THE CLIMATES OF THE SEA. S75 



to be regarded as the flues and regulators for distributiDg it at 

 the right time, and at the right places, in the right quantities. 

 By March, when 'Hhe winter is past and gone," the furnace 

 which had been started by the rays of the sun in the previous 

 summer, and which, by autumn, had heated up the ocean in our 

 hemisphere, has cooled down. The caldron of St. Eoc{ue, 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 

 explained), have contracted their limits. The surface of heated 

 water 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 

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

 parallel of 8^ north. The isotherm of 80^ in March, after quit- 

 ting the Caribbean Sea, runs parallel with the South American 

 coast towards Cape St. E-oque, 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 hemisphere ; observations show that the process of 

 heating the water in this great caldron for the next winter is 

 now about to commence. In the mean time, so benign is the 

 system of cosmical arrangements, another process of raising the 

 temperature of Europe commences. The land is more readily 

 impressed than the sea by the heat of tVie solar rays ; at this 

 season, then, the summer climate due these transatlantic lati- 

 tudes is modified by the action of the sun's rays directly upon 

 the land. The land receives heat from them, but, instead of 

 having the capacity of water for retaining it, it imparts it 

 straightway to the air ; and thus the proper climate, because it 

 is the climate which the Creator has, for his own wise purposes, 

 allotted to this portion of the earth, is maintained until the 

 marine caldron of Cape St. Roque and the tropics is again heated 

 and brought into the state for supplying the vapour and the heat 

 to maintain the needful temperature in Europe during the 

 absence of the sun in the other hemisphere. Thus the equable 

 climates of Western Europe are accounted for. 



729. In like manner, the Gulf of Guinea forms a caldron and 

 TheGuif of Guinea a fumaco, and spreads out over the South Atlantic 



and the climate of • i t r. i , • • • j i • i 



Patagonia. an air-chamber for heating up m wmter and assist- 



