1313. CLIMATE, American and European.—
The comparison of climate between
Europe and North America, taking together its
corresponding parts, hangs chiefly on three
great points. 1. The changes between heat and
cold in America are greater and more frequent,
and the extremes comprehend a greater scale
on the thermometer in America than in Europe.
Habit, however, prevents these from affecting
us more than the smaller changes of Europe
affect the European. But he is greatly affected
by ours. 2. Our sky is always clear; that of
Europe always cloudy. Hence a greater accumulation
of heat here than there, in the same
parallel. 3. The changes between wet and dry
are much more frequent and sudden in Europe
than in America. Though we have double the
rain, it falls in half the time. Taking all these
together, I prefer much the climate of the
United States to that of Europe. I think it a
more cheerful one. It is our cloudless sky
which has eradicated from our constitutions
all disposition to hang ourselves, which we
might otherwise have inherited from our
English ancestors. During a residence of
between six and seven years in Paris, I never,
but once, saw the sun shine through a whole
day, without being obscured by a cloud in any
part of it; and I never saw the moment, in
which, viewing the sky through its whole
hemisphere, I could say there was not the
smallest speck of a cloud in it. I arrived at
Monticello, on my return from France, in
January; and during only two months' stay
there, I observed to my daughters, who had
been with me to France, that, twenty odd
times within that term, there was not a speck
of cloud in the whole atmosphere. Still, I
do not wonder that an European should prefer
his gray to our azure sky. Habit decides our
taste in this, as in most other cases.—
To C. F. Volney. Washington ed. iv, 570.
(W.
1805)
