Why Michigan Is A Good Fruit State

Tho July munber of Marper's Mug has au interesting illustrated article by Professor A. Winchell on tho " Cliinate of the Lake Regions." From it wc extract the following : "Tlio climatic influence of vast bodies of salt water, likc tho Atlantic and l'aciíic oceans, has long bt.cn undorstood. The effeot of siuall inUmd bodies of fresh water in avorting carly autumnal frosts bas also been generally remarksd. 15ut, as beforo intimated, meteorologista do not scem m have oheerred, till recently, fchat great lakes, lüe Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, exert tu influence, in dellooüng the isothermal linee whioh is quite comparable with tlnit exerted by the great oeeans themselves. These lakes, in trutli, are no inconsiderable representativi -. of the ocoan. Lake Superior is 100 miles long and 100 brood, witlf a mean depth of 988 feet. It has a superficial área of .'52,000 squaro miles. The State ol' MasBaohusetts might si i tch herself out at ful] fength and battle in its waters. Even then there would be room enongh forllhodo Island at her foot and Connecticut at her head, with Verntont stretched along her righi and New Hanipshire on her h-t't. You.may tako all New England, exoepting Maine, and hide it bodily beneath the waters of thia single lakc. Lake Michigan is 3(50 miles long and 108 brood, witli a mean clej,th of 900 ïeei and a superficial arca of 20,000 square milos. You Conld sink in this lake tho threc States of Is'ew Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. Lake Hurón, with a lengthof 270 miles and a breadth equul to that of Lake Superior, has a mean depth oí' 300 feet, a. superficial extent equal to that oí' Michigan, and would swallow upthe wkolo kingdom of Denmark, inelüdiitg the duchies. Toumayembark onasea-worthysteCuni:'i Chicago and travel for thirty hours witliout a. si'lit of land; and after having i;s of Mai í ciiterod Lako Superior, you may steam for two days more witliout reaching Superior City or Duluth. The voyagefrom Buffalo to Chicago around 1 he lakes isa thousand miles; from Buü'alo to Duluth is eleven liumlrcd miles, or thren-fifths the distance fu ii 1 1 Newfoundland to Ireland. The majesty of tho tempest is little less on the lakcsthan on the Atlantic, and the Low, perpetual moan of the breakiag waves ■xlong the beach transporte the iraaginatíve r to Long Branch or Nahant. During a summer doy they breathe, like the oct-an, a cooling atmosphere on ev ry shoro, while at night the diroction of tho breeze is frequontly reversed. These are oui interior land and sea breezes. To complete the analogy, our great inland seas exbibit the fluctuations of a diminutivo but genuino lunar tide. It is tmpossible that auch enormous masses of water should be materially elevatod above tho mean tcmperatuio of the year by threc months of summer weather, or depressed materially bolow it by three months of winter. The land surfaces in the same latitudes attain far greater extremes of cold and heat than the lakes. Two reasons exist for this : First, watery SurfaCGS absorb the i adíate more slowly ; and secondly, tho oontinued stirring of the waters by the winds mixes tho surfaoe teinperature through a depth of severa] miidreil feet, while, on the land, t';: tire effect is confined to the superficial zone of about seventy to mnety feet. The normal mean animal temperature of the land in the ucighborhood of Milwaukee is 11 deg., and this should be about the xaeap temperature of the water of Lake llioMgau. In summer tho Milwaukee nu an ises to (7 deg., while in winter it sinksto 22 deg. Tho water of the lake, meanwhile, ïises in summer only to 1( deg., and sinks in winter only to -10 deg. Winds from the lake, thercforc, partaking largely of the temperature of the water, must exortamaterial inÜuenee in equalizing the land temperatuies of summer and winter. Still more, in cases of extremo weather, when the land temperature rises to 95 deg. or sinks to .'il) deg. below zero, must tho ameliorating Lnfluence of such a vast, body of water, holding itself at a sotnewhat uniform tcmerature, be most oonspicuously and most benefioially experienced. There is one oauso ol' the mild temperature of deep lake waters during the oold season, which probably lias been very little (x asidered. Lakes Michigan and Superior are nearly a thousand feet in depth. Theyreaob down toward the intenu! lires, a distance which, f measured through the solid crust of tho earth, would bring very considerable aerease t' warmthüpon the land theiiiHucnce oí' the cliir.atic ohange does not extend, on the average, to a greater ilepth than eighty feet. Beneath this we experience au inores temperature amounting to one dogree for every forty-five feet ol' descent. Aocording to this la.w the terrestial temperature at thebottom of Lake Michigan should be increased eighteen degrees. Were there no miagliitg of 1 1 1 deepet and ghallower strata o!' arater this inercase would exit. This aniount of heat, nevertheli as- with somc aliai'-inenL lo whioh it is not necesgaryto refer - distributed through the entire depth of the water, must produce no Lnconsiderableelfivation of temperature in tho genera] mass. During tho winter, therefore, Lake ;u may be regardedas a great natural stove, holding and slowly radiating the h.at absorbed during summer from the fires, eked out by au uulailing aecession ofhéai from beneath, yielded bythereservoir ot' igneous foroe imprisoned within :th. When, on a stinging wintry Lng, we behold the steaii. face of tho placid lak", v. e witness au ansJ : water . mr household fires, which ■ val and more striking than we had dared ' imagine. Buch vast audemeient conipensii olimatio extremes, ñtuated iu the interior of eontineui . re oing broad areas from the waste supremacy ofsummer heatsand I wintry frosts, seeni like interpositioiis of i Providenci ; tw wm '■■■'■ " the bi i ily nocessities of its inhabitants. Suoh benifioeni equalizers are all great lakes; and . ■ U. M"t I' bs strikingly, are I rewn through the midsi of lands which were the home of the ea i gentativesofourraoe- the Med the Black and the Caspian Suks.