The climate is one of great extremes of heat and cold, with a dry winter and a usually wet summer, the prevailing wind of winter being N.W.
The extremes of heat and cold in Chih-li are very marked.
Hence this part of the country has a cold winter climate, so that while the mean summer temperature of Milan is higher than that of Sassari, and equal to that of Naples, and the extremes reached at Milan and Bologna are a good deal higher than those of Naples, the mean winter temperature of Turin is actually lower than that of Copenhagen.
Since the death of Mirabeau no one had appeared who could strike the happy mean and enforce his will on the extremes on either side.
The simplest of all coverings is the loin-cloth characteristic of warm climates, and a necessary protection where there are trying extremes of temperature.
