On the Physiognomy of the Surface of the Earth. 105 



it is said to have been as high as 130". It has been remarked 

 that on the coast of Senegal the human body supports a 

 heat which causes spirits of wine to boil, and that in the 

 north-east of Asia, it resists a cold which renders mercury 

 solid and malleable. Although the mean annual temperature, 

 in proceeding from the equator toward the poles, gradually, 

 diminishes, yet the thermometer scarcely mounts higher at 

 the equinoctial line than under the polar circle. Hence it 

 follows, that the climate of the tropics is characterized much 

 more by the duration of heat than its intensity. 



(To he concluded in our next Number.) 



On the Physiognomy of the Surface of the Earth. By Baron 

 Alexander von Humboldt. 



The recent progress of geognosy, or, in other words, the 

 extended knowledge of those geognostical epochs which are 

 characterised by mineralogical differences in the I'ock-forma- 

 tions, by the peculiarity and succession of the organisms they 

 include, and by relative position (the elevation, or the undis- 

 turbed horizontality of the strata), leads us, in following the 

 causal connection of the phenomena, to the consideration of 

 the distribution of the solid and the liquid portions^ that is to 

 say, of the continents and the seas which form the surface of 

 our planet. We here refer to a point of connection between 

 historical and geogi^aphical geognosy, to the whole consider- 

 ation of the conformation and horizontal configuration of con- 

 tinents. The boundary of the solid by the liquid parts, or the 

 areal relation of the one to the other, has been very various 

 during the course of the long succession of geognostical 

 epochs ; according as the strata of the coal formation were 

 deposited on the elevated strata of the mountain limestone 

 and the old red sandstone ; the Lias and Jura formations on 

 the shores of the Keuper and Muschelkallc ; or the chalk on 

 the declivities of the Greensand and the Jura limestone. If, 

 following Elie de Beaumont, we designate by tlie term Jura 

 and Chalk seas, the waters under which the Jura limestone 



