PART in. THE CYCLE OF A YEAR. 29 



Santa Cruz de Teneriffe, in the open ocean and 

 farther to the south than Madeira, in place of thereby 

 entering the proverbial moisture of the tropics, is drier 

 than the northern island, for it shows 15*1 against the 

 1 2 '2 of Madeira's thermometrical range. 



While Ponta Delgada, though farther north and more 

 in the middle of the Atlantic than Madeira, yet shows 

 137, or i -5 more than Madeira of this kind of indica- 

 tion towards the dry. Nor does that apply only to the 

 cycle of a year, for Ponta Delgada s mean range of tem- 

 perature through the cycle of a day, as established by 

 three successive years of observation published by the 

 Portuguese Government, is no less than i *5 greater than 

 that of Madeira. And as a still further and entirely 

 independent testimony, I may quote the late lamented 

 Sir Wyville Thomson's second volume of The Voyage of 

 the Challenger,^. 56, where the semi-annual range of the 

 thermometer is given for Point Delgada = \ 3 '8, but for 

 Madeira = 8 "9 only, or implying a more abundant water- 

 vapour presence than ever in Madeira. 



unwholesome to breathe. Moreover at all seasons there is a scarcity of water, 

 whereby health is affected and the productiveness of the soil diminished." 



All these items of description evidently making out Malta to be hygro- 

 metrically the very opposite of Madeira. Or in one word, the general aspect 

 of Malta, with its light yellow rocks, so destitute of vegetation (see also the 

 note on p. 61), has been too truthfully likened to "a Bath brick;" while 

 Madeira's appearance, green, green, and still more densely green, with 

 every grateful kind of luxuriant plant growth, has been already given by 

 us on p. 5, line 7. 



