PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY— THE LAND. 



87 



From this knowledge of the reciprocal influ- 

 ences of tlie air, ocean, and land it appears that 

 great meteorological phenomena, severed from 

 geological considerations, cannot be under- 

 stood. Meteorology, like the geography of 

 plants and animals, first began to make some 

 progress since observers have become persua- 

 ded of the mutual interdependence of the phe- 

 nomena to be investigated. The word Climate 

 implies in the first instance a specific constitu- 

 tion of the atmosphere ; but this constitution 

 depends on the ceaseless reciprocal influences 

 exerted between an ever and deeply-agitated 

 ocean, crossed in different directions by cur- 

 rents of totally dissimilar temperatures, and 

 the heat-radiating dry land, variously partition- 

 ed, elevated, coloured, naked or covered with 

 lofty trees or lowly herbs. 



In the present condition of the surface of 

 our planet, the area of the dry to that of the 

 fluid is as 1 : 2| ; according to Rigaud(3os), as 

 100 : 270. The islands form at present scarcely 

 ^^3 of the continental masses. The latter are 

 so unequally divided, that in the northern hem- 

 isphere they offer a three times greater extent 

 of surface than they do in the southern hemi- 

 sphere. The southern hemisphere is conse- 

 quently most especially oceanic in its prevail- 

 ing character. From 40° S. latitude on towards 

 the antartic pole, the crust of the earth is al- 

 most entirely covered with water. Even as 

 predominating, and only broken here and there 

 by insignificant clusters of islands, is the fluid 

 element between the east coasts of the Old and 

 the west coasts of the New World. The learn- 

 ed hydrographer, Fleurieu, by way of distin- 

 guishing this extensive sea basin from other 

 seas, has very well entitled it the Great Ocean. 

 Within the tropics it includes a breadth of as 

 many as 145 degrees of longitude. The south- 

 ern and western hemispheres, beginning the 

 reckoning from the meridian of Teneriffe, are 

 thus the regions of the earth's surface that 

 most abound in water. 



These are the principal points in the consid- 

 eration of the relative quantities of the land 

 and sea, a relation which exerts so vast an in- 

 fluence upon the distribution of temperature ; 

 the variation of atmospheric pressure ; the di- 

 rection of winds, and the hygrometric state of 

 the air which particularly and so essentially 

 determines the force of vegetation. When we 

 think that nearly three-fourths of the surface 

 of the earth are covered with water(^°*), we are 

 less astonished at the imperfect state o-f me- 

 teorology up to the commencement of the pres- 

 ent century — an epoch when a considerable 

 mass of accurate observations on the tempera- 

 ture of the sea, under different parallels of lat- 

 itude and at different seasons of the year, was 

 first obtained and numerically contrasted. 



The horizontal figure of the land, in its most 

 general relations of extension, was already an 

 object of ingenious consideration at an early 

 period in the history of the Greek civilization. 

 It was sought to ascertain the greatest exten- 

 sion from east. to west, and Dicearchus, ac- 

 cording to the testimony of Agathemerus, found 

 this to lie in the latitude of Rhodes in a direc- 

 tion from the Pillars of Hercules to Thinae. 

 This is the line which was called the Parallel 

 of the Diaphragm of Dicearchus, the astronom- 



ical accuracy of whose position (which I have 

 myself examined in another place) must ever 

 be the subject of admiration(^°^). Strabo, led 

 apparently by Eratosthenes, appears to have 

 been so thoroughly persuaded that as this par- 

 allel of 36°, the maximum extension of the 

 world, as known to him, was intimately con- 

 nected with the figure of the earth, fliat he fixes 

 the place of the continent which he prophesied 

 must exist in the northern hemisphere, between 

 Iberia ami the coast of Thinae, as also falling 

 under the same degree of latitude(^°«). 



If, as already remarked, considerably more 

 land has been raised above the level of the sea 

 in the one hemisphere than in the other— and 

 this is the case whether the globe be halved in 

 the line of the equator, or in that of the merid- 

 ian of Teneriffe — the two great masses of land, 

 true islands surrounded by the sea on every 

 side, which we designate the Eastern and West- 

 ern continents, the Old and New Worlds, be- 

 side the most striking contrasts in configura- 

 tion at large, or rather in the position of their 

 greater axes, still present many points of re- 

 semblance in the details of their configuration, 

 particularly in the extent and outline of their 

 opposite coasts. In the Eastern division, the 

 prevailing direction or position of the longer 

 axis is from east to west (more correctly, from 

 south-west to north-east) ; in the Western con- 

 tinent, however, it is meridional, or from north 

 to south (more apcurately, from south-south- 

 east to north-north-west). Both masses are cut 

 off towards the north in the line of the same par- 

 allel of latitude — generally in that of 70° ; and 

 to the south they both run out into pyramidal 

 points, which have mostly a submarine exten- 

 sion in the shape of islands and shoals. This 

 is proclaimed by the archipelago of Terra del 

 Fuego ; the Lagullas bank, to the south of the 

 Cape of Good Hope, and Van Diemen's Land, 

 separated from New Holland by the Bass 

 Straits. The Northern Asiatic coast exceeds, 

 or runs up beyond the parallel of 70° mention- 

 ed above, about Cape Taimura (78° 16' N, lat. 

 according to Kreusenstern), whilst from about 

 the embouchure of the great Tschoukotschja 

 river eastward, in the direction of Behrrng's 

 Straits, the north-eastern promontories of Asia 

 (Cook's East-Cape) do not reach higher than 

 66° 3' according to Beechey(30!'). The north- 

 ern shore of the New Continent follows the 

 70th parallel pretty closely ; as both south and 

 north of Barrow's Straits, from Boothia-felix 

 and Victoria-land, all the land consists only of 

 detached islands. 



The pyramidal figure of all the southern ter- 

 minations of continents belongs to the " Simil- 

 itudines physicae in configuratione mundi," to 

 which Bacon had already directed attention in 

 the Novum Organum, and with which Cook's 

 companion in his second voyage round the 

 world, Reinhold Forster, has connected some 

 very acute and interesting considerations. Pro- 

 ceeding from the meridian of the Island of Ten- 

 eriffe eastward, we observe the southern ex- 

 tremities of three great continents, namely, of 

 Africa (the extreme of the old world), Austra- 

 lia, and South America, approaching the south- 

 pole successively nearer and nearer. New Zea- 

 land, which is fully twelve degrees of latitude 

 in length, forms a very regular intermediate 



