceedingly thin, and the barometer has ranged, in fair weather, much below the mean. Occasional, and for a part of the time, weekly periods of an increase of its volume, with a corresponding elevation of the barometer, and a consequent moderation of the intense cold, and a storm, have occurred. But those periods have been few and brief. No regular thaw has yet occurred. From the 26th of December to this date, at Norwalk, there have been but two periods when the wind has blown from the south-west with sufficient force to stir the limbs of the trees. There has been no wind from south of that point, or east of north-east; and even our storm-winds, with one exception, have been north of north-east—owing to the situation of the focus of precipitation far to the south of us—and there is reason to fear that a cold summer like those of 1816 and 1836 may follow. If this extreme transit is owing to defect in the influence of the sun, from spots, or other causes, such will probably be the result. If from volcanic action at the south, the influence of that action may cease, and a rapid return transit, and an ordinary season, may follow. Believing in the laws of periodicity in relation to the weather and disease, I planted an early kind of corn (the Dutton), in 1836, and had a crop when few around me succeeded. We must watch this return transit, with hope, indeed, but not without fear, and be wise in time.
There is a mass of other evidence in these summaries which shows the truth of what I have written. There is not a deduction of Mr. Blodget which it will not explain. The ascent of the summer lines of temperature to the west is explained by the diminution of magnetic intensity. Their descent in winter by the location and attractions of the concentrated trade. The excess of precipitation in Alabama and Mississippi by the succession of summer and winter belts. That of the interior of the Atlantic slope in summer, by the showers which fall upon the elevations; and of the coast, by the easterly storms and their attraction of the surface atmosphere of the ocean, at other seasons. But I cannot further particularize. Even the influence of the spots is clearly demonstrated by the observations at interior stations, which were unaffected by contiguous oceans or elevations. At Forts Washita, Gibson, Scott, Smith, and others, the years 1847 and 1848 were below the mean. All that evidence, and those deductions, however, I must pass by for want of space, and take leave of the subject.
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