It follows that if the Rocky Mountains were lowered as described, the entire United States would be green with rich vegetation and there would be no deserts anywhere within its broad boundaries. Also, if the Appalachian Range were as high as the Rocky Mountains—as it may have been at one time—and if it extended around the Gulf of Mexico as well as up through our Atlantic Coast States, the vaporous atmosphere of the Atlantic Ocean and of the Gulf of Mexico would be prevented from entering the interior of the continent, and the power that to-day stands as the greatest bulwark of civilization would not exist. There would be but a narrow fringe of vegetation upon its east and its west coasts; the interior, with its vast cotton and cereal plains, would be a barren waste. But to revert for a moment to Jefferson. He took his thermometer to Philadelphia when he proceeded there on a mission that would have caused any less serene and courageous spirit to forget all the small details of life. When the debates upon which hung the fate of a nation and, in fact, the lives of those that participated, were in progress, he coolly hung his thermometer on the wall and noted down its readings. Those historians who have described the intense heat in Independence Hall on the Fourth of July, 1776, were mistaken, as will be shown by reference to his observations, the early and the late ones of which doubtless were made at his lodgings. They are as follows: 6 A.M., 68°; 9 A.M., 72¼°; 1 P.M., 76°; and 9 P.M., 73½°. Jefferson had one of the only two barometers in this country at that time. James Madison (the Bishop, not the President) had the other. They took readings at the same hour of the day for a considerable period of time, and Jefferson discovered that changes in the pressure of the air always began on his instrument a few hours before they did on his friend’s instrument a couple of hundred miles to the east of him. He came near discovering the fact that no matter what the direction of the wind, storms almost universally move from the west toward the east. When the British captured Washington they also raided Monticello, Jefferson’s home in Virginia, and they destroyed his barometer. It has been said that he was as much distressed over the loss of his special instrument of science as he was over the burning of the National Capitol.