Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 28, 1898 - Appendix

INFLUENCE OF FORESTS
from eighty-eight to ninety-eight degrees, seldom last longer
than a few hours ; insomuch that ' their disagreeable heat and
dryness may be escaped by carefully closing the windows and
doors of apartments at their onset.' 1 Such sudden and short
variations seem just what is wanted to accentuate the differences
in question. Accordingly, the opportunity seems one not
lightly to be lost, and the British Association or this Society
itself might take the matter up and establish a series of
observations, to be continued during the next few years.
Such a combination of favourable circumstances may not occur
again for years ; and when the whole subject is at a standstill
for want of facts, the present occasion ought not to go past
unimproved.
Such observations might include the following : —
The observation of maximum and minimum thermometers
in three different classes of situation — videlicet, in the areas
selected for plantation themselves, at places in the immediate
neighbourhood of those areas where the external influence
might be expected to reach its maximum, and at places distant
from those areas where the influence might be expected to be
least.
The observation of rain-gauges and hygrometers at the same
three descriptions of locality.
In addition to the ordinary hours of observation, special
readings of the thermometers should be made as often as
possible at a change of wind and throughout the course of the
short hot breezes alluded to already, in order to admit of the
recognition and extension of Herr Rivoli's comparison.
Observation of the periods and forces of the land and sea
breezes.
Gauging of the principal springs, both in the neighbourhood
of the areas of plantation and at places far removed from those
areas.
1873.
1 Scoresby-Jackson's Medical Climatology.
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