THE CLIMATES OF THE SEA. 391 



np ill winter and assisting 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 latitudes," says a very close observer, who is 

 co-operating wdth 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 noiih. New- 

 port, Ehode Island, for instance, latitude 41° north, longitude 

 71" w^est, and Rio Negro, latitude 41^ south, and longitude Go^ 

 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 wdnter, 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 

 w^ater in the equatorial caldron of Guinea overflows to the south, 

 as that of St. Eoque does to the north ; it carries to Patagonia 

 and the Falkland Islands w^armth, which, uniting with the heat 

 set free by precipitation during the passage of the vapour-laden 

 west winds across the Southern Andes, carries beyond latitude 

 oO° into the other hemisphere the winter climate of South 

 Carolina on one side of the North Atlantic, or of the "Emerald 

 Island " on the other. 



730. Shoj-e-lines. — All geographers have noticed, and philo- 

 sophers have frequently remarked upon the conformity as to the 

 shore-line profile of equatorial America and equatorial Africa. 

 It is true, wt 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. Eoque and in the Gulf of Guinea, on opposite 

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

 this peculiar configuration was intended to subserve, is wdthout 

 doubt now revealed to us. 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 w^estern Europe ; the other, at 

 the opposite season, helps to temper the climate of eastern Pata- 

 gonia. 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 



