XII PREFACE. 



likely seriously to mar the narrative, when describing 

 the splendour of the great phenomena of Nature. 

 The individual in all such cases, ought to be as 

 nothing : Nature and Science, to count as everything. 

 For these reasons he has forborne to speak con- 

 tinually of himself; he feels that the personal 

 pronoun "I" -"I" -"I"- -would grate harshly 

 upon the nerves, as a blot upon a work which 

 he has done his best to make as free from obvious 

 defects, as he could. 



As regards the general plan of this work this 

 has caused its author a good deal of consideration ; 

 inasmuch as it embraces a great variety of details, 

 difficult to arrange after a continuous fashion. It 

 might have seemed perhaps, that it would have 

 been better to divide it into a series of separate 

 works. After much thought, however, the Author 

 has come to the conclusion, that it is on the whole 

 wiser to let it go together, as one book. 



The narrative is supposed to represent the progress 

 of a traveller, by land and sea, through each of 

 the terrestrial zones; for the study of physical 

 geography teaches us that the earth's surface has 

 been arranged by Nature, in a series of belts, or 

 zones, as we shall call them, which extend more 

 or less around its whole circumference : each of 

 these regions being distinguished from the others, 

 by its own special range of climate and vegetation. 



The division of the earth into climatic zones is, 

 however, by no means a new one ; similar attempts 

 having been already made by several geographers. 

 The reader as he goes along, will see what our 

 efforts have been in this direction. It will be enough, 



