smaller streams on the same slope, the Housatonic, the Naugatuck, and others, pursue in like manner the straight course forced upon them by the direction of the ridges which come out in the plains that stretch along the Sound.

The eastern rivers.

Under the combined influence of the eastern and the southern slopes, the Androscoggin, the Saco, the Merrimack, the Blackstone, and other streams, tend in an oblique direction towards the southeast. In Maine, where the highlands turn to the northeast, the compound declivity becomes a southerly slope, and the Kennebec, the Penobscot, and the Passamaquoddy seek the sea in that direction. Unlike the streams further south which hold the same course, those of Maine show considerable irregularity at different points in their progress. Not rolling their waters through a single great hollow, like the Connecticut, they rather stray from valley to valley, alternately following and breaking through the ridges which obstruct them, and indicating, by their frequent windings, the minor sinuosities of the ground they traverse. Their fall is also generally more precipitous. Where they issue from the highlands, at only a moderate distance from the ocean, their average elevation above it, in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, is five hundred feet. Their rapids and shallows accordingly unfit them for inland navigation. Towards the east their size increases with the width of the belt of lowland in which their course is developed.

rivers.

The western declivity, fronting the valley of the HudThe western son and of Lake Champlain, is too short to allow the formation of any considerable river. Toward the south, little impetuous torrents, like the Hoosac, break through the hills into the Hudson. In Vermont, Otter Creek, Onion River, and other streams, take a longer and more tranquil way towards Lake Champlain. Outside of New England, at the north, the Ca

nadian rivers St. Francis and Chaudière carry to the St. Lawrence a more abundant tribute.1

Almost everywhere in New England the masses of water find a sufficient vent, and there are within its bor- Lakes. ders few lakes of any great size. The largest, Moosehead Lake in Maine, partly drained by the Kennebec, and Lake Winnipiseogee in New Hampshire, which yields some of its waters to the Merrimac, are respectively about twenty-five and thirty-five miles long, and each is about ten miles across in its greatest width.

It will have been seen that the rivers of New England, though several are of considerable length, are of little direct use for internal commerce. The broad Connecticut is navigable for vessels of a hundred tons' burden only as far as Hartford, fifty miles above its mouth. The Charles and the Merrimac admit shipping, the former no further than seven miles, and the latter fifteen miles, from the eastern coast. The best water communications with the interior are in Maine. Heavy ships discharge their freights at Bangor, fifty or sixty miles from the mouth of the Penobscot; on the Kennebec, vessels of light draught ascend forty-five miles from the sea, to Augusta; while sloops or boats ply over long reaches of the Androscoggin, the Saco, the Piscataqua, and other rivers, where the surface is not broken by falls or rapids.

But the rivers of New England have rendered excellent service to its civilized inhabitants, independent of their liberal contributions of clear and wholesome water at all times, and of necessary food in the period of distress which immediately followed the immigration of English

1 In the above delineation of the that distinguished geographer has kindphysical geography of New England, ly communicated to me for this purpose. I have made free use of a manuscript I believe it is Mr. Guyot's intention to memoir by Professor Guyot, of Nassau prepare it for publication in the MeHall, in New Jersey, containing the moirs of the American Academy of results of original observations, which Arts and Sciences.

Harbors.

men. It is chiefly within the last forty years that profitable use has been made of the abundant facilities of water-power for factories; but from the beginning the prosperity and wealth of the English settlers were largely dependent upon those secure and capacious basins, at the outlets of some of the rivers, which are now resorts of the commerce of the world. The harbors of Portland, Boston, and Newport, accessible, ample, deep, with convenient landing-places sheltered from storms and defensible against an enemy, leave nothing to be desired for commercial accommodation. Portsmouth, Salem, Bristol, Providence, New London, New Haven, were in early times the starting-places of a vigorous maritime enterprise; while an endless number of such commodious havens as Eastport, Machias, Castine, Belfast, Thomaston, Wiscasset, Bath, and Kennebunk, in Maine, with the long ranges of fishing-towns on Massachusetts Bay, Buzzard's Bay, and Long Island Sound, stud the coast from New Brunswick to New York.

Bays.

