Note 3 — V

This day, August 2, 1861, while revising this Report, the thermometer Fahr. stands in the most favorable shade in the town of Chatham, Kent county, C. W., 96 deg. (98 is the general test of this day) and in the sun 113—being one degree above fever heat. A fact to which my attention was called by an intelligent Liberian—and which science may hereafter account for—that the nearer the approach to the equator, the more moderate is the heat. Has the sun the same effect upon the general bulk of the earth that it has upon particular locations—the greater the elevation the cooler—or is it because of the superior velocity of this part, that a current is kept up by its passage through the atmosphere surrounding it? It is a settled fact that the earth is "elevated at the equator and depressed at the poles," and hills are cool, while valleys and plains are hot, because of their peculiar property of attracting and reflecting heat.