Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/52

the mean annual temperature is 52.3° F., or fully 9° lower than the figure for Naples. But to infer a climate resembling that of Naples would be erroneous, since in the Chinese metropolis the summer and winter extremes range from 104° F. to zero, while the mean winter range is 12° F. below freezing-point; that is to say, 18° lower than the Paris mean, and 15° lower than the Copenhagen. Yet although the temperature ranges so low in winter, snow never falls in large quantities, and in spite of the great variations of the thermometer the climate is thoroughly healthy for foreigners and natives alike. Dust storms are the most disagreeable feature. Sweeping over the great plateau on which the city stands—a plateau which seems to be growing more and more desiccated and to be losing its trees with increasing rapidity as years go by—the wind raises vast clouds of dust into the air, and millions of tons of soil are thus shifted from place to place. In Shanghai, on the other hand, which is eight and one-half degrees of latitude further south, although the maximum temperature is only 100° F. and the minimum 24° F., climatic diseases are frequent and the region bears a distinctly unhealthy reputation. On the whole, however, the climate of the immense plain stretching along the eastern side of the Empire is healthy except in the immediate neighbourhood of rivers, lakes, or marshes. Thus an European or American settling in Nanking has to expect some