THE PALMS OF THE ANCIENT WOKLD. 185 



sion, the land was suddenly upraised seventy 

 feet. In 1538, a tract of land was raised above 

 the level of the sea in the Bay of Biuse, near 

 Naples, on which were still standing the re- 

 mains of a temple which a former earthquake 

 had plunged beneath the waters ; and, at the 

 present day, the land on which that temple 

 stands has again sunk, so as to bring the temple 

 almost again in contact with the waves. But 

 we might multiply instances like these to a great 

 extent, for they have been experienced and are 

 traceable in every quarter of the globe. 



It is also known that the structure of each 

 part of the globe materially influences all 

 adjacent parts. Thus, an island is of more 

 equable temperature than a continent. A highly 

 elevated and extensive tract of land in the 

 Arctic regions, clad as it must be with the 

 accumulated ice and snows of thousands of 

 winters, exerts a chilling inlluence on the 

 climate to a vast distance ; and if unchecked 

 by the modifying intervention of the ocean, it 

 might carry a polar climate far into what are 

 now considered as the temperate zones.* Thus, 

 South Georgia, in the same latitude south as 

 Yorkshire is north, but being in th(; southern 

 hemisphere, is clad in perpetually frozen snow, 

 » "Geography of Plants," p. 170. 



