Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/454

398 In the foregoing meteorological table, the months of June and August 1791 have been unavoidably omitted. Many curious and interesting results may, notwithstanding, be drawn from a comparison between the respective temperatures of the air in that part of Peru, and Great Britain. At Lima, the winter begins at the latter end of June; and consequently, although the table may, on account of the above omission, be in some measure defective, sufficient information may be collected from it relative to the degrees of temperature in each of the seasons. It appears, then, that the greatest heat at Lima, during the continuance of the meteorological observations, made at noon, in the open air, and in the shade, was 84°; and the lowest temperature of the atmosphere, 62°; a variation of 22° only, the longest of which was 30° above the freezing point. During the summer, the gentle breezes from the south moderate the heat; and the slight degree of cold felt in the winter season, is owing to the constant fogs, which not only intercept the rays of the sun, but, by affording a shelter to the winds, enable them to retain the particles of cold they collect beneath the frozen zone.

The meteorological journal for 1791, kept at the apartments of the Royal Society, gives, as the result of the observations made at two in the afternoon of each day, with outside, 80° as the highest temperature of the air in London; and 31° as the lowest, at that particular hour. The extremes are not, however, so distant and marked as they have been in other years. For instance, on the following year, 1792, the thermometer rose, in the summer, at two in the afternoon of a particular day, to 84°; and sunk in the winter, at the same hour, to 26°, or 8° below the freezing point6° below the freezing point [sic]. In this case there was a difference of 58° of temperature; while that difference in Lima, as has been seen, did not exceed 22°. In the latter city, the