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A View of the Past and Present State of the Island of Jamaica
A View of the Past and Present State of the Island of Jamaica Author:John Stewart Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. III. CLIMATE SEASONS HUHEICANES DISEASES. The climate of Jamaica is conformable to the latitude in which it is placed. The degrees of heat are variou... more »s, according to the different periods of the year, and the various altitudes of the country. In July and August the heat often rises, in the hotter parts of the island, to 96 degrees of Fahrenheit, and is sometimes as high as 100; while in the months of December and January it seldom exceeds 75, and in the elevated parts of the interior it is sometimes as low as 55: on one occasion, in the month of January, in a high and bleak part of the mountains, the author knew it to be as low as 48. There is in general a difference of about fifteen degrees between the temperature of the air of the higher parts of the island and that of the low country near the sea. It is cooler and more salubrious on the north side of the island than on the south. In this .region, it has been kindly ordained by Providence, that the heat, which would otherwise be intolerable, and so destructive of human life as to render it almost uninhabitable, should be tern- pered by appropriate causes. While the inhabitant of the mountains enjoys a purer and more wholesome air than he who resides in the low lands near the ocean, the latter is comforted and refreshed by the daily sea-breeze, which periodically sets in, generally about nine o'clock in the morning. So peculiarly welcome is this friend of man, that the poor half-parched seaman, when he eyes the distant rippling of the ocean, and the dark-blue streak on its farthest verge indicative of its approach, hails it by the healing appellation of the doctor. Health sits perched on its wing, and gladness follows in its train. It is also observable, that, during the hottest time of the day, and in the most sult...« less