THE FRIGID ZONES. 45 



great things with small). The following will be their climatic 

 stages : 



At first the two travellers will each traverse a moiety of the 

 torrid zone, limited below and above the Equator by two parallel 

 circles, in the northern hemisphere by the Tropic of Cancer, 

 and in the southern by the Tropic of Capricorn. Do not let 

 these appellations alarm you : they show, once more, the 

 narrow connexity of the heaven with the earth tropic, coming 

 from the Greek ro^, signifies a return the sun returns from 

 his apparent excursions, after having passed from the tropics to 

 the zenith. For these circles form the extreme limits of the sun's 

 march towards the north and towards the south : they are the 

 two solstices the summer solstice, when the sun enters the 

 zodiacal sign of Cancer, and the winter solstice, when it enters 

 the sign of Capricorn. The torrid zone is the only one which 

 is thus divided into two portions by the Equinoctial, and which 

 the sun passes twice a year to the zenith, that is, to the point 

 directly above the heads of the inhabitants. 



After having crossed the tropics, one of our two travellers 

 will enter the North Temperate Zone, bounded by the Arctic 

 Polar Circle, the other, the South Temperate Zone, bounded 

 by the Antarctic Polar Circle. Having passed the polar 

 circles, they will find themselves speedily arrested by ice and 

 snow which never melt by eternal ice and snow.- These in- 

 hospitable regions compose the two frigid zones, which cover, 

 like two immense hoods (forming the 0^82 parts of the terrestrial 



