BERING LAND 21 



wind blows nearly dry across the heights of 

 air which overhang the Atlantic. It has httle 

 moisture to spare for the Mediterranean sum- 

 mer, none at all for the levels of the Sahara, 

 Arabia, Persia, and the deserts of Central Asia. 

 The lands to leeward of Brazil are deserts. 



Far Eastern Region. In Asia, the move- 

 ments of the sou '-wester are complicated by 

 the south-west monsoon, and the immense 

 ranges of the Himalaya. Eastward lies one 

 more echelon of the South-west Counter Trade. 

 Just as the sou '-wester in the North Atlantic 

 is warmed by the Gulf Stream, so the sou'- 

 wester of the North Pacific is warmed by the 

 Japan current. Before the uplift of the St. 

 Elias Alps, the region of Alaska, and of Bering 

 Sea was a warm and well-watered lowland. 

 Alaska still grows gigantic timber in latitudes 

 where North Scotland and South Norway 

 have only scrubby bushes. 



PART IV. THE STORY OF BERING LAND. 



Any reader who is really and truly inter- 

 ested in tapirs will remember that some live 

 in the Malay States, and the rest of them in 

 South and Central America. Between these 

 countries there is a slightly flattened facet 

 of the planet filled from remote ages by the 

 Pacific Ocean. Nobody with the slightest 



