ILLUSTRATIONS (20). SOUTHERN TEMPERATURE. 107 



ously all parts of the earth. The sea cannot permanently 

 submerge the vast lowlands of the Orinoco and the Amazon, 

 without at the same time destroying our Baltic lands. More- 

 over the succession and identity of the floetz strata, and of the 

 organic remains of plants and animals belonging to the 

 primitive world, inclosed in those strata, show that several 

 great depositions have occurred almost simultaneously over 

 the whole earth."* 



(20) p. 8. " The Southern Hemisphere is cooler and more 

 humid than the Northern" 



Chili, Buenos Ayres, the southern part of Brazil, and Peru, 

 enjoy the cool summers and mild winters of a true insular 

 climate, owing to the narrowness and contraction of the 

 continent towards the south. This advantage of the Southern 

 Hemisphere is manifested as far as 48 or 50 south lat., 

 but beyond that point, and nearer the Antarctic Pole, South 

 America is an inhospitable waste. The different degrees 

 of latitude at which the southern extremities of Australia, 

 including Van Diemen's Island, of Africa, and America, ter- 

 minate, give to each of these continents its peculiar character 

 The Straits of Magellan lie between the parallels of 53 and 

 54 south lat. ; and notwithstanding this, the thermometer 

 falls to 41 Fahr. in the months of December and January, 

 when the the sun is eighteen hours above the horizon. Snow 

 falls almost daily in the lowlands, and the maximum of atmo- 

 spheric heat observed by Churruca in 1788, during the month 

 of December, and consequently in the summer of that region, 

 did not exceed 52. 2 Fahr. The Cabo Pilar, whose turret-like 

 rock is only 1394 feet in height, and which forms the south- 

 ern extremity of the chain of the Andes, is situated in nearly 

 the same latitude as Berlin. f 



Whilst in the Northern Hemisphere all continents fall, in 

 their prolongation towards the Pole, within a mean limit, 

 which corresponds tolerably accurately with 70, the southern 

 extremities of America, (in Tierra del Fuego, which is so 



* On the vegetable remains found in the lignite formations of the 

 north of America and of Europe, compare Adolph Brongniart, Pro- 

 drome d'une Hist, des Vegetaux Fossiles, p. 179, and Charles Lyeli'a 

 Travels in North America, vol. ii., p. 20. 



t Relation del Viage al Estrecho de Martallanes (Apendice, 1793), 

 p 76. 



