(Communicated for the American Journal of Science, &c.)
Circleville, Ohio, July 23, 1818.
Dear Sir,
With pleasure, I acknowledge the receipt of the circular letter bearing date the 5th instant, which you addressed to me, for which you will be pleased to accept my warmest acknowledgments for yourself personally, and the Philosophical Society of which you are the president. To answer all the questions which are put to me in that letter, is not at present within my limited means, either as it respects the leisure or the ability. I shall therefore, at this time, confine myself to "observations upon the prevailing currents of air in the state of Ohio."[41] These observations will be wholly founded on personal experience, during the four years in which I have traversed this state, from Lake Erie to the Ohio river, whilst attending on the several courts, in all seasons and in all the changes of weather.
The prevailing currents of air, one of which generally obtains in Ohio, are three.
The first comes from the Mexican Gulf, ascending the Mississippi and its larger tributary branches quite to their very sources.
The second proceeds from the back of mountains to the west, descends the Missouri to its mouth, and then spreads over a vast extent of country.
The third comes down the great northern and northwestern lakes to the south end of Lake Michigan and the southern shore of Lake Erie, where it spreads over the region of country lying to the south of them.
That current of air which comes from the Mexican Gulf, is warmer, and perhaps more moist, than any other which prevails here. After a few days prevalence, it uniformly brings rain along with it. That this current of air should be very warm may be readily conceived, when we reflect that it comes from a hot tropical region; and that it should be very moist, excites no surprise, when it is considered, that in its passage upwards it passes wholly over water, and through the warm mists and fogs constantly ascending from the Mississippi and its tributaries. This current prevails much more along the Ohio river than it does at any considerable distance from it. One consequence is, that the climate in the immediate vicinity of the Ohio river is warmer, than it is either north or south of it, unless you go to the southward a considerable distance. Other causes may, and probably do, in a greater or less degree, contribute to produce this result, and I will here state them:
First, The Ohio runs on a surface less elevated above the sea than the country, either north or south of it, but this difference is trifling through the whole of the sandstone formation. This formation prevails from the head of the Ohio to Aberdeen, which is opposite to Marysville in Kentucky, at least two-thirds of the distance which that river washes the southern shore of this state. The reason is obvious, because there are no falls in a sandstone formation.