SITUATION AND CLIMATE. EAST FLORIDA lies between lat. 24 54, and 30 N. having St. Mary's river for its northern boundary, and Cape Florida for the southern. It is 350 miles in length, not including the Keys; and varies in breadth at the centre of the peninsula, owing to its tapering form, from 200 to 240 miles. It contains about thirty-two millions of acres, and is ventilated alternately by the Atlantic and Mexican Seas, to which circumstance its great salubrity is ascribed. The change of seasons is hardly felt, except in the northern parts of the province, where vegetation receives a check, and in some instances, an entire stagnation, for a short time. Snow is rarely seen, even in those parts; yet the cold north and north-west winds are not without their influence. The winds are less changeable in the peninsula than farther north, being between the east and south-east during the spring, summer, and beginning of autumn, when the rains commence, and fall heavily for a short time each day. There is frequently, perceptible in the northern parts of the Province, in the months of July and August, a thick and heavy air, which proceeds from the west and south-west winds, occasioning sultry weather at those periods, when the less of strangers expose themselves the better, until they obtain relief from the eastern and north and south-eastern winds, which afford a coolness and an elasticity, by which the system is agreeably invigorated. In those months, at the period of the day most oppressive, between eight and ten in the morning, before the sea breeze sets in, the thermometer has rarely exceeded 94. In St. Augustine, and south of it, the winter is scarcely perceptible at mid-day, at which time the ice previously formed melts. On the 3d of January, 1766, frost destroyed all the tropical productions in the country, except oranges. But this does not happen more than twice, perhaps, in half a century. The climate in East Florida is more uniform than in any part of the continent, without either extreme; being too remote from the north to admit the dominion of the cold winds to prevail long enough for any sensible effect, while its proximity to the south affords the mild and refreshing coolness of the trade winds. Accounts from all quarters correspond in representing the capital (St. Augustine) as the Montpelier of North America, to which the healthy repair for refreshment, and invalids for health. This does not depend on bare round assertion, but can be substantiated directly by facts. One of these facts, to be relied upon, was the extraordinary healthiness of the 9th British regiment, which quartered and performed garrison duty there, for eighteen months, and never lost a man by natural death. A detachment of artillery, which arrived from the West Indies in a sickly state, soon recruited, and left no traces of the contagion. The great age attained by the Spaniards and others who have resided in the province, are undeniable proofs of the general salubrity of this country. Among these were Mr. Jesse Fish, of New York, already mentioned; Mr. Fatio, a gentleman of much respectability and information from Switzerland; Clementi, an honest fisherman; and Don Solano, a worthy farmer, now living: these last are Spaniards. In 1765 there was a white frost on the 19th of December, and in 1765, a fall of snow in the northern part of the province, which was of short duration, and of no material detriment to the agricultural interests. Cardena, in his history, says, that the soldiers who arrived in Spain from Florida, in 1569, were healthy and strong, attributing it to the use of the sassafras tree. Such was the confidence in its virtues, confirmed by Doctor Nicholas Monavedas, who wrote upon the medicinal properties of plants in the West Indies, that each soldier carried a piece of sassafras in his pocket, which he would exhibit and say, This is the tree which we have brought to cure us if we should be taken ill, as was done in Florida ;-each recounting it as a prodigy.. By reference to Bartram's Journal, while on St. John's river, the following observations are found. In 1765, the From other data until the 10th of May, 1772, the weather was dry and cold. The winters of 1772-73, had little frost; having been mostly open, and favourable to the sugar cane. Dry weather in July and August, having scarcely had a shower of rain from the middle of March to July.— The whole country was so much parched, that the corn grew up in long small stalks, with little heads, without moisture to fill them. In the winter of 1773-4, there was a snow storm in Florida, which was not injurious, being succeeded by moderate warm showers throughout the season; and in 1775 the seasons were very favourable, having had frequent rains from the beginning of May. During the whole period this country was occupied by the British, it does not appear that there were more than ten medical men there :-namely, Dr. Turnbull, who followed the planting line very extensively; Dr. Yeates, the Secretary; Dr. Catherwood, a judge; Doctors West, Hill, Wright, Kemp, Scott, and Henderson, attached to the army; and, lastly, Doctors Barron and Clithera, from South Carolina, whose professional talents were seldom required or exercised, their income being derived from more profitable sources. And, under the present government, there is only one physician whe practices; and he derives his emoluments from the crown, which permits medicines and drugs to be sold at cost and charges to the inhabitants. While experience affords undeniable proofs of the general salubrity of the peninsula, it must not be presumed that its inhabitants are solitary examples of constant exemption from such epidemics as Providence, in its wisdom, dispenses to the most favoured countries; and, therefore, it will not be a matter of surprise to the reader to learn that St. Augustine should have been visited by one of these in 1804. So, also, the regular sea breezes are liable to interruption by occasional squalls, which are short and violent, but immediately after the atmosphere becomes quite clear. At the equinoxes, particularly that of autumn, the rains fall very heavily between 1 A. M. and 4 P. M. after which a serene sky, which becomes crimsoned with variegated figures in the west, bids adieu for the day to the glowing tints of a tropical sun. The heat of a vertical sun, every where great on the continent, is here mitigated during the summer by the sea breezes, as has been already stated, which effectually refresh and enliven the system. The continuation of summer heat, which is less perceptible than in the southern and middle states, lasts one fourth of the year, and leaves three fourths of continued spring, viz. from October to June |