THE CLIMATES OF THE OCEAN. 239 



above summer heat as far up as the parallel of 40°. Here heat 

 to temper the winter climate of Western Europe is stored away 

 as in an air-chamber to furnace-heated apartments ; and during 

 the winter, when the fire of the solar rays sinks down, the west- 

 wardly winds and eastwardly currents are sent to perform their 

 office in this benign arrangement. Though unstable and capri- 

 cious to us they seem to be, they nevertheless " fulfill His com- 

 mandments" with regularity and perform their offices with cer- 

 tainty. In tempering the climates of Europe with heat in winter 

 that has been bottled away in the waters of the ocean during sum- 

 mer, they are to be regarded as the flues and the regulators for 

 distributing at the right time, and at the right places, in the right 

 quantities. 



513. By March, when "the winter is past and gone," the fur- 

 nace which had been started by the rays of the sun in the pre- 

 vious summer, and which, by autumn, had heated up the ocean 

 in our hemisphere, has gone down. The caldron of St. Roque, 

 ceasing in activity, has failed in its supplies, and the chambers of 

 warmth upon the northern sea, having been exhausted of their 

 heated water, which has been expended in the manner already ex- 

 plained, have contracted their limits. The surface of heated wa- 

 ter which, in September, was spread out over the western half of 

 the Atlantic, from the equator to the parallel of 40° north, and 

 which raised this immense area to the temperature of 80° and up- 

 ward, is not to be found in early spring on this side of the parallel 

 of 8° north. 



514. The isotherm of 80° in March, after quitting the Caribbean 

 Sea, runs parallel with the South American coast toward Cape 

 St. Roque, keeping some 8 or 10 degrees from it. Therefore the 

 heat dispensed over Europe from this caldron falls off in March. 

 But at this season the sun comes forth with fresh supplies ; he 

 then crosses the line and passes over into the northern hemi- 

 sphere ; observations show that the process of heating the water 

 in this great caldron for the next winter is now about to commence. 



515. In the mean time, so benign is the system of cosmical ar- 

 rangements, another process of raising the temperature of Europe 

 commences. The land is more readily impressed than the sea by 

 the heat of the solar rays ; at this season, then, the summer cli- 

 mate due these transatlantic latitudes is modified by the action of 



