874 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



the cold drift on the Austrahan; and in the South Atlantic, 

 Plate IV. shows that, parallel for parallel, the littoral waters of 

 Brazil are several degrees warmer than those on the African 

 side. Thus at sea the climatic conditions of the land are re- 

 versed, for the coldest side of the ocean is next the warmest side 

 of the continent, and vice versa. The winds from extra-tropical 

 seas temper the climates of the shores upon which they blow, 

 not so much by the sensible heat they convey as by the latent 

 heat which is liberated from the vapour they bring. This being 

 condensed, as upon the British Islands and Western Europe, sets 

 free heat enough not only to soften the climate, but to rarefy the 

 air to such an extent as to be observed in the mean barometric 

 pressure. 



728. Here we are again tempted to pause and admire the 

 The climates of boautiful rovelations which, in the benign system 

 bySe^horeSes ^^ terrestrial adaptations, these researches into the 

 of Brazil. physics of the sea unfold and spread out before us 



for contemplation. In doing this, we shall have a free pardon 

 from those at least who delight " to look through nature up to 

 nature's God." What two things in nature can be apparently 

 more remote in their physical relations to each other than the 

 climate of Western Europe and the profile of a coast-line in 

 South America ? Yet this plate reveals to us not only the fact 

 that these relations between the two are most intimate, but makes 

 us acquainted with the arrangements by which such relations are 

 established. The barrier which the South American shore-line 

 opposes to the escape, on the south, of the hot waters from this 

 great equatorial caldron of St. Roque, causes them to flow north, 

 and in September, as the winter approaches, to heat up the 

 western half of the Atlantic Ocean, and to cover it, as far up as 

 the parallel of 40° N., with a mantle of warmth above summer 

 heat. 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 westwardly winds and eastwardly currents 

 are sent to perform their office in this benign arrangement. 

 Though unstable and capricious to us they seem to be, they 

 nevertheless "fulfil His commandments" with regularity and 

 perform their offices with certainty. In tempering the climates 

 of Europe with heat in winter that has been bottled away in the 

 waters of the ocean during summer, these winds and currents are 



