" 1201
1846 to 1850 " " 1168

and the size of those from 1836 to 1840 exceeded those of the other
years.

The attentive observer will very soon be satisfied that the seasons have a
character; and those of every year differ in a greater or less degree from
those of other years in the same decade, and those of one decade not
unfrequently from those of some other. _Periodicity_ is stamped upon all
of them, and upon all resulting consequences. Like seasons come round,
and, like productiveness or unproductiveness, healthy or epidemic
diatheses, attend them. We have seen that, in relation to mean
temperature, there are such periodical diversities, but they are more
strongly marked in the character of storms, and other successions of
phenomena. "_All signs fail in a drouth_," for then all attempts at
condensation are partial, imperfect, and ineffectual. "_It rains very
easy_," it is said, at other times, and so it seems to do, and with
comparatively little condensation. In the one case, no great reliance can
be placed upon indications which are entirely reliable in the other. So
"_all our storms clear off cold_," or, "_all our storms clear off warm_,"
are equally common expressions--as the _prevailing classes_ of storms give
a _character_ to the _seasons_. It "_rains every Sunday now_," is
sometimes said, and is often peculiarly true--the storm waves having just
then a weekly or semi-weekly period, and one falls upon Sunday for several
successive weeks; and when it is so, _that_ coincidence is sure to be
noticed and commented upon, and the other perhaps disregarded.

If the seasons depended upon the northward and southward journey of the
sun alone, entire regularity might be expected--for we have no reason to
believe that magnetism and electricity contain, within themselves,
inherently, any tendency to irregularity, or periodicity; and, the sun
being constant in his _periods_, would be constant in his _influence_. But
he is inconstant and variable in his influence, and it is apparently
traceable to the existence of spots; but I am not quite sure that it is
occasioned by the _observable_ spots alone. Grant that the intensity and
power of his rays differ on the same day, in different years, and that
difference may be attributable in part to causes which our telescopes can
not discover.

But the differences in the seasons do not depend on the variability of the
sun's influence alone. This ap