1323. CLIMATE, Theories concerning.
—I thank you for your pamphlet on the climate
of the west, and have read it with great
satisfaction. Although it does not yet establish
a satisfactory theory, it is an additional
step towards it. Mine was perhaps the first attempt,
not to form a theory, but to bring together
the few facts then known, and suggest
them to public attention. They were written
between forty and fifty years ago, before the
close of the Revolutionary war, when the
western country was a wilderness, untrodden
but by the foot of the savage or the hunter. It
is now flourishing in population and science,
and after a few years more of observation and
collection of facts, they will doubtless furnish
a theory of solid foundation. Years are requisite
for this, steady attention to the thermometer,
to the plants growing there, the times
of their leafing and flowering, its animal inhabitants,
beasts, birds, reptiles, and insects; its
prevalent winds, quantities or rain and snow.
temperature of fountains, and other indexes of
climate. We want this indeed for all the
States, and the work should be repeated once
or twice in a century, to show the effect of
clearing and culture towards changes of climate.
My Notes give a very imperfect idea of what
our climate was, half a century ago, at this
place [Monticello], which being nearly central
to the State may be taken for its medium. Latterly,
after seven years of close and exact observation,
I have prepared an estimate of what
it is now, which may some day be added to
the former work; and I hope something like this
is doing in the other States, which, when all
shall be brought together, may produce theories
meriting confidence.—
To Lewis M. Beck. Washington ed. vii, 375.
(1824)
