44 S PHYSICAL GEOGRAPIIY OF THE SEA, AND ITS IMETEOROLOQY. 



the noble ship plunging fearlessly beneath the crimson-crested 

 waves, the furious squalls of hail, snow, and sleet driving over 

 the vessel and falling to leeward in ruddy showers, the myste- 

 rious balls of electric fire resting on our mast-heads, yard-arms, 

 etc., and above all, the awful sublimity of the heavens, through 

 which coruscations of auroral light would often shoot in spiral 

 streaks and with meteoric brilliancy, altogether presented a scene 

 of terrible grandeur and awful sublimity surpassing the wildest 

 dreams of fancy. Words fail to convey any just idea of the magnifi- 

 cence it presented. One must see it and feel it in order to realize it. 

 I have written this because I beheve it an unusual occm-rence to see 

 the ' southern lights ' at all, and also because this was far superior, 

 and, in fact, altogether different from our northern lights, as seen 

 from the latitude of Boston." 



872. Some objections to these views respecting the comparative 

 Anerroneoas mildncss of antarctic climates are suggested by 

 opinion. common opinion. It is an opinion which is gene- 

 rally received among sailors and physicists that the southern is colder 

 than the northern hemisphere, and that the austral are more severe 

 than the boreal climates, and that the antarctic icebergs in the silent 

 evidence afforded by their size and numbers, are witnesses of the fact. 

 These objections have an apparent weight; they deserve con- 

 sideration. 



873. The answer to them is as follows : Between lat. 40° or 

 Tropical regions of lat 45° and the equator, and parallel for parallel, the 

 sphiTcooS-Sra- southern hemisphere is cooler than the northern. 

 tropical warmer, KcasoH tcachcs, and obsorvations show that it is so. 



than those of the -t-»t t ai^d n ^ 



nortiiern. But bcyoud 45 JS. obscrvations are wantmg, and 



we are left to reason and conjecture. That the southern hemi- 

 sphere should, till within a certain distance of the pole, be warmer 

 in winter and cooler in summer, may be explained by the fact that 

 the southern hemisphere has more water ; that water being more 

 equable than land in its temperature, produces more equable cH- 

 mates; that the vapour which is taken up from trans-equatorial 

 seas and condensed into rains for cis-equatorial rivers conveys with 

 it a vast amount of heat which the southern hemisphere receives 

 from the sim. It is rendered latent by evaporation on one side 

 of the equator, and made sensible by precipitation on the other. 

 Much of it is set free in the equatorial calm belt, and it is this 

 liberated heat which assists mightily to maintain the thermal equator 

 in its northern position. 



