not differ much from
that of Kentucky or Virginia. By observations of the thermometer during
twenty years, in the southern part of the State, on the Mississippi, the
mercury, once in that period, fell to-25 deg., and four times it rose above
100 deg., Fahrenheit.

The prevailing winds are either western or southeastern. The severest
storms are those coming from the west, which traverse the entire space
between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic coast in forty-eight hours.

There are on an average eighty-nine rainy days in the year; the quantity
of rain falling amounts to forty-two inches,--the smallest amount
being in January, and the largest in June. The average number of
thunder-storms in a year is forty-nine; of clear days, one hundred and
thirty-seven; of changeable days, one hundred and eighty-three; and of
days without sunshine, forty-five.

* * * * *

The vegetation of the State forms the connecting link between
the Flora of the Northeastern States and that of the Upper
Mississippi,--exhibiting, besides the plants common to all the States
lying between the Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean, such as are,
properly speaking, natives of the Western prairies, not being found
east of the Alleghany Mountains. Immense grassy plains, interlaced with
groves, which are found also along the watercourses, cover two-thirds of
the entire area of the State in the North, while the southern part is
garnished with heavy timber.

No work which we have seen gives so good an account of the Flora of the
prairies as the one by Frederick Gerhard, called "Illinois as it is." We
have been indebted to this work for a good deal of valuable matter, and
shall now make some further extracts from it.

"Before we finally turn our backs on the last scattered houses of the
village, we find both sides of the road lined with ugly worm-fences,
which are overtopped by the various species of Helianthus, Thistles,
Biennial Gaura, and the Illinoisian Bell-flower with cerulean blossoms,
and other tall weeds. Here may also be found the coarse-haired
_Asclepias tuberosa_, with fiery red umbels, the strong-scented _Monarda
fistulosa_, and an umbelliferous plant, the grass-like, spiculated
leaves of which recall to mind the Southern Agaves, the _Eryngo._ Among
these children of Nature rises the civilized plant, the Indian Corn,
with its stalks nearly twelve feet high."

"Having now arrived at the end of the cultivated