The first return of death from small-pox, furnished by the Board of Health, was in the week between the 13th and 20th of September. The next was between the 4th and 11th of October. From this time to the end of the year there was a progressive increase of mortality, and the annual return for 1823, presented no fewer than one hundred and sixty deaths by small-pox. The greatest mortality in any one week was thirty-three, from December 20 to 27. During the months of January, February and March, 1824, the disease prevailed extensively, and was fatal to many. In the following months its violence subsided, and in the month of June our attendance on the temporary hospital[11] was discontinued, in consequence of a resolution of the Managers of the Alms House to close it. Though a few patients were afterwards received into it, yet the malady soon disappearing, justified its final closure. The annual return for 1824 exhibited three hundred and twenty-four deaths by small-pox. The entire mortality from this cause was four hundred and seventy-three, in a period of twelve months, from November 1, 1823, to November 1, 1824. The deaths before the first, and after the second date, were but eleven.[12] Contagious as this disease unquestionably was, we cannot, at the same time, withhold our belief of its having been in a measure subjected to epidemical influences, viz. in a particular character of the seasons and atmospherical changes. It is then within our province, as historians of events, rather than as expounders of causes, to present our readers with a summary account of the weather during the years 1823 and 1824. We do this both from a sense of duty, considering it as pertinent to our present labour, and from a wish to encourage others by our example to preserve and transmit the meteorological registers, in their respective districts, of those years, marked by new or aggravated diseases.