ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 121 



belonging to the Ancient World enclosed in those strata, show that 

 several great depositions have taken place almost simultaneously 

 over the entire globe." (For the fossil vegetable remains in the coal 

 formation in North America and in Europe, compare Adolph Brog- 

 niart, Prodrome d'une His. des Ve'getaux Fossiles, p. 179; and 

 Charles Lyell's Travels in North America, vol. ii. p. 20.) 



(*) p. 31. "The /Southern Hemisphere is cooler and moister than 

 our Northern half of the globe" 



Chili, Buenos Ayres, and the southern parts of Brazil and Peru, 

 have all, as a result of the narrowness of the Continent of South 

 America as it tapers towards the south, a true "insular climate;" or 

 a climate of cool summers and mild winters. As far as the 48th'0r 

 50th parallel of latitude this character of the Southern Hemisphere 

 may be regarded as an advantage,' but farther on towards the Ant- 

 arctic Pole, South America gradually becomes an inhospitable wilder- 

 ness. The difference of latitude of the southern terminating points 

 of Australia (including Van Diemen Island), of Africa, and of Ame- 

 rica gives to each of these continents a peculiar character. The 

 Straits of Magellan are between the 53d and 54th degrees of lati- 

 tude, and yet in December and January, when the sun is 18 hours 

 above the horizon, the temperature sinks to 4 Reaumur, or 41 

 Fahrenheit. Snow falls almost daily, and the highest atmospheric 

 temperature observed by Churruca (1788) in December (the sunt- 

 mer of those regions), was not above 9 R., or 52 2' Fahr. The 

 Cabo Pilar, whose towering rock, though only 218 toises, or 1394 

 English feet high, may be regarded as the southern termination of the 

 chain of. the Andes, is almost in the same latitude as Berlin. (Re- 

 lacion del Yiage al Estrecho de Magallanes, apendice, 1793, p. 76.) 



"While in the Northern Hemisphere all the continents attain a sort 

 of mean limit towards the Pole, coinciding pretty regularly with the 

 parallel of 70, the terminating points in the Southern Hemisphere- 

 of America, in the deeply indented and intersected Tierra del 

 Fuego of Australia and of Africa are respectively 34, 46^, 

 and 56 distant from the South Pole. The temperature of the 

 very unequal extents of ocean, which divide these southern points 

 from the icy pole, contributes very materially to modify their climates. 

 11 



