THE RAINY SEASONS 9 



within the cahus, such as Para, Quito, Bogota, Guayaquil, the 

 Kingsmill Islands, may be said to have a perennial rainy 

 season, as showers fall at every season of the year. To the 

 north and south of the belt of calms, we find in both hemi- 

 spheres a broad zone, characterised by two distinct rainy sea- 

 sons, separated by two equally distinct periods of dry weather. 

 The rainy seasons take place while the sun is crossing the zenith, 

 and more or less paralysing the power of the trade winds. 

 Cayenne, Honduras, Jamaica, Pernambuco, Bahia, afford us 

 examples of these well-defined alternations. In Jamaica, for/ 

 instance (18° N. lat.), the first rainy season begins in April, the\ 

 second in October ; the first dry season in June, and the second J 

 in December. 



Towards the verge of the tropics follow the zones which are 

 characterised by a single rainy season, but of a longer con- 

 tinuance, generally lasting six months, throughout the summer, 

 or from one equinoctium to another. In these parts, the rainy 

 season is also tjie warmest period of the year, since here the 

 different height of the sun in winter and summer is already so 

 considerable, that at the time of culmination the clouds and 

 rain are not able to reduce the temperature below that of the 

 clear and dry winter months ; while in the zones which are 

 situated nearer to the equator, the rainy season, in spite of the 

 sun's culmination, is always the coolest. 



To sum up the foregoing remarks in a few words : the two 

 rainy seasons, which characterise the middle zone between each 

 tropic and the line, have a tendency to pass into one annual 

 rainy season on advancing towards the tropics, and to merge 

 into a permanent rainy season on approaching the equator. 

 As the sun goes to the north or south, he opens the sluices of 

 heaven, and closes them as he passes to another hemisphere. 



Such may be said to be the normal state which would 

 everywhere obtain within the equatorial regions if one un- 

 bounded ocean covered their surface, and none of the disturb- 

 ing influences previously mentioned interfered ; but as we find 

 the trade winds so frequently deflected from their course, we 

 must also naturally expect the general or theoretical order of 

 the dry and rainy seasons to be liable to great modifications. 



Thus, in the Indian Ocean and in the Chinese Sea, terrestrial 

 mfluences prevail during the summer which completely divert 



