and higher up the river to 18 degrees below zero; and at Portneuf, Canada, it is said to have been at the same time 52 degrees below 0, and not to have risen so high as 40 during the day; i. e. during the whole day quicksilver would have remained frozen in the bulb of the thermometer in these high latitudes alcohol is commonly used.

Each of the three winter months having been unusually warm, we have a mean temperature for the past winter of 37, but once equalled on our records, viz. in 1828, when the means of the three months were respectively 39, 40, and 38, giving a common mean of 39 degrees.

The range of temperature for the month was between 12 on the morning of the 5th, and 62 on the afternoon of the 26th, or 50 degrees.

No snow fell during the month, if we except a few flakes on one or two occasions, and the earth was free from frost the greater part of the time.

MARCH.

The mean temperature of this month, as shown by observations for the last 60 years, is, for this city, 38.28 degrees, while the mean of the past month was 40.91, or 2.63 degrees above the average. The mercury fell to 20 degrees on the 4th, and rose to 70 on the 14th, giving a range of the thermometer, for the month, of 50 degrees. The northeast storm, which usually occurs about the vernal equinox, did not reach us; and though a fresh breeze from the northeast prevailed here, from the 16th to the 19th, inclusive, and amounted to a storm in Boston and in Buffalo on the 18th, accompanied with snow, yet, as the sad record of marine disasters that usually follows a hard gale has not reached us, it is probable that no storm of great extent and violence has occurred on our coast.

APRIL.

The month, abroad as well as in this vicinity, was stormy and inclement in no ordinary degree. A snow storm, extending through most, if not all, the northern states, prevailed on the 13th, and the ensuing night. In Saco and Portland, Maine, a foot or more fell, impeding the railroad trains, and producing good sleighing. In Hampshire county, Mass., snow was reported 18 inches deep, and the thermometer at 16 degrees, on the morning of the 17th. Snow fell, also, at the same time, at Martinsburg, Va., accompanied with rain and a high wind. At St. Louis, Mo., also, 6 or 8 inches of snow fell. With us, the mean temperature was not much, if at all, below the average till after the 13th, when the heavy snows and severe frosts of the north caused the wind to prevail from that quarter; the mercury fell on several mornings to 32, and considerable ice formed in the gutters.

A shock of an earthquake was felt at Louisville, Ky., 5 minutes past 8 o'clock, on the evening of the 4th; it was accompanied with a rumbling noise and trembling of the earth, which lasted from 12 to 15 seconds; some of the inhabitants fled from their houses in alarm. The shock was also felt in Ohio, Indiana, and Tennessee, but less severely.

A succession of gales passed along our Atlantic border the fore part of the month, attended with the usual amount of loss of life and property. The most severe was that which swept along the Florida coast on the 30th of the preceding month, and progressing north, reached the latitude of Boston on the 5th ult.; thus passing over 15 degrees of latitude and 10 of longitude in 6 days; equal to about 175 miles in 24 hours, or at the rate of a little more than 7 miles in one hour. The progress of our northeast storms from southwest to northeast, or directly adverse to the direction of the wind, has been known from the days of Franklin, and, till lately, considered an inexplicable phenomenon. The facts seem now established, that these storms not only revolve upon their axes, but that the gyration is always in one direction, viz: from right to left, or in a direction opposite to the movement of the hands of a watch; that their diameter varies from 350 to 500 miles, and sometimes there is reason to believe it is much greater; that the power which originated and sustains the revolving motion, is at and near the centre of motion; and that their progress is usually along the Atlantic, near the coast, the western portion of the storm, only, extending over the adjacent country. Hence it follows (as the wind moves in a perfect circle), that persons resident near the coast must first encounter the storm on its northwest quarter, and the wind consequently will be northeast.

The mean morning temperature of the month was 66.6, and the mean at midday 81.4, giving an average or common mean of 74, which is 3 degrees above the mean of the month for the last 60 years. Three times within this long period the mean of the sixth month has been so high as 75, once at 70, and twice, viz: . in 1828 and 1831, the mean, according to Pierce, has risen to 77 degrees in the shade. The lowest mean temperature of the month for the same time was 65, in 1833.

The wind has prevailed from the western quarter twenty-four days, with a mean force for the whole month of 2.3, equal to a gentle breeze. Notwithstanding there were several showers during the month, they were transient, and some of the crops are beginning to feel the want of rain; though the earth had been so thoroughly saturated the preceding month that not much

suffering has yet occurred in this vicinity. The whole quantity of rain for the month, as gauged at the Pennsylvania Hospital, was 2 inches.

The 20th was remarkable for the intense heat that prevailed through most, if not all, the states north and east of us, as well as for the electrical phenomena that attended it on the afternoon of that day. A tempest, accompanied with thunder and lightning, and more or less rain, seems to have extended from Pennsylvania to Maine.

The mean temperature of the past spring, as exhibited by the thermometer in the shade, differs less than one degree from the mean of the three spring months for the last 60 years; and yet, from a record we possess of the time of flowering of several