Objects and Uses of Meteorology, \5t 



prevails, with its necessary concomitant, a very humid at- 

 mosphere, whence the richness and luxuriance of organic 

 existence in these climes, in all its departments. Others 

 thrive only in the temperate latitudes ; and others, again, like 

 the Polar Bear and the Walrus, and, in the vegetable world, 

 many Lichens, which are accommodated to sustain the cold 

 of a region, the mean annual temperature of which is below 

 the freezing-point, people the frigid zones, or clothe their 

 rocks and plains with a peculiar though scanty herbage. 

 From the combination of the two causes of temperature above 

 described, an effect of great interest to the Meteorologist and 

 the Naturalist results in the equatorial climates. In these the 

 solar temperature is higher than in any other part of the 

 globe ; and in these, also, the mountains and the elevations 

 forming what is called table-land, are higher than elsewhere, 

 ascending, of course, into comparatively colder regions of the 

 atmosphere. It hence follows, that if we ascend, in the torrid 

 zone, from the level of the sea to the summits of the moun- 

 tains, we pass through all the various climates, with their 

 respective gradations of organised matter, which each hemi- 

 sphere of the entire globe presents, as we proceed from the 

 equator to the pole. This is abundantly exemplified in the 

 Floras of New Spain and Nepal, which have of late so im- 

 mensely enriched the stores of the Botanist ; and the distri- 

 bution of insects furnishes us with further illustrations of the 

 phenomenon. 



In considering these laws, we may observe a very striking 

 distinction between organic and inorganic matter. Inor- 

 ganic bodies, which have no direct dependence, in the pre- 

 sent state of the earth at least, on the solar heat or its con- 

 sequences, are distributed throughout the globe, without any 

 relation either to latitude or to altitude, as involving peculiarity 

 of temperature. Thus, native gold and the ores of iron are 

 found, indiscriminately, in every latitude, from the equator to 

 the poles, and at every elevation above the level of the sea. 

 Thus, also, the earthy substances, silica and carbonate of lime, 

 with granite and limestone, rocks essentially composed of 

 them, occur under the equator in Sumatra and South Ame- 

 rica, in the temperate zones in the Alps and the British Isles, 

 and within the arctic circle at Baffin's Bay ; whilst they are 

 found at great depths below the mean level of the surface, as 

 in mines, on the surface itself, and at every altitude above it, 

 from the gentlest undulations of the land to the summits of the 

 loftiest mountains. 



On attentively surveying the objects and phenomena of 

 inorganic nature in general, we find that two, or more cor- 



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