84 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH 



about 15° in width, on each side of and at varying distances from the 

 Equator. The variation coixesponds with the variation of temperature ; 

 in other words, tlie wool zone is bounded by isothermal instead of lat- 

 itudinal lines. Commencing on the eastern side of each continent, in the 

 northern hemisphere, between about 30° and 45°, it bears northwardly, 

 and strikes their eastern shores, say between 40° and 55°. In the south* 

 ern hemisphere, I am not aware that the isothermal deviations, in the 

 corresponding parallels, have been noted — nor are they important, so 

 small, comparatively, is the latitudinal area of the surfaces included be- 

 tween them. 



Independent of minor deviations everywhere exhibiting themselves in the 

 isothermal lines, more important local exceptions exist in many places, owing 

 <to elevation, proximity of bodies of water, prevailing winds, &c. Thus, south, 

 of latitude 30° in North America, the elevations of the Cordilleras give the 

 mild weather of the temperate, and even the rigors of the frozen zone; 

 and the same is true of the Andes of South America — in Bolivia, Peru, 

 Ecuador and New-Grenada — in the same latitudes, where, at the eastern 

 foot of these declivities, the tropical sun burns up, as with fire, the verdure 

 of the vast llanos of Brazil and Venezuela, and exhales death from the 

 pestilent fens of Guiana, and the reptile-teeming marshes of the Amazon. 

 The same exceptions exist on the Eastern Continent, wherever mountain 

 chains rise to sufficient elvations to bring to bear this well known and uni- 

 form law for the depression of temperature, albeit in tropical or sub- 

 tropical regions. The steady and mild climate of the Atlantic Ocean, and 

 its continual and peculiar motion on the west of Europe, preventing the 

 ice, which the north wind wafts down from the Arctic seas, from lodging 

 itself, or even approaching* those shores, strongly influences the climates 

 of the British Islands and Norway, rendering them more temperate than 

 others many degrees farther south in the interior of Europe and Asia. 

 Eastern Pi'ussia, and Polish Russia, are rendered disproportionably cold 

 by the prevailing wind, which sweeps without resistance from the bosom 

 of the Arctic Ocean to the Carpathian Mountains : and the north-east wind, 

 laden with the frosts of Siberia, and untempered by the southern winds, 

 from which it is cut off by the lofty Altay Mountains, carries a cold under 

 which men, nay whole caravans,t perish in Persia, in the same latitude 

 with Northern Africa, and the confines of the burning Sahara.| The Cas- 

 pian and Black Seas — Mounts Caucasus and Taurus prevent Asiatic Turkey, 

 and Mount Htemus, European Turkey — from experiencing similar cold. 

 The same wind entering Europe, reduces the temperature of its eastern 

 considerably below that of its western confines ; and its effects are felt more 

 or less westwardly, in proportion as its course is arrested by mountains. 

 The climate of Silesia and Saxony is far colder and more mutable than 

 than that of Bohemia, from which they are only separated by the Erzge- 

 birge and Riesengebirge. In Northern European Russia, in Finland and 

 the basin of the Dwina — in the same latitudes where Norway exhibits the 



* Malte Brun's Geography — Art. Climate of Europe. t Sir Robert Kerr Porter. 



l From the delightful Arabian Nights — from the not less delightful strains of Lalla Rookh — from a thou- 

 sand other sources, remembered and unremembered — song, fiction and Oriental tale — Persia always rises 

 before fancy's eye a realm and clime of beauty : 



" deep myrrh-thickets blowing round 



The stately cedar, tamarisks. 

 Thick roseries of scented thom, 

 Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks 



Graven with emblems of the time, 

 In honor of the golden prime. 

 Of good Haroun Alraschid." 

 There are portions of Persia where the soil is rich and the climate delightful— but, as a whole, it is a bleak, 

 sterile, unfruitful country— largo portions of it covered with rugged mountains or saline deserts— with a 

 climate remarkable for the rapidity and extent of its variations. 

 (180) 



