A few observations taken on board the Beagle during the five days it lay
at Santa Cruz seemed to give a mean heat of about 76 degrees; but it must
be remembered that these observations were made in a vessel lying only
about a quarter of a mile from the shore and exposed to the constant rays
of the sun during six days of a season considered by the inhabitants to
be a very warm one. I do not therefore think that the observations of Dr.
Savignon and Mr. Richardson, taken under such very different
circumstances at Laguna, which Von Buch estimates at 264 toises above the
sea, could be far from the truth.

The annual mean temperature of Santa Cruz according to Von Buch is 71
degrees 8' Fahrenheit, or 21 degrees 8' of the centigrade scale.

OCCASIONAL VIOLENT STORMS.

From Mr. Cochrane, a very intelligent English merchant whom I met there,
I obtained much information on various points, and he brought to my
notice the violent storms of wind and rain which occur on the island
occasionally during the rainy season, and cause great destruction and
damage.

DAMAGE BY STORM OF 1826.

One had passed over in the month of March of the year I was there (1837)
and I was fortunate enough to obtain an official account of the damage
occasioned by another in November 1826, which is here annexed. A similar
one was experienced, as will be seen by the table, in January 1812, when
5.24 inches of rain fell in twenty-four hours.