ring storms. But they
are all _mere coincidences_--equinoctial and all.

Notwithstanding the storms, however, the temperature rises at a mean. The
declination is often as great as in mid-summer. The earth is growing
warmer by the increase of magneto-electric action, whatever the state of
the atmosphere. The yellow, sickly blade of corn is extending its roots
and preparing to "_jump_" when the atmosphere becomes hot, as it is sure
to do, when the machinery attains a sufficient altitude, how backward
soever it may seem to be. The farmer need not mourn over its backwardness,
unless the season is a very extraordinary one, like those of 1816 and
1836. The storms ensure his hay, wheat, and oat crops; the warming earth
is at work with the roots of his corn, and is filling with water, and
preparing for the hot and rapidly-evaporating suns of mid-summer. The
earth would grow warmer if every day was cloudy.

By the middle of June the atmospheric machinery approaches its northern
acme, the summer sets in, and not unfrequently, as extremely hot days
occur during the latter part of the month, as at any period of the
summer. But the heat is not so continuous, or great, at a mean.

From the middle of June to the latter part of August is summer in our
climate, and during that period from one to three or four terms of extreme
heat occur, continuing from one to five or six days, and possibly more,
terminating finally in a belt of showers overlaid with more or less
cirro-stratus condensation in the trade, and controlled by the S. E. polar
wave of magnetism, and followed by a cool but gentle northerly wind.
During these "heated terms," a general showery disposition sometimes,
though rarely, appears, with isolated showers, which bring no mitigation
of the heat. Not until a southern extension of them appears, followed by a
N. W. air, does the term change, so far as I have observed.

By the 20th of August, in the latitude of 42 deg., an evident change of
transit is observable, by one who watches closely, although the range of
the thermometer in the day-time may not disclose it. A greater tendency to
cirrus-formation is visible. The nights grow cooler in proportion to the
days. The swallows are departing, or have departed; the blackbirds, too,
and the boblinks, with their winter jackets on, _their plumage all changed
to the same colors_, are flocking for the same purpose, and hurrying away.
The pigeons begin to appear in flocks from the nort