THE CLIMATES OF THE OCEAN. 241 



at Cape St. Roque and the Gulf of Guinea, on opposite sides of the 

 Atlantic ; but one of the purposes, at least, which this peculiar con- 

 figuration was intended to subserve, is without doubt now revealed 

 to us. 



519. We see that, by this configuration, two cisterns of hot 

 w^ater are formed in this ocean; one of which distributes heat and 

 warmth to western Europe ; the other, at the opposite season, 

 tempers the climate of eastern Patagonia. 



Phlegmatic must be the mind that is not impressed w^th ideas 

 of grandeur and simplicity as it contemplates that exquisite de- 

 sign, those benign and beautiful arrangements, by which the cli- 

 mate of one hemisphere is made to depend upon the curve of that 

 line against which the sea is made to dash its waves in the other. 

 Impressed w^ith the perfection of terrestrial adaptations, he who 

 studies the economy of the great cosmical arrangements is re- 

 minded that not only is there design in giving shore-lines their 

 profile, the land and the water their proportions, and in placing 

 the desert and the pool w^here they are, but the conviction is 

 forced upon him also, that every hill and valley, with the grass 

 upon its sides, have each its office to perform in the grand design. 



520. March is, in the southern hemisphere, the first month of 

 autumn, as September is with us ; consequently, we should ex- 

 pect to find in the South Atlantic as large an area of water of 80° 

 and upward in March, as we should find in the North Atlantic for 

 September. But do w^e ? By no means. The area on this side 

 of the equator is nearly double that on the other. 



521. Thus we have the sea as a witness to the fact that the 

 wmds (^ 196) had proclaimed, viz., that summer in the northern 

 hemisphere is hotter than summer in the southern, for the rays of 

 the sun raise on this side of the equator double the quantity of sea 

 surface to a given temperature that they do on the other side ; at 

 least this is the case in the Atlantic. Perhaps the breadth of the 

 Pacific Ocean, the absence of large islands in the temperate re- 

 gions north, the presence of New Holland, w^ith Polynesia in the 

 South Pacific, may make a diflference there. But of this I can 

 not now speak, for thermal charts of that ocean have not yet been 

 prepared. 



522. Pursuing the study of the climates of the sea, let us now 

 turn to Plate YL Here we see at a glance how the cold waters, 



Q 



