ON POPULATION. 695 



places (which are the foci of magnetic power,) it 

 falls 60 and 70 below during winter.* The 

 consequence of which is, that in the vast regions 

 of Siberia, embracing an area of 4,010,000 square 

 miles, the number of inhabitants does not exceed 

 3,600,000 who, from the nature of the climate, are 

 compelled to obtain a miserable subsistence by 

 fishing and hunting. 



In the still more desolate regions of British and 

 Russian America, on a territory of 3,650,000 

 square miles, the native population does not ex- 

 ceed 200,000, who live mostly in snow huts, 



* This extreme coldness is owing to the large amount of dry 

 land in the polar regions. And as it is three times greater in 

 arctic America than Asia, according to Humboldt, the former is 

 colder in the same parallels. For as the warming influence of 

 the sun does not extend above two or three feet below the land 

 surface in the polar latitudes, they are very soon cooled down by 

 radiation in winter. But as bodies of deep water are warmed 

 for several hundred feet during summer, they continue to give 

 out caloric to the superincumbent atmosphere during winter, until 

 reduced to the freezing point, when they present the character 

 of a continental climate. It is therefore manifest, that if the 

 space now occupied by land, above the latitude of 60, were 

 replaced by an ocean, the temperature of the whole northern 

 hemisphere would be greatly moderated. For example, owing to 

 the prevalence of west winds from the Pacific Ocean, the mean 

 annual temperature of New Archangel in latitude 57 N. on the 

 western coast of America, is 45-2, but only 26, on the eastern 

 coast of Labrador in the same latitude. The western coast of 

 Europe is also several degrees warmer than the east, on account 

 of the prevalent west winds from the Atlantic. For example, 

 Moscow has a much colder winter in latitude 5545', than St. 

 Petersburgh, in latitude 60. 



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