384 Proceedings of the 



is obtained. In the ordinary pumps, the force required to overcome 

 the resistance of the piston is as the number of atmospheres ; 

 whereas in M. Thilorier's new pump, the force required is only as 

 the square root or cube root of the atmospheres, according as the 

 gas has been submitted to two or three successive compressions. 

 Hence by the new pump a single man may, in a given time, perform 

 as much work as a steam-engine of thirty-horse power applied to the 

 old pump. 



Climate of Asia. On the 18th of July, M. de Humboldt com- 

 municated to the Academy some very curious observations on the 

 relation subsisting between the temperature of the soil and the phe- 

 nomenon of the preservation of the soft parts of antediluvian ani- 

 mals. The first basis of climatology is the precise knowledge of the 

 inequalities of the surface of a continent. Without this knowledge, 

 we should attribute to the elevation of the soil what is, in fact, the 

 effect of other causes exercising their influence on the low regions 

 (in a surface which has the same inflexion as the surface of the 

 ocean) upon the inflexion of the isothermal lines. In advancing 

 from the north-east of Europe to the north of Asia, beyond the 

 forty-sixth or fiftieth degree of latitude, we find at once a diminution 

 in the mean temperature of the year, and a more unequal distribution 

 of this temperature among the different seasons. Europe, with its 

 sinuous shape, is but a peninsular prolongation of Asia, as Brittany 

 (renowned for its mild winters and unoppressive summers) is of the 

 rest of France. The predominant winds received by Europe are 

 the west winds, which to the western and central parts are sea 

 breezes, that is to say, currents which have been in contact with a 

 mass of water, the temperature of which, at the surface between 45 

 and 50 degrees of latitude, is never, even in January, below 9 Centi- 

 grade. Europe enjoys the influence of the large terrestrial tropical 

 zone of Africa and Arabia, which becomes heated by the solar irra- 

 diation in a far different manner from that which would be the case 

 with a surface of water similarly situated, and which, by means of 

 the ascending currents, pours out masses of hot air on the countries 

 situated more to the north. The small and unequal development of 

 Europe towards the north, and its oblique direction from south-west 

 to north-east, are advantages which have not hitherto been suffi- 

 ciently appreciated in considering it with respect to its general con- 

 figuration, and as a western prolongation of Asia. Being thus 

 placed opposite to the gulf which the warm waters of the gulf-stream 

 open in the polar ices, its coasts are (at least in the two-thirds which 

 are western, that is, the part properly peninsular) bathed by a free 

 sea ; for, in the one-third which is eastern, where it widens in joining 

 Asia, it partakes of the character of the climate of that continent. 

 The continent of Asia extends, from east to west, beyond the parallel 

 of 70 degrees, over a space thirteen times as long as Europe. Its 

 northern coasts, throughout, touch not only the winter boundary of 



