Every allowance being made for other causes, I am still of the opinion that the difference in the climates of the Ohio and lake regions of country, is to be attributed chiefly to the prevalence of different currents of air. The southern current rarely, if ever, reaches the northern lakes, and the northern, until lately, never reached the Gulf of Mexico. But as the country is cleared of its native forests, we may reasonably conclude this cold current of air will prevail more and more, until we shall have snow enough for sleighs, at least two months in every winter; the summers will be shorter, the extremes of heat and cold will be greater than at present, and those clouds which formerly obscured the sun almost continually during the summer months, will be chased away, and with them the pale cheek, the sallow hue, the oppression at the breast, and the difficulty of respiration, the headache, and the thousand ills which many of the first emigrants have experienced in our climate. We shall probably then have fewer diseases, and more acute ones. The storms will probably be fewer, more severe, and not continue as long as at present. There are still further views which might be taken of this subject, but they are left to abler pens and future observations.
Thus I have endeavoured to give my opinion on a subject of some interest to the present, as well as future generations; in doing which, I have not sought for flowers which might have been gathered by stepping out of my path, but the fruit rather of my own observation and experience: I have not wandered through the fields of imagination, invoking the poetic muse, but addressed myself chiefly
"To him who soars on golden wing,
Guiding his fiery-wheeled throne,
The cherub contemplation."
Art. XIII. On a singular Disruption of the Ground, apparently by Frost.
Art. XIII. On a singular Disruption of the Ground, apparently by Frost, in Letters from Edward Hitchcock, A.M. Principal of Deerfield Academy.
(With a Plate.)