318 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



point; while Sitka, on the west coast of America, in 

 57 3' N. lat,,- has a mean temperature of 6.9 Cent. (44.4 

 Fall.), being 12.4 Fall, above the freezing point. At Nain 

 the mean summer temperature hardly attains 6. 2 Cent. 

 (43.2 Fah.), while at the Sitka it is 13.8 Cent. (56.8 Fall.) 

 Pekin, on the east coast of Asia, in lat, 39 54', has a mean 

 annual temperature of 11.3 Cent. (52.3 Fah.), being more 

 than 9 Fah. lower than that of Naples, which is in a rather 

 more northern latitude. The mean winter temperature of 

 Pekin is at least 3 Cent. (5.4 Fah.) Mow the freezing 

 point ; while in Western Europe, the winter temperature of 

 Paris, in lat. 48 50', is fully 3.3 Cent. (6.0 Fah.) above 

 the freezing point. The mean winter temperature of Pekin 

 is 2.5 Cent. (4.5 Fah.) lower than that of Copenhagen, 

 situated seventeen degrees farther to the north. 



I have already alluded to the slowness with which the 

 great mass of water in the ocean follows the variations of 

 temperature in the atmosphere, and the consequent influence 

 of the sea in equalizing temperatures ; it moderates both the 

 asperity of winter and the heat of summer : hence arises a 

 second important contrast, that between insular or littoral 

 climates (enjoyed also in some degree by continents whosk 

 outline is broken by peninsulas and bays), and the climate 

 of the interior of great masses of solid land. Leopold von 

 Buch was the first writer who entered fully into the subject 

 of this remarkable contrast, and the varied phenomena re- 

 sulting from it; its influence on vegetation and agriculture, 

 on the transparency of the atmosphere and serenity of the 

 sky, on the radiation from the surface, and on the height 

 of the limit of perpetual snow. In the interior of the Asiatic 

 continent, Tobolsk, Barnaul on the Obi, and Irkutsk, have 



