the deviation, after attaining its maximum at a
certain point, gradually decreases to its limits; when these are passed,
however, decided deviations are observed in the 'opposite direction'.
Similar relations of weather extend more frequently from south to north than
from west to east. At the close of the year 1829 (when I had just completed
my Siberian journey), the maximum of cold was at Berlin, while North America
enjoyed an unusually high temperature. It is an entirely arbitrary
assumption to believe that a hot summer succeeds a severe winter, and that a
cool summer is preceded by a mild winter." Opposite relations of weather in
contiguous countries, or in two corn-growing continents, give rise to a
beneficient equalization in the prices of the products of the vine, and of
agricultural and horticultural cultivation. It has been justy remarked,
that it is the barometer alone which indicates to us the changes that occur
in the pressure of the air throughout all the aerial strata from the place
of observation to the extremest confines of the atmosphere, while* the
thermometer and psychrometer only acquaint us with all the variations
occurring in the local heat and moisture of the lower strata of
p 339
air in contact with the ground.
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