256 POWER OF THE TROPICAL SUN. 



Before we close our remarks upon the sequence of 

 the seasons, a few observations upon the power of the 

 sun's rays in tropical countries seem to us desirable. 

 There can be no doubt that they are here possessed 

 of a scorching" and a penetrating power which they do 

 not possess in the temperate zone. In England, for 

 instance, we every now and again have intensely hot 

 days, when the thermometer marks a temperature fully 

 as high as that usually indicated on the hottest tropical 

 day, say nearly 100 Fahr. in the shade ; * yet as Mr. 

 Wallace has been careful to point out: 



"In England the noon-day sun rarely inconveniences us, 

 or produces any burning of the skin; while in the tropics, 

 at almost any hour of the day, exposure to it for a few mo- 

 ments will scorch a European, so that the skin turns red, 

 becomes painful, and often blisters, and peels off. Almost 

 every visitor to the tropics suffers from incautious exposure 

 of the neck, the leg, or some other part of the body, to the 

 sun's rays, which there possess a power as new, as it is at 

 first sight inexplicable; for it is not accompanied by any 

 extraordinary increase in the temperature." f 



As. a matter of fact, phenomenal temperatures are, 

 as we have shown, by no means characteristic of the 

 tropical zone, and they rarely or never occur there. 

 The characteristic of a tropical climate is the more 

 or less constant maintenance of high mean temperatures 

 throughout the year: but the abnormal rise of the 

 thermometer, for short periods, to an extraordinary 

 height, is almost always recorded at places situated con- 

 siderable distances outside of the tropical area as for 



* "We have seen a temperature of 96 Fahr. registered in London. 

 That day (as is common in such cases) was dull and misty. 

 f Tropical Natiire, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 7. 



