376 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



ing to keep warm the extra-tropical regions of South America. 

 Every traveller has remarked upon the mild climate of Patagonia 

 and the Falkland Islands. " Temperature in high southern lati- 

 tudes," says a very close observer, who is co-operating with me 

 in collecting materials, " differs greatly from the temperature in 

 northern. In southern latitudes there seems to be no extremes 

 of heat and cold, as at the north. Newport, Rhode Island, for 

 instance, latitude 41° north, longitude 71" west, and Eio Negro, 

 latitude 41° south, and longitude 63° west, as a comparison : 

 in the former, cattle have to be stabled and fed during the 

 winter, not being able to get a living in the fields on account of 

 snow and ice. In the latter, the cattle feed in the fields all 

 winter, there being plenty of vegetation and no use of hay. On 

 the Falkland Island (latitude 51-2° south), thousands of bullocks, 

 sheep, and horses are running wild over the country, gathering a 

 living all through the winter." The water in the equatorial 

 caldron of Guinea overflows to the south, as that of St. Koque 

 does to the north ; it carries to Patagonia and the Falkland 

 Islands warmth, which, uniting with the heat set free by precipi- 

 tation during the passage of the vapour-laden west winds across 

 the Southern Andes, carries beyond latitude 50° into the other 

 hemisphere the winter climate of South Carolina on one side 

 of the North Atla.ntic, or of the " Emerald Island " on the other. 

 730. All geographers have noticed, and philosophers have 

 Shore-lines. frequently remarked upon the conformity as to the 

 shore-line profile of equatorial America and equatorial Africa. 

 It is true, we cannot now tell the reason, though explanations 

 founded upon mere conjecture have been offered, why there 

 should be this sort of jutting in and jutting out of the shore-line, 

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

 sides of the Atlantic ; but one of the purposes, at least, which 

 this peculiar configuration w^as intended to subserve, is without 

 doubt now revealed to us. We see that, by this configuration, 

 two cisterns of hot water are formed in this ocean, one of which 

 distributes heat and warmth to western Europe ; the other, at the 

 opposite season, helps to temper the climate of eastern Patagonia. 

 Phlegmatic must be the mind that is not impressed with ideas of 

 grandeur and simplicity as it contemplates that exquisite design, 

 those benign and beautiful arrangements, by which the climate 

 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. 



