34 SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS 



causes of the difference in the temperature of 

 the globe ;" and, lastly, in his " Fragmens 

 Asiatiques," he offered the results of his com- 

 prehensive investigations with reference to this 

 subject to the world. He showed that, whilst 

 Western Europe has a more insular coast 

 climate, the eastern parts and the whole of 

 Asia are distinguished by a continental climate, 

 which, in the heat of the summer and the cold 

 of the winter, produces regular opposite re- 

 sults ; and though, on the southern confines 

 of Siberia, the continual perpendicular rays 

 of the sun cause necessarily heat, the effects 

 are no others but that, in that part, very hot 

 summers invariably succeed extremely cold 

 winters. 



Nowhere found Alexander von Humboldt 

 finer grapes than at Astrachan, on the shores 

 of the Caspian Sea; and yet there, and even 

 . more southward, at Kislar, on the mouth of 

 the Tarek, in the same latitude as Avignon 

 and Eimini, the cold in the winter reached 

 from 28 to 30 deg. Celsius' thermometer. 

 This great contrast between the heat in the 

 summer and the cold in the winter, Humboldt 

 calls a peculiarity of Siberia. In these parts 

 they are compelled to bury the vine deep in the 

 earth during the winter months ; and in sum- 



