XC NOTES. 



(3 31 ) p. 275. Compare Elie de Beaumont, Descr. geol. de la France, T. i. 

 p. 65 ; Beudant, Geologic, 1844, p. 209. 



C 335 ) p. 279. Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Vol. vi. 

 Pt. 2, 1837, p. 297. According to other writers, the ratio is 100 : 284. 



(S 36 ) p. 280. It was a prevalent opinion in the middle ages, that only a 

 seventh part of the surface of the earth was covered by sea. Cardinal d'Ailly 

 , grounded this opinion on the 4th Apocryphal Book of Esdras, Imago Mundi, 

 cap. viii. Columbus, who took his cosmological views from the works of the 

 Cardinal, was greatly interested in maintaining this supposition of the smallness 

 of the sea, to which the misunderstood expression of " ocean river" also con- 

 tributed. Compare Humboldt, Examen critique de 1'Hist. de la Geographic, 

 T. i. p. 186. 



C 337 ) p. 281. Agathemeros, in Hudson, Geographi minores, T. ii. p. 4 ; 

 Humboldt, Asie centr. T. i. pp. 120, 125. 



P) p. 281. Strabo, lib. i. p. 65, Casaub. Compare Humboldt, Examen 

 ciit. T. i. p. 152. 



^ 39 ) p 282. On the mean latitude of the north coast of Asia, and on the 

 true denomination of Cape Taimura (Cape Siewero-Wostotschnoi), and Cape 

 North-East (Schalagskoi Mys), see Humboldt, Asie centr. T. iii. p. 35 and 37. 



O p. 282. T. i. pp. 198200 of the same work. The southern point 

 of America, and the Archipelago which we term Terra del Fuego, are in the 

 meridian of the most northern part of Baffin's Bay, and of the great polar 

 land, the limits of which are still undetermined, and which possibly forms a 

 part of West Greenland. 



O p. 283. Strabo, lib. ii. pp. 92 and 108, Casaub. 



t 342 ) p. 283. Humboldt, Asie centrale,T. iii. p. 25. As early as 1817, in my 

 work entitled " Dedistributionegeographicaplantarumsecundum creli temper iem 

 et altitudinem montium," I called attention to the important distinction between 

 compact and intersected continents, as bearing on climatology and on human 

 civilisation : " Regiones vel per sinus lunatos in longa cornua porrectae, 

 angulosis littorum recessibus quasi membratim discerptse, vel spatia patentia in 

 immensum, quorum littora nullis incisa angulis ambit sine anfractu Oceanus" 

 (pp. 81 and 182). On the proportion of the length of coast line to the area 

 of a continent (in some degree as a measure of the accessibility of the interior), 

 Bee Berghaus, Annalen der Erdkunde, Bd. xii. 1835, S. 490, and PhysikaL 

 Atlas, 1839, No. iii. S. 69. 



P) p. 283. Strabo, lib. ii. p. 126, Casaub. 



