Scarborough as a health resort : its physical geography, geology, climate & vital statistics, with a health guide map, &c / [by A. Haviland].

Haviland, Alfred, -1903

Date:: 1883

Credit: Scarborough as a health resort : its physical geography, geology, climate & vital statistics, with a health guide map, &c / [by A. Haviland]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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$G8 far as practicable, to its original dimensions, to deepen it, to drain the adjacent land, and plant as many trees as possible. This valley, from its position, forms an important physical feature, and may affect the climate of the town in t*vo Avays : First, if the low land around the Mere is allowed to remain iindraimd and hare of trees, evaporation and radiation will tend to reduce the night temperatures, and produce frosts when the high lands are free from them; the cold stratum of air would then be brought into the town by any of the Southerly winds which pass directly through the valley. Second, if the body of water be increased in the ]\fere, the land drained, and the low lands covered with trees, all this coolmg down would be obviated, and the temperature of the Avhole area be raised. The drainage would reduce the amount of evaporation, and the trees, besides lessening the cooling effect of terrestial radiation and evaporation, would store up for the night the heat of the day. It will be well to quote a high authority on this subject, Mr. Alexander Buchan, M.A., F.RS.E., who in speaking of the influence of forests on climate, says that the effect of vegetation in changing the hours of the distribution of the highest and lowest daily temperatures is most strikingly exemplified in the case of forests. Trees are like other bodies, heated and cooled by solar and terrestrial radiation. They do not ncquire their maximum tem^yerature till a little after sunset. This occurs in summer at 9 p.m., whilst the maximum temperature of the air occurs between 2 and 3 p.m. Hence trees may be re- garded as reservoirs, in which the heat of the day is stored up against the cold of the night. Changes of temperature take place very slowly in the tree, but in the air they are rapid. From this it follows that the influence of forests on the daily temperature is to make the nights warmer and the days cooler, in other words they communicate to the climate of countries clad with trees, an insular character. And lastly, the large mass of water in the ISfere, with its great specific heat and store of warmth, would thus have full jDower to exert its influence not only upon the air above and around it, but wherever this air is carried by the winds. In a former part of this memoir I have laid especial stress upon$