Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/87

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The geographical and topographical relations of the Landsend district, already commemorated, sufficiently account for the singular equability of its temperature. In this respect there is certainly no place in the British Dominions that equals it, except it be the neighbouring islands of Scilly. These, indeed, from possessing in greater perfection the qualities that promote equability of temperature, exhibit this peculiarity of climate in a still more eminent degree than the Landsend district. And as an interesting illustration of the influence of the qualities referred to, I will extract from my pamphlet on the Climate of Penzance, a comparative view of the temperature of this place and of one of the Scilly Islands, (Tresco) during 46 days of the months of September, October, and November, in the year 1819, from which it will be seen that the temperature of the Island (which is low, and only about two miles long and a mile and a half broad) is considerably more equable than that of the neighbouring peninsula of the Landsend.


Penzance. Treaco.
Mean Temperature during 40 days, 56.5° 56.5°
Maximum Temperature, 70° 67°
Minimum Temperature, 38° 48°
Extreme Range for the whole time, 32° 24°
Greatest diurnal Range, 13°

In reviewing the foregoing account of the comparative temperature of the Landsend district, I think I cannot more correctly sum up the general results than in the words of old Carew, whose early work on Cornwall is the only one among the many that have been published, that possesses the raciness of originality.