The shore is indented by numerous estuaries of greater extent. To regard that part of the ocean which bears the name of Massachusetts Bay as being enclosed within two promontories so distant from each other as Cape Ann and Cape Cod, requires some aid from the imagination. But spacious inlets like Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, Buzzard's Bay in Massachusetts, Passamaquoddy, Frenchman's, Penobscot, Sheepscot, and Casco Bays, with many others of smaller size, in Maine, impart to a large extent of coast the privileges of proximity to the sea, along with a portion of the retirement and security of an inland site; while their capes push out the mariner's dwelling towards the scene of his toils.

The atmospheric temperature in New England is va

Temperature.

riable, and heat and cold are both in extreme. The mercury has ranged in Maine from 98° of

Fahrenheit's thermometer in summer to 34° be

1815,

low zero in winter. In Massachusetts and Con- Jan. 31. necticut its common annual limits are 98° above zero, and 15° below. In Massachusetts 102° perhaps indicates the extreme of heat which has been experienced, and 20° below zero the extreme of cold. Once in the

1835,

Jan. 5.

1847,

April 22.

it rose

present century the mercury at New Haven in Connecticut has fallen to 25° below zero. The mean temperature of the year in Massachusetts varies between fortyfour and fifty-one degrees. Great changes are so sudden, that the mercury has been known to range, at Boston, through forty-five degrees within twentyfour hours.1 In a day within the last forty years, twenty-seven degrees between seven o'clock in 1821, the morning and two in the afternoon, and fell Jan. 13. thirty-three degrees in the seven hours next succeeding. Nor was this anything more than a singular instance of such fluctuations. The common opinion that the climate has moderated since the time of the European settlements is probably erroneous.2

Rain and

Droughts, though not of unusual occurrence, are not often of great severity. At Cambridge, in Massachusetts, the average annual fall of rain is about droughts. forty-three inches; at Brunswick, in Maine,3 about forty inches; and at New Haven, in Connecticut, forty-four inches. The extremes in Massachusetts have been a fall of fifty-four and of thirty inches. In Maine, in two different years, it is recorded that 1757, 1763. snow fell to the depth of five feet upon a level. In twen

1 In the evening of March 4, 1856, it fell eight degrees, from 39° to 31°, in five minutes.

2 Remarks on the Climate of New England, by Mr. John C. Gray, appended to the First Annual Report of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, 147 et seq. Dr. Enoch Hale's Memoir, in the Memoirs of the American Acad

4

1850, 1846.

1825-1850.

1755, Nov. 18.

ty-five years the extreme range of the barometer at Cambridge, in Massachusetts, was two inches and sixty-four hundredths. The summer heats are often allayed by tempests of thunder and lightning. Tornadoes occur but rarely.' There is no appearance of volcanic formation.2 But from time to time there have been earthquakes, which have created alarm without being destructive. The most considerable, in the same month with the great earthquake at Lisbon, was observed to extend from Halifax, in Nova Scotia, to Chesapeake Bay. It shook down a hundred chimneys in Boston. It was the last that did any damage. The great and sudden variations of temperature impair the salubrity of the climate, and in other respects the large features of geographical structure above described must be presumed to produce local modifications of its general character. The long winters of the highlands, their strong and dry northwest winds, and their cool summers, have an effect on the human frame different from that of the damp and chilly airs which, in company with the tides of icy water, descend upon the region that borders the eastern shore. The coast country of Rhode Island and Connecticut, out of the reach of the harsh currents, which are arrested or turned away by the projection of Cape Cod, and accessible instead to the softer influence of southern tides and gales, may be supposed to present another class of conditions of health. Yet such diversi

Local diseases.

3

1 The most violent known to have occurred was that which passed through the towns of Waltham, West Cambridge, and Medford, August 22, 1851. An account of it by Professor Eustis is in the Memoirs of the American Academy, New Series, V. 169 et seq.

2 Professor Hitchcock rejects the opinion that "there are traces of volcanic action at Gay Head," on the Island of Martha's Vineyard. (Report on

the Geology of Massachusetts, 2d edit., p. 208. But comp. p. 431.),

3 The importance of this influence appears in the fact that, to a great extent, the fishes and mollusks are different on the two sides of the Cape. The meteorological journals which I have consulted for the course of the winds at Boston and at Providence are both deficient in respect to a few days' observations. From that kept at Boston it