Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/104

86 for the year at New Zealand may likewise not differ greatly from that of the spring, and would be rather more than the mean of the above three months, as their respective means refer to the 2d or 3d, instead of the middle day of each month. It will, therefore, probably prove to be about 59º, or ten degrees above that of England.

But we have another mode of arriving at the mean temperature, without apprehension of any considerable amount of error. In accordance with my instructions, and with the view to collect facts relative to the distribution of temperature on land, five pairs of self-registering thermometers, after having been carefully compared with the standard, and their corrections accurately determined, were packed in vessels, and, after being well covered with non-conducting substances, were buried in the earth at the depths of one, three, six, nine, and twelve feet, on the 18th of October, and were allowed to remain there until the 12th of November following, so as to ensure their acquiring the precise temperature of the soil; and the mean reading of the two thermometers, when corrected at each of the several depths, was as follows:—

The temperature of water in a well at Waimati, thirty-five feet deep, but with only six feet four