TROPICAL NATURE 



climate of the equatorial zone are brought about, how it is 

 that so high a temperature is maintained during the absence 

 of the sun at night, and why so little effect is produced by 

 the sun's varying altitude during its passage from the northern 

 to the southern tropic. In this favoured zone the heat is 

 never oppressive, as it so often becomes on the borders of the 

 tropics; and the large absolute amount of moisture always 

 present in the air is almost as congenial to the health of man 

 as it is favourable to the growth and development of vegeta- 

 tion. 1 Again, the lowering of the temperature at night is so 

 regular and yet so strictly limited in amount, that, although 

 never cold enough to be unpleasant, the nights are never so 

 oppressively hot as to prevent sleep. During the wettest 

 months of the year, it is rare to have many days in succession 

 without some hours of sunshine, while even in the driest 

 months there are occasional showers to cool and refresh the 

 overheated earth. As' a result of this condition of the earth 

 and atmosphere, there is no check to vegetation, and little if 

 any demarcation of the seasons. Plants are all evergreen; 

 flowers and fruits, although more abundant at certain seasons, 

 are never altogether absent; while many annual food-plants 

 as well as some fruit -trees produce two crops a year. In 

 other cases, more than one complete year is required to 

 mature the large and massive fruits, so that it is not uncom- 

 mon for fruit to be ripe at the same time that the tree is 

 covered with flowers in preparation for the succeeding crop. 

 This is the case with the Brazil nut tree in the forests of the 

 Amazon, and with many other tropical as with a few tem- 

 perate fruits. 



Uniformity of the Equatorial Climate in all Parts of the Globe 

 The description of the climatal phenomena of the equatorial 

 zone here given has been in great part drawn from long 

 personal experience in South America and in the Malay 

 Archipelago. Over a large portion of these countries the 

 same general features prevail, only modified by varying local 



1 Where the inhabitants adapt their mode of life to the peculiarities of 

 the climate, as is the case with the Dutch in the Malay Archipelago, they 

 enjoy as robust health as in Europe both in the case of persons born in 

 Europe and of those who for generations have lived under a vertical sun. 



