The following results, drawn from three years' observations made upon the state of the thermometer near the center of the State, furnish a correct idea of the temperature through the entire year for this region:

MEAN TEMPERATURE FOR EACH MONTH DURING THE ABOVE YEARS:

THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT WILL SHOW THE ANNUAL RANGE OF THE THERMOM

THE AVERAGE MONTHLY RANGE DURING THESE YEARS IS AS FOLLOWS:

THE MEAN TEMPERATURE OF THE DIFFERENT SEASONS IS AS FOLLOWS:

Winter...

Spring.

34° 53' 540 141

Summer.
Autumn.

75° 34'

60° 77'

The winter generally commences about the middle of December, and continues till the middle of February. In the same latitude, west of the Alleghanies, the climate is milder than it is east. In the winters of 1819 and 1820, the Mississippi at St. Louis was covered with ice for two months; but this is very unusual. In the winters of 1851, 1852, 1853, and 1854, it was covered over, but not during the winter.

In northern Illinois, the springs are wet and disagreeable, the summers pleasant, the autumns excellent, but the winters extremely cold. There is not, during the winter, a great fall of snow; nor is it the extremity of the cold which makes the weather so disagreeable, but the perpetual winds which blow from almost every quarter over the open country. The winds, when from the lake, can be borne; but from the prairies, they are icy, freezing, merciless.

The following meteorological observations, taken in Hancock county, during three years, give the following large proportion of fair, to rainy days:

First year...

Fair days. Cloudy.

246

74

Second year.

Third year

With such a display of figures, it ceases to be remarkable that this climate is regarded as one of the mildest and most agreeable in the northern portion of the country.

About the middle of October or first of November, the Indian summer commences, and continues from fifteen to twenty days. During this season the weather is dull and cheerless, the atmosphere is smoky, and the sun and moon are sometimes almost totally obscured.

Notwithstanding, then, the varieties of her climate-its severity during the winter at the north, and the enervating heat of the summer at the south-Illinois may be regarded as having one of the most desirable and favored climates of the States in the Union.

With all the advantages of her fine situation-an empire in extent― the richest portion of the richest country in the world-with navigable streams on every border, and penetrating her remotest sections-rapidly increasing her population with an industrious, enterprising, and educated class of citizens-can any one doubt her future position of empire in that great valley fated to control the destinies of our republic?

Art. III.-PROGRESS OF POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

CHAPTER 1.

THE CENSUS OF 1850, BEING THE SEVENTH DECENNIAL ENUMERATION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION.

THIS census differs from every other which preceded it in one important particular. Hitherto the population had been distributed into classes, according to age, sex, and race, by the officers who took the census, but by the act of Congress for taking the seventh census, the census-taker was required to return each individual by name, with his or her sex, age, color, occupation, &c., and left the classification to be made at the seat of government, in the office of the Secretary of the Interior.

This mode was recommended by its promise of greater accuracy, and by its affording materials for additional classes of the individual citizens, according to other points of similarity. It has, however, been found to be attended with the disadvantages of adding largely to the expense, and of requiring a much longer time to complete a digest of the returns. These objections, which, if not obviated, must acquire additional force at each succeeding census, have given rise to a doubt whether the certain inconve niences of the new mode do not outweigh its presumed benefits.

The act also greatly enlarged the field of inquiry. It appointed a Census Board which had the power of prescribing the objects of inquiry, not exceeding one hundred. In the exercise of its authority, this Board augmented the number of agricultural items from twenty-nine to forty-five. It required a valuation of each person's lands, improved and unimproved, and of their implements and machinery; the annual taxes levied in each district; the number of aliens, with the places of their nativity; of paupers; of convicted criminals; of church establishments, with the property of each; and of the public libraries; and, lastly, it aimed at copious details of medical statisticss-as the number of deaths within the year preceding the census, the age and color of each person deceased, and the disease of which he died. Though this part of the census is not to be relied on, from the incompetency or carelessness of most of those from whom the census-takers received their information, the seventh census, on the whole, furnishes the materials for a greater stock of statistical information than

has probably ever been afforded in a country containing more than twenty

millions of people.

The decennial increase in 1850, by multiplication and the accession of Texas, New Mexico, and California, was—

The distribution of the different classes under this census, compared with that of 1840, was as follows:

The result of the census of 1850, as to the population of each State and Territory, distributed according to age and sex, white or colored, bond or free, may be seen in the four following tables :

WHITE POPULATION IN 1850, CLASSED ACCORDING TO AGE AND SEX.