SHEEP HU&BA\DRY IN THE SOI ■": « 



ahout 1£C in width, on each side of and at varyi^p' 'distances from the 

 E(^uator. The variation coiresponds with the vav):it-.on of temperature; 

 in other words, the wool zone is bounded by Jd-jtlicrmal instead of lat- 

 itudiiial hnes. Commencing on the eastern side of eacii continent, in the 

 IK))-; hern hemisphere, between about 30° and i^-P, it bears northwardly, 

 iiii'I strikes their eastern shores, say between 40° and 55°. In the south, 

 erii liemisphere, I am not aware that the isothernif.l deviations, in the 

 corresponding parallels, have been noted — nor arj they important, so 

 small, comparatively, is the latitudinal area of tho surfaces included be- 

 l.veen them. 



Independent of minor deviations everywhere exhibitinfr theuiselves in the 

 iso' hermal lines, more important local exceptions exist in nn upy places, owing 

 tr, elevation, proximity of bodies of water, prevailing wind.', S)A . Thus, south 

 of latitude 30° in North America, the elevations of the Cr didcras give the 

 mild weather of the temperate, and even the rigors oi i,he frozen zone; 

 and the same is true of the Andes of South America — in Bolivia Peru, 

 Ecuador and New-Grenada — in the same latitudes, where, at the eastern 

 foot of these declivities, the tropical sun burns up, as with fire, the vrrdure 

 of the vast llanos of Brazil and Venezuela, anii exhales death from the 

 pestilent fens of Guiana, and the reptile-teeming marshes of the Arrazon. 

 The same exceptions exist on the Eastern Continent, wherever mountain 

 chains rise to sufficient elvations to bring to bear this well known and uni- 

 form law for the depression of temperature, albeit in tropical or sub- 

 tropical regions. The steady and mild climate of the Atlantic Ocean, and 

 its continual and peculiar motion on the west of Europe, preventing the 

 ice, which the north wind wafts down from the Arctic seas, from lodging 

 itself, or even approaching* those shores, strongly influences the climates 

 of the British Islands and Norway, rendering them more temperate than 

 others many degrees farther south in the interior of Europe and Asia. 

 Eastei-n Prussia, and Polish Russia, are rendered disproportionably cold 

 by the prevailing wind, which sweeps without resistance from the bosom 

 of the Arctic Ocean to the Carpathian Mountains : and the north-east wind, 

 hden with the frosts of Siberia, and untempered by the southern winds, 

 from which it is cut off by the loftv Altay Mountains, carries a cold under 

 which men, nay whole caravans,? perish in Persia, in the same latitude 

 with Northern Africa, and the confines of the burning Sahara.^ The Cas- 

 pian and Black Seas — Mounts Caucasus and Taurus prevent Asiatic Turkey, 

 and Mount Hfemus, Eui'opean Turkey — from experiencing similar cold. 

 The same wind entering Europe, reduces the temperature of its eastern 

 considerably below that of its western confines ; and its effects are felt more 

 or less westwardly, in proportion as its course is arrested by mount-iins. 

 The climate of Silesia and Saxony is far colder and more mutable than 

 than that df Bohemia, from which they are only separated by the Erzge- 

 birge and Riesengebirge. In Northern European Russia, in Finland and 

 the basin of the Dwina — in the same latitudes where Norway exhibits the 



» Malte Brun'8 Geography — Art. Climate of Europe. t Sir Robert Kerr Porter. 



^ From the delightful Arabian Nights — from the not less delightful strains of Lalla Rookh — from a tbo» 

 land other sources, remembered and unremembered — song, fiction and Oriental tale — Persia a}wayr ri««i 

 \ jfore fancy's eye a realm and clime of beauty : 



" deep myrrhjthickets blowing round 



The Ptately cedar, tamarisks, 

 Thick roseries of scented thom, 

 Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks 



Graven with emblems of the time, 



In honor of the golden prime. 



Of good Haroun Alragchid." 



Tliert- are portions of Persia where the soil is rich and the climate delightftil — but, as a whole, it is a bieak. 



»t—.;le, mfruitfnl country— largo portions of it covered with rugged mountains or saline desena— wi* t 



remarkable for the rapidity and extent of its Tariatioos. 



