SUMMER HEATS.

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 147, 17 April 1873, Page 2

SUMMER HEATS.

Is connection with the extraordinary heat which ])rerailcd last year over a large area of the earth's surface, the Scientific American has recently collected some interesting facts relative to the extreme summer temperature of different parts of the world. Probably the hottest country is one which most people would imagine to possess a moderately cool and pleasant temperature — s&mcly, Thibet. Constituting, as it doss, a vast and elevated plateau of table-land, and situated between the 30th and 38th parallels of north latitude, one would have thought that its inhabitants must have been more comfortable in summer than the natives of the steaming plains of Bengal, or of the sun-baked deserts of Northern Africa. On tho contrary, the unfortunate Thibetans suffer from an extreme summer temperature, which is stated to rise to the almost incredible heat 150 degrees in tho shade. It is not known by w hat devices the natives escape the effects of this frightful temperature. Their condition must be greatly aggravated by the fact that the night temperature, even in the hottest seasons, often sinks as low a» the freezing point. In Senegal *ud m the West Indian island of Guadaloupe, tho summer temperature often reaches 130 deg. This is, perhaps, ashigh a temperature as any Europeans are habitually exposed to, both regions being commonly visited for commercial purposes, and the latter being largely inhabited by white men. In Persia the temperature rises to 125 deg., and appears tobe the cause of most destructive epidemics At Calcutta, and throughout the delta of the Ganges, the mercury rises to 120 deg , and a similar temperature is attained in Central America. In tin* jungles of Afghanistan, in the deserts of Africa, and. along the Abyssinian coast, tho maximum temperature is 110* deg.— a temperature not absolutely fatal to the existence ot white men, but most completely destructive of all healthy activity. It is a curious circumstance that the same high temperature is rooched in sonic of the ml.md valleys of California, though the average of the State is much lower than this. In Cape Colony, the African diamond diggings, and in parts of the territory of Utah the midsummer heat is 105 deg. Next comes Greece with 101 deg , and the deserts of Arabia with 103 deg. Next to Arabia — extraordinary as it may appear — conic-* Montreal with a summer heat of 103 deg. The State of New York follows with 102 deg., but the other Northern States of America do not exceed 98 deg. ; Spain, Lower India, China, Jamaica, and the Southern States of the Union, average 100 deg. j Mauritius registers 96 deg., and Sierra Leone, m Africa — so terribly fatal to Europeans — has not a higher bummer temperature than 94 deg. For Franco, Denmark, and Belgium, at St. Petersburg m Russia, at •Shanghai in China, in BurniHrli, the Sandwich Islands Uuenos Aires, and Trinidad, the average is stated as 90 deg. In Nova Scotia, and in the Azores the maximum is 87 dog. Great Britain, Siain, ntul Peru, do not exceed 85 deg.; while Portugal, lVkm in China, and Natal in South Africa, have an extreme temperature of 80 deg. In Siberia the summer heat is na comparatively high as 77 deg , whereas in Western nnd in Southern Australia, as in parts of Scotland, it is only 75 deg. In Ital>, Venezuela, and Madeira, 72 deg is t lie maximum. In Prussia and New Zealand the the thermometer rarely rises over 70 deg., and in Switzerland and Hungary not over 60 deg. In Bavana,Sweden, Tasmania, and Moscow in Russia, 65 deg. io tho maximum, while 53 deg. is the summer heat of Patagonia and the Falkland I*l.iiid- ; and the midsummer heat of the greatest portion of t lie Arc! ic regions is only 50 deg Tn Southern Iceland, lastly, Iho summer fpmpc-r.itire is sometimes us high as A 5 deg.; while Nova Zembla lint an evtrcmc midsummer heat of 31. deg.— two degrees above the freezing point of water.

Tit w-rt srov of Blow — The rare and difficult operation of transfusion of bio id has been suece-^fully performed by ])r Joseph Albini, professor of physiology at the University of Naples Tlio i>.itii'iit was ;) woman, agel 29, who Mas frulltTing under a «.enous initPMiin in consequence of longconhimed hiwnorrh.ige. l)r Alhini did not resort to the ordinary method, but tr.insfcrred nrterial blood directly from the carotid artery of a hwng lamb put in conimuni(iiLiou with a \cin in the arm of the woman by iiieaos of a little lube of elastic material with glasj extremities. Tlio lamb M-ftfl chosen in preference to other animals because of thn smallness of its blood globules, which thus the more easily pouetrated tliraugli the capillary system of the patient. It is sniil t lmf. certain ariitocralie temperance lueu ha^e refiiji!il to ha o tin\ thing to do with water, because it is, bo oitcii drunk